5 Decision making styles in design. Which to choose?
Translation of kremien habrip users for site Usability.by
At the dawn of e-commerce, our company studied how experienced tourists buy hiking boots online. We studied two sites: LL Bean and REI . Both sites offered almost the same shoe models, at the same price and with an almost identical product description. However, the overwhelming majority of the buyers we studied chose to buy shoes on the REI site, rather than on LL Bean.
Why? Therefore, in the photographs, that on the REI website, the soles of the shoes were visible, whereas on the LL Bean only the appearance of the upper part of the shoe was shown. The sole is an important element of choice for experienced tourist boots. For some tourists, choosing the right sole is crucial. Experienced tourists were more comfortable buying shoes on the site, which informed them about the design of the soles.
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We were very interested in the question of where the REI design team knew about the subtleties in providing buyers with information on the sole. Our assumption was that they conducted a detailed study, experimenting with different types of product images, to determine which one was the most sales stimulating. When we contacted them and told us about their assumptions, they began to laugh ... loudly. Long.
When they stopped laughing, one of the designers told us that they had not done any such research. The source of their ideas was a photographer who used to work in the shoe department of their stores. He saw how often buyers when choosing shoes look at the sole, and therefore, at the level of instincts, he knew how important it is to convey information about its design. If he had not, then the design team would never have thought of posting on the site such photos of shoes, on which their sole is visible. (They laughed because during the design process, the team constantly hooked the photographer for his increased attention to the soles. It was this feature that turned out to be a key component of the site’s success.)
A photographer from the REI team made design decisions based not on convincing user research, but on his own experience at a shoe store. The photographer of LL Bean's did not have this experience, so he could not make such a decision. Sales of products on each of the sites were the final indicator of the correctness of the decisions taken during the design.
For several years now we have been studying the work of designers, how they and their design teams make important decisions in the course of work. The result of our research was the discovery of five design styles that almost every team uses:
1. designing "at random"
2. design "for yourself"
3. Genius design,
4. activity oriented approach
5. user oriented approach.
The styles are ordered in order of increasing the amount of research the team uses to make decisions. If at first glance it seems that the style used is a sign of the maturity of the design team, then after a more detailed study it turns out that for each of the styles there is a situation when it turns out to be the most effective. Some projects do not justify the time and resources required for conducting a detailed user survey, while others would fail without such a study. Knowing when to do detailed research, and when you can do without it, is one of the key characteristics of a good designer.
“This product is so inconvenient to use because no one has designed it.” This widespread opinion is not entirely fair. Every product is good, bad, but designed. In this case, the people developing the product did not pay attention to the design at the time of creation.
Design "at random" occurs when the team focuses on the development and release of the product, not thinking about what will happen when people start to use it. Not always design decisions made "at random" are bad. There are quite successful examples. But this is the exception rather than the rule. (As the saying goes: “once a year and an unloaded gun shoots.”)
Another simple decision-making style is “for yourself” design, when design teams develop a product exclusively for themselves. This approach, which is most common in teams of one person, has a slightly higher chance of success than designing at random.
This approach is most effective when the main users of the product are members of the development team. For example, many of the internal tracking bug systems are designed “for themselves” and are pretty good. They do exactly what the team needs.
If, when designing “at random,” decisions are often made according to the principle: “we do it as it is easier to program”, then when designing “for oneself”, decisions are based on the experience of team members using the product. The more seriously the team members use the product, the higher the quality of design decisions can be.
Teams that use Genius design do not look beyond their own experience in finding information for decision making. In the same way as when designing for themselves, but in Genius designing they have a lot of support from the extensive previous experience of team members.
The photographer of the company REI used this style when deciding to show the soles of the shoes in the photographs. He recalled his long-standing observations of people making purchases, which served as the basis for his decision.
This type of design works well with very experienced team members. If you have already designed five web stores, and for each of the projects you carried out a preliminary study of users and their behavior scenarios, and subsequent verification that your design meets the expectations of users, then you may be able to remarkably design the sixth store without conducting such an exhaustive study.
The secret is that you need significant experience from past research to base today's decisions on it. The fact that you previously designed such functionality is not considered. (It would be better to call such an approach the approach “Floated, we know.”) The experience of conducting research is important.
The team that applies activity-oriented design, when planning and conducting research, first of all look at the behavior of users and their activities. For example, when working on a site where people post their photos in public access, the team will investigate the specifics of uploading, sharing of photos, their printouts and other most requested functionality.
This style is used when the team does not have sufficient knowledge of the user domain, and cannot rely on their own experience, as in the case of Genius Design. Such research-based methods as workflow diagrams and usability testing based on user tasks are often used for research. Using these fairly simple methods can help you dramatically improve design decisions.
