Intuitive Design

The term "intuitive design" is popping up a lot recently, so I thought we should spend some time exploring what is and is not "intuitive design." I like to think of the basic stuff. The everyday things that may be overlooked, until of course they don't work, potentially leading to a substandard user experience.

Regardless of the industry, customer expectations are flowing into what I can only describe as a melting pot that is one part experience, one part convenience and a whole lot of expectation. So how do we keep up with the Googles and Apples of the world?

As a mother of small children, accessibility has been on my mind lately because my stroller keeps getting stuck, and at eight months pregnant, I was not really in a position to carry it down stairs. The elevator is broken on the subway, doors don't have accessibility buttons, there are entrance ways that I can't get through, etc. These are mere inconveniences for me, however to someone in a wheelchair, these everyday situations could become very challenging. They require us to think intuitively about how we design public spaces, and who the people are that intend to use them, and various applications of similar situations. I want to be clear, intuitive design isn't just about how easy it is to use the latest iPhone. It's about being one step ahead of the game when it comes to anticipating the needs of your customers.

In business, we tend to focus more on "intuitive" websites, "intuitive" mobile applications, shopping carts, digital experiences in general. For organizations that interact with their customers exclusively online or digitally, this requires careful thought. For others who interact through a mix of channels that might include digital, face to face, or even through a third party, they need to think about solutions across multiple channels and consider the user experience and potential pain points at each juncture.

Another favourite example can been found during the online checkout process. If you're in Canada, you are familiar with the six character postal code nomenclature, letter number letter (space) number letter number—now if you're checking out on a mobile device, you have to flip back and fort between numbers and letters as well as spaces and upper versus lower case. Companies who consider the inconvenience factor of this automatically flip your keyboard for you without any manual intervention, and they default the caps so their customers always input according to the default. It's a ridiculously stupid thing that makes me crazy every time it doesn't happen, because one company did it seamlessly well.

In either case, organizations need to ask important questions before getting to the build phase of a product/service. One of the biggest gaps I've noticed is the absence of user testing. A little bit of research goes a long way, and a user assessment can help identify potential pain-points prior to a design build. Unfortunately, in many cases, these assessments aren't done ahead of the project, and instead are completed after someone is already having difficulty. Failure to understand the path you want users to take at the onset can result in project delays, budget and time implications; not to mention the opportunity to make a good first impression with your customers. We get so excited to hit the ground running that we forget about the basic blueprint of what it is that we're trying to accomplish.

We also tend to be "experts" in what it is that we're trying to accomplish and forget that first time users may not experience the product or service in the same way we as the creators might.

Organizations come in different shapes and sizes, which means the budget for research does too. If your project doesn't have a research budget for user testing, consider making a pitch for one—of course the budget is often determined by the scope, so reach out to some firms that specialize in research and user testing and get an idea of what would be reasonable. Absence of a budget is also no excuse. In a later post, I'll share a mock up of a basic user assessment that anyone can complete. Sometimes it means being creative in how you capture an audience, but literally any insights are better than no insights.

Remember, "design" isn't singularly about digital, or technology. Design is about human behaviour and designing an experience that leads to the behaviour in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of inconvenience. This line of thought applies to everything from how public transit planning accommodates someone in a wheelchair, to how a grocery store lays out its products, or even how you find what you're looking for when you use the search feature on Google. It's about the design process and the objective or outcome—in essence, design, whether paired or not with the word "intuitive," is about thinking in a way that considers multiple variables and plans accordingly.