Year: 2015

User testing is an integral part in an iterative design process. Blind spots can be seen early on and users’ insights can be gained to keep improving the design. While the whole design team benefits from the engagement of the participants, the participants seem benefit very little from the session. Why do they still invest time and effort with so little in return? There must be something in their mind before the testing that prompt their decision, which I called the “pre-testing motivation”: 1. They want to maintain their relationship with you They are your friends, coworkers, neighbors and family. […]

Have you ever been given a design brief with a single end goal to raise the conversion rate? As UX/UI designers, we were trained to think from end-users’ perspectives. We’re no stranger to the process of selecting target users, observing them, talking with them and even creating with them in order to elicit insights that can potentially improve the products or services. In other words, we design with users’ needs and wishes in mind. Our success is plausibly equivalent to users’ satisfaction. However, in the real world, products and services usually belong to companies, and companies usually exist for profit […]

UX research ≠ good UX research. Coming from a design background and working in the industry for a couple of years, I’ve seen many occasions where UX research failed to serve its purpose. It’s not uncommon that after a significant amount of time and effort were put into conducting interviews/focus groups/usability testing, the findings turned out to be unsurprising or not in line with what actually happens in the real world. This is the moment when people, including myself, start questioning about the value of UX research in terms of cost-efficiency and the impact on the final products. Not until […]