From creating imaginary users to forgetting about budgets, the design process has some flaws.

Recently, I was pulled into a UI/UX meeting with a big regional bank’s internal team and IT vendor. The bank had hired a whole army of UI/UX designers to revamp both internal and client-facing systems. The senior team members were paid five-figure salaries a month and given senior vice president titles.

It was bizarre and almost illogical how they went about their UI/UX design process. Out of that meeting came a few revelations I just had to share.

（作者最近加入了一個項目，一家地區銀行花了很高昂的成本雇傭了一個資深交互設計團隊來負責對內和對外的產品設計，然而作者在了解了他們的設計流程之後忍不住挑出了他們的一些壞習慣）

Creating Imaginary Personas Instead of Asking Real Users（創造想象的用戶畫像而不是去問問真實的用戶）

Why do some UX designers create imaginary “personas” to determine requirements when there are thousands of existing end users who can tell you what they want?（為什麽有些交互設計師總會創造一些想象的用戶模型去決定需求，而不是去問問那些真實存在的成千上萬的用戶到底想要什麽？）

I’m not against using personas for brainstorming sessions if it’s difficult to survey real users. But if the actual end users are available, why wouldn’t you just go out and talk to them? Instead of having a bunch of UI/UX folks sitting in a room imagining themselves to be a 16-year-old or a 60-year-old using the app and then sticking Post-it notes all over a wall.（如果用戶需求很難直接去采集，作者也不反對用頭腦風暴的方式去使用用戶畫像分析，但如果直接采集需求可行，那為什麽不呢）

To make things worse, wireframes and design mock-ups are approved by managers who aren’t the end user or target audience of an app.

The proof of a pudding is in the eating.（布丁好不好吃，吃了才知道，實踐才能出真知嘛）

The judge of a good UI/UX design shouldn’t be the designer, the manager, or even the CEO. It should be the user. Why else would it be called user interface and user experience?（評價一個設計方案好壞的應該是用戶，而不是設計師、經理或是CEO）

Brainstorming Without Regard for Budget and Technical Constraints（不顧及項目預算和技術條件限制的頭腦風暴）

I left that meeting wondering if the team’s projects typically lead to bad outcomes since they’re based on a bunch of designers playing out hypothetical, idealistic situations. It turns out I was right.（作者看到這些愛猜想的設計師的設計過程，有預感這項目要涼，果然不出所料）

A few days later, I had the chance to catch up with an old friend who is also a senior vice president in the bank. He’s been with the bank for some years, and he knew the UI/UX lead I had met with. He had sat in a few meetings with her team for a revamp of one of the systems his department uses. I asked him about the outcome. He said it was a sad and regrettable affair; “a missed opportunity” were his exact words.（作者從銀行副總那得知，項目最後黃了，並且覺得很後悔因此錯失了大好的機遇）

Why? Because after all that idealistic brainstorming, the team took the design to the developers, who said too much of it required customization work due to the platform the system sat on. In the end, the bank decided the cost was too high and went for something simpler.（由於技術上受到限制，成本又太高，最終銀行選擇了更簡單的方案）

So, my friend said, the chance to greatly improve a platform the bankers used frequently was missed. The result wasn’t what the end users were hoping for. All those hours spent brainstorming by the designers in their “scrum sessions” amounted to wasted time and money.

I heard about this pitfall in an Adobe conference many years ago. One of their product evangelists said that designers and developers in a web design company often end up hating each other. Designers create beautiful mock-ups in Photoshop. Clients love it and sign off. But when the coders receive it, they find the beautiful artwork and concepts difficult, or even impossible, to implement given the technical constraints. Hence they quarrel.（設計師和開發人員之間的爭執很多時候也是因為設計出來的產品看起來很漂亮卻很難實現，有時候甚至根本實現不了）

Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone just talked to each other from the beginning?

To be fair to designers, their final product is often more reflective of the clients’ vision than their own. But having been involved in projects big and small for years, I’ve learned how important it is to manage client expectations and involve developers in the discussion from day one to ensure the vision fits within the budget. Clients should realize that they can’t ask for the sky if their budget doesn’t cater for that… Ideals seldom come cheap!

Reducing Clutter by Rearranging Layouts and Elements（通過傳統重排布局的方式去減少海量信息帶來的混亂）

We are in the cognitive era. It’s time design caught up with technology, instead of just using clever artwork and neat layout. Science and art needs to meet… and marry.（我們生活在認知的時代，藝術應該擁抱科學）

Most designers still think very much in terms of fixed navigation menus and content layouts. It might well be the case that the basic navigation items should all be there by default. But beyond that, we should always let users customize their UI based on their own preferences. Or better still, in the case of enterprise software, we can use the login profiles to vary the UI menu according to the user’s role. In the middle of a session, A.I. can predict the next command the user is likely to need. The best mobile apps and productivity software are already doing this.

With screen devices getting smaller and smaller, the best apps and sites are also increasingly using A.I. to customize the content served to the user. Designers need to think in more dynamic terms when planning menu items and content layout. Only then can clutter be truly reduced in this information-overloaded era of ours.（用戶的屏幕越來越小，最好的應用或網頁應該能通過人工智能的方式為用戶提供定制化的服務，設計師應該更動態的處理頁面菜單和內容，這樣才能真正的解決海量信息帶來的混亂）

Of course, none of this is easy. It requires a UI/UX designer to think like a programmer and draw like a designer. But then, with the number of jobs being replaced by algorithms, even in design, being able to do this is how you won’t lose your job to a robot.

A good joke is simple and intuitive. That should also be the case for good UI/UX. It should leave the user delighted and wanting to share it with others.

作者：Lance Ng

Bad Habits of UI/UX Designers (交互設計師的那些壞習慣)