Why is fast design killing your product?

• Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
• Should be considered allwhat is added to your product.
• You should never just agree to “add a button”. Someone in the design process should have thought about this well, or you should have thought about it. This is the only way to create durable products.

If you agree with the above principles, let s continue our journey. If you don t agree – write to the author on Twitter or in the comments below ?

We feel good when we do a lot of things quickly. This is human nature. Conveyor production gives an outward semblance of progress. However, in the context of product design, the expression comes to mind:

“Quiet, calm thinking will untangle any knot.”

Gilbert and Sullivan

We product designers solve complex problems. To solve them, we can design a new trendy interface. Sometimes the result of good design can be no change or even complete removal of something.

The main problem with adding new things to the product is that after a while people begin to believe that from now on they will be in the product forever. You cannot just delete a part of the interface. This is why adding an item or function is an important decision. When it comes to interface design, quality is better than quantity. At any given time, you can place so many things on the screen that you need to make difficult decisions.

“Just add this button”

Your colleague

Sometimes I think about a small piece of the interface for a long time. And in most cases it seems counterproductive. It s so strange to spend half a day thinking about a button. But having one more button in the interface can improve or break it.

Interface script: add a button to this screen to allow users to do (x)

• Should this button be added to the interface? (Even though I was assigned this task, I always think about it first. You, as an interface designer, are primarily responsible for making the interface work for the users).
• Should all users see it, or only part of it?
• Is the button more or less important than the elements around it?
• Wouldn t this button be too distracting from existing functions?
• With all this in mind, will I strike the right balance?
• Will it or will it violate the information architecture?
• What interface patterns do we have for this button (if any)?
• Should this button persist after action once / twice / etc.?
• Does this button have multiple states? If so, which ones?
• Should it be touch-sensitive and have a larger tap target?
• Will this element be animated? Where from? What for?
• Etc…

This is a thoughtful approach to interface design. It ensures that the user always has the best experience when using your product. The complex effects of strong designs add up quickly. Similar to compound interest in economics.

UX scenario: the user must be able to do (x)

• How is the user currently doing (x)?
• Does the user need to use a workaround to execute (x)?
• By letting the user do (x), will we create future problems?
• Is (x) in line with our broader product strategy?
• How should we test the design (s) with users?
• Are there solutions for (x) in our roadmap?
• Do we need to reconsider our solution for (x) in the short / medium term?
• Do we have competitors that allow users to do (x)? If so, how do they do it?
• etc…

Here are some of the questions I ask myself when adding elements to an existing interface. There are many more factors to consider when designing a completely new interface. Maybe this is a topic for the next article 🙂

So what conclusions can be drawn? If you want to kill your product, make a lot of design decisions very quickly. And do this over a long period of time.

If you want a well-designed product that s pleasant and comfortable to use, work slowly. Good design is like slow cooked food, the process is long, but the result is always worth it.