PSUX therapy

Testament "Experience empathy to the user" on the tablets of our discipline - usability - is not something that is inscribed, it is made through perforation. Often empathy is included in the list of eligibility criteria for combat service as a user's attorney. But why only user?

Generally, if your empathy is inborn and not learned in the form of politeness or something else, then you will get into the skin of everyone around you, including the cat living in your doorway. The born empath does not need a message that will now sound: not only the user needs an empathy, but also the developer, a voluntary or involuntary designer. With Cooper, for all his philanthropy, business goals are viewed more as design constraints, rather than aspirations of living people. Even if these aspirations lie in the use of Boolean algebra.

How many times I looked at some screen form or page and thought: oh my God, what did they want to achieve with this? For example, why at registration the user's phone is requested? Do they really want to send him a password, or is it for collecting personal data? Or just because “everybody is doing it today”? Why did the customer choose the weaker one from the two proposed calendar options? From which premises did the all-conquering formal logic proceed, if it led to the fact that the entire screen is divided between the cards of two products, but this is not a comparison scenario and the choice between them?
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I had a choice in front of me - either to seek an audience with the author of the creature being reviewed, or to read long boring specifications (which sometimes also need to be able to solicit), or ... include empathy to the author.

Do not think that I want to appear taller or wiser than all. Just from the side (from the side, not from the top!), The developer and the user often look about the same: like children playing constructor. One collects, and the second is trying to play this collected. The first was collecting a tank, the second saw an airplane in the assembled piece. The first one is offended by the underestimation of himself as a tank builder, the second one is angry “why do the aircraft have caterpillars attached, but they prevent them from flying !!!”. Each has its own Galatea, and both want to love her in their own way.



When applied to a developer, empathy becomes more similar to psychoanalysis: you usually have to do some reverse engineering development in order to get to the motives that determine the design decisions. Not having reached the “why” and “why”, which could not even have a developer in any explicit form, it is difficult to give relevant recommendations. Of course, usability heuristics are always relevant - probably, therefore, only the lazy now does not set itself the prefix UX and does not add “usability” to the list of services. But without having gotten into the skin of your “patient”, it is doubly difficult to submit recommendations so that the kindest wishes are not met with hot bayonets. And this will surely happen if your wishes ruin the picture of the world (in common parlance - the mental model). The developer’s Eid (Ono) will rage and brawl, although he cannot always explain his anger with words.

Although the user and the developer are quite symmetrical about the product, the difference, of course, is. Resistance to change by the developer is much greater. The user has only a mental model as a protest, and he is ready to sacrifice that model if the product promises big enough benefits. The developer's feelings for Galatee are much stronger, because he put more effort into it. Moreover, with the help of it, he intends to conquer the world, or at least make money on a new housing / car / coat. Well, of course, the developer has a slightly rosy idea about users, which he has to part with.

Of course, in life everything is not so neglected. Fortunately, there are often customers who, in fact, directly buy the service called “talk”, realizing that their eyes are blurred, they need a shake-up and at least a small dose of reflection. This usually happens when the customer is represented by the product director or CEO. If there are several management levels and / or there is a mossiness in it, then the tendency to buy a report “by weight” often prevails - so that there are no less pages than the contract stipulates, and even with prototypes, and with a guarantee of conversion growth. But more self-confident people understand that they themselves will find the best solutions anyway, and not us, and all that is needed from us is properly asked questions. Just like in psychotherapy.
And what to do, to what place of the developer to apply his empathy to the usability? In the same way as with the user, the canonical approaches work with the developer.

First, goal oriented. If you remember and feel the goals of not only the user, but the developer, then you will be able to lead the conversation not only in the key “how bad it is”, but also “how to achieve the goal”. In the case when there is no full confidence in understanding, the “if ... then ...” option is appropriate.

Secondly, less attention to words, more action. Often, developers can not explain why they have something in the product that way and not otherwise. Just as a user who cannot clearly say what his problem is now. If the developer is not a specific Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but a team, then the probability of not knowing is even higher. Therefore, look at the act and think: why is there a button, why is there a scroll? Do not dismiss without obviously looking even mistaken decisions, but be sure to understand why it was done this way.

Summary: Be an attorney for the user and a psychotherapist for the developer.

Author: Anton Alyabyev, UIDG analyst.