An opinion about UX
Actual publishing date: Jan 30, 2022
đź‘‹ Hey everyone!
These days I’ve been seeing a lot of function focused speeches when it comes to designing something.
I’m an aesthetic lover, so you may not consider me to be the best person to talk about it, but give me a chance.
UX means User Experience, but recently people have been misinterpreting “Experience” by assuming that it means ease of use. While the argument can be really convincing, we’re not robots. We don’t do stuff we don’t like and, when we do, is to achieve something else that we like more, so we endure some hard tasks to achieve some objectives. We’re animals moved by serotonin. Unless you want your user to be as efficient as possible but having a bad time using the app, ok, keep putting function over “looks”, but know your users are gonna be happy about the result your app is providing, but they’ll be actually enduring the usage itself.
If we prioritize the aesthetics, we can start by what’s actually important: the feeling the users will have while using the app. Of course, we DEFINITELY can’t ignore function, cause if function is an issue, it becomes frustrating, but sacrificing some efficiency in favor of “lickability” (when the app feels so good to use you wanna lick the screen lol) enables the user to enjoy the experience and the result.
We obviously want to fight for the best of both, but focusing on the feeling of the usage enables your experience while using the app to be enjoyable, not endurable or neutral. That’s why transitions look so cool after all. Having your phone animating the app from full screen to the icon, decreasing it’s size, is way better than a fade-out/fade-in transition that could even be faster than the prior.
A little controversial, but that’s why I can’t see a reason to wireframe in the current days. Since creating a polished design is so easy with Figma and other modern apps, wireframing becomes, again, prioritizing function over visual. Some structures of layout just doesn’t match some design styles, so you have to start with what matters the most: the experience itself.
Now I’m gonna be cheesy and the worst person ever and I’m gonna quote Steve Jobs IM SORRY PLEASE
“You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to sell it.”
But yeah, you first start with the experience of using a product. You can’t start with the function and hope people to just endure using it because it’s efficient.
To be honest, a nice smooth 0.8 seconds transition often looks WAY faster than a 0.1 seconds fade.
That’s it! Thanks for reading :)
