I loved the angle on how a feeling of "control" can also lead to "ownership" or the feeling of "making it my own". This succinct piece helped me see "control" in the UX layer as a lever for retention as well as eventual advocacy for our products. Thanks for the insight A Vora!
that's a great insight, I see that in action with the alarm feature. You set it and it works, even if you forgot to disable it for Saturday or Sunday morning
I love the simplicity of the example of switching the lights on. Anyone can extrapolate it to any action taken by the user in their product.
I signed up to your substack after hearing you talk at Lenny's podcast and I love your writing. So simple, honest and to the point. No need to cut 15 minutes out of my day to read the piece.
I personally « feed on » the empowerment that simple things provide when they enable fantastic wonders of engineering. Just take a second to list in your head all the things that happen when you turn the key in the car and the engine starts, or when your computer boots at the press of a button. Decades of knowledge condensed in a flick of a switch.
That’s why I believe there is an important distinction to make: when a product « misbehaves » - that is when it does not meet your expectations - you feel the uneasiness you mention.
However, when a product exceeds your expectations or just wows you, the feeling of uncovering something new is inebriating. That’s one of the reasons I always try new tools in my daily work.
Just my two cents on where I tend to draw the line between perplexed frowning and pure awe 🙂
that's a fair point to challenge the "why change if it's working?" perspective. In my experience trying new tools comes with a cost which becomes difficult to manage every passing day.
The culture of "new and shiny" is different than "old and reliable"
As long as you don’t let it distract you from the main objectives, I think it’s healthy to inspect new tools on a regular basis. You do not necessarily have to operationalize them, but understand them and keep them
It's like your articles. If I read, I know I will learn something good new things. It's predicable. Thank you for sharing this. Looking forward for more.
Beautifully written! How did you ensure consistent UX is being built even when the org scales to 1000s? I have seem companies slamming platforms and guardrails to ensure consistency remains a first class citizen however, empirically proving it's worth remains challenging.
I definitely don't have perfect answers -- I think this is always a challenge. Best practices I have seen work:
1) be clear that this is important, and reinforce that throughout the product building process -- invest in tools and components that can be easily picked up by teams, ask about consistency in design crits and product reviews, etc.
2) maintain a strong feedback loop with the user. The impact of inconsistency is hard to measure, so it can be really helpful to have a visceral feeling for "oh, that person I met who uses this product would be confused by this because it doesn't match their expectations."
3) choose where this is truly important -- it might be that there are specific products or parts of a product where this kind of consistency matters a lot to users, and others where it matters less and it's more valuable to users to optimize for something else.
I loved the angle on how a feeling of "control" can also lead to "ownership" or the feeling of "making it my own". This succinct piece helped me see "control" in the UX layer as a lever for retention as well as eventual advocacy for our products. Thanks for the insight A Vora!
that's a great insight, I see that in action with the alarm feature. You set it and it works, even if you forgot to disable it for Saturday or Sunday morning
I love the simplicity of the example of switching the lights on. Anyone can extrapolate it to any action taken by the user in their product.
I signed up to your substack after hearing you talk at Lenny's podcast and I love your writing. So simple, honest and to the point. No need to cut 15 minutes out of my day to read the piece.
I personally « feed on » the empowerment that simple things provide when they enable fantastic wonders of engineering. Just take a second to list in your head all the things that happen when you turn the key in the car and the engine starts, or when your computer boots at the press of a button. Decades of knowledge condensed in a flick of a switch.
That’s why I believe there is an important distinction to make: when a product « misbehaves » - that is when it does not meet your expectations - you feel the uneasiness you mention.
However, when a product exceeds your expectations or just wows you, the feeling of uncovering something new is inebriating. That’s one of the reasons I always try new tools in my daily work.
Just my two cents on where I tend to draw the line between perplexed frowning and pure awe 🙂
that's a fair point to challenge the "why change if it's working?" perspective. In my experience trying new tools comes with a cost which becomes difficult to manage every passing day.
The culture of "new and shiny" is different than "old and reliable"
As long as you don’t let it distract you from the main objectives, I think it’s healthy to inspect new tools on a regular basis. You do not necessarily have to operationalize them, but understand them and keep them
in mind for the future.
Your insight on "predictability as a substitute for control" directly helps me with an issue I'm facing at work.
Thank you for sharing this!
Looking forward to more insightful articles!
I really enjoyed your piece A Vora! You have an easy and simple way of explaining how to make products easy and enjoyable for users to use.
It's like your articles. If I read, I know I will learn something good new things. It's predicable. Thank you for sharing this. Looking forward for more.
Very informative and true... Predictability in a product reduces the learning cost for users. We must always build with user in mind
Thank you for these short & sweet insights - looking forward to more!
Beautifully written! How did you ensure consistent UX is being built even when the org scales to 1000s? I have seem companies slamming platforms and guardrails to ensure consistency remains a first class citizen however, empirically proving it's worth remains challenging.
I definitely don't have perfect answers -- I think this is always a challenge. Best practices I have seen work:
1) be clear that this is important, and reinforce that throughout the product building process -- invest in tools and components that can be easily picked up by teams, ask about consistency in design crits and product reviews, etc.
2) maintain a strong feedback loop with the user. The impact of inconsistency is hard to measure, so it can be really helpful to have a visceral feeling for "oh, that person I met who uses this product would be confused by this because it doesn't match their expectations."
3) choose where this is truly important -- it might be that there are specific products or parts of a product where this kind of consistency matters a lot to users, and others where it matters less and it's more valuable to users to optimize for something else.
The unaccounted battery damage of rapid iteration