Adopting The Right UX Perspective

Adopting The Right UX Perspective

UX is about just that, user experience. Not software design, but the experience that the user feels. While watching a promotional video for a new calendar app, Peek, I just realized my perspective on UX was too software centric.

About 38 seconds into this video, the girl taps on an item (the hour picker), to go into a submenu (choose which hour of the day). Instead of two separate taps on two screens, Peek implemented a tap and hold, follow by a slide across the screen the desired location, and release.

This UX model of tap, hold, slide, and release (THSR)  won't work in many places. In this case, the THSR model works because the submenu has a few unique characteristics:

1) Simple menu with a fixed number of easily understood choices
2) Frequently used (by a heavy calendar user)
3) Is a "one and done" list

As I've thought about software designs that I interact with, I've usually thought in terms of taps and swipes. Peek demonstrates that my frame of reference didn't capture the subtleties of how the user actually interacts with the app. I should have been thinking in terms of touches and removals. A tap is a touch and a removal.

Had I been responsible for designing the UX in Peek, I would likely have implemented the following:

tap
remove
move finger to new screen location
tap
remove

Peek implemented:

tap
move finger to new screen location
remove

Genius. Peek removed 2 steps from a 5 step process.

Moral of the story: in UX, break everything down into the most granular steps possible. Rather than thinking about the design of the software, think about each physical and mental process the user must walk through in order to derive value from the software.