Teams that use design aimed at users, more than others are engaged in user research, being interested not only in their activities. They deeply study the goals and needs of users, the context of use, using the information obtained to make decisions so detailed that they could not be taken using other methods.
This style is both the most professional and most expensive. It is simply necessary if the team is focused on creating a product with a super user interface. The methods used in this approach include conducting field research and character creation, which provides a better understanding of the project team's experience and user experience.
For example, a team that uses these techniques, when working on a site where people post their photos in public access, may find that users often carefully study photos posted by people they don’t know, interested in their artistic abilities or photo themes. Such observations can lead to the idea of ​​the usefulness of functionality that would allow users to track information about interesting photographers or photographs taken using a particular type of camera. These "non-obvious" ideas would be difficult to obtain with the help of any other decision-making style, but their elaboration may lead to the appearance of demanded functionality.
Our study showed that the most effective teams owned all five decision-making methods, choosing the one that best fits the needs and goals of the project. For example, they could simultaneously engage in detailed research in a user-oriented project, rely on their own experience in a project designed by Genius, and make some small decisions “at random” in design.
Are all of these styles important if teams use all of them at the same time? The results of our research suggest that they are important. The teams that were able to create the best design quality were familiar with all decision-making styles and knew how to quickly switch between them. They knew when they needed all the meticulousness and accuracy of user-oriented design, and when it was more important for them to make a decision very quickly, knowing that its consequences would be insignificant. The best teams have a rich arsenal of design methods and a good understanding of how and when to use them.
At the dawn of e-commerce, our company studied how experienced tourists buy hiking boots online. We studied two sites: LL Bean and REI . Both sites offered almost the same shoe models, at the same price and with an almost identical product description. However, the overwhelming majority of the buyers we studied chose to buy shoes on the REI site, rather than on LL Bean.
Why? Therefore, in the photographs, that on the REI website, the soles of the shoes were visible, whereas on the LL Bean only the appearance of the upper part of the shoe was shown. The sole is an important element of choice for experienced tourist boots. For some tourists, choosing the right sole is crucial. Experienced tourists were more comfortable buying shoes on the site, which informed them about the design of the soles.
')
We were very interested in the question of where the REI design team knew about the subtleties in providing buyers with information on the sole. Our assumption was that they conducted a detailed study, experimenting with different types of product images, to determine which one was the most sales stimulating. When we contacted them and told us about their assumptions, they began to laugh ... loudly. Long.
When they stopped laughing, one of the designers told us that they had not done any such research. The source of their ideas was a photographer who used to work in the shoe department of their stores. He saw how often buyers when choosing shoes look at the sole, and therefore, at the level of instincts, he knew how important it is to convey information about its design. If he had not, then the design team would never have thought of posting on the site such photos of shoes, on which their sole is visible. (They laughed because during the design process, the team constantly hooked the photographer for his increased attention to the soles. It was this feature that turned out to be a key component of the site’s success.)
Design Decision Styles
A photographer from the REI team made design decisions based not on convincing user research, but on his own experience at a shoe store. The photographer of LL Bean's did not have this experience, so he could not make such a decision. Sales of products on each of the sites were the final indicator of the correctness of the decisions taken during the design.
For several years now we have been studying the work of designers, how they and their design teams make important decisions in the course of work. The result of our research was the discovery of five design styles that almost every team uses:
1. designing "at random"
2. design "for yourself"
3. Genius design,
4. activity oriented approach
5. user oriented approach.
The styles are ordered in order of increasing the amount of research the team uses to make decisions. If at first glance it seems that the style used is a sign of the maturity of the design team, then after a more detailed study it turns out that for each of the styles there is a situation when it turns out to be the most effective. Some projects do not justify the time and resources required for conducting a detailed user survey, while others would fail without such a study. Knowing when to do detailed research, and when you can do without it, is one of the key characteristics of a good designer.
Design style â„–1: designing "at random"
“This product is so inconvenient to use because no one has designed it.” This widespread opinion is not entirely fair. Every product is good, bad, but designed. In this case, the people developing the product did not pay attention to the design at the time of creation.
Design "at random" occurs when the team focuses on the development and release of the product, not thinking about what will happen when people start to use it. Not always design decisions made "at random" are bad. There are quite successful examples. But this is the exception rather than the rule. (As the saying goes: “once a year and an unloaded gun shoots.”)
Design style â„–2: designing "for yourself"
Another simple decision-making style is “for yourself” design, when design teams develop a product exclusively for themselves. This approach, which is most common in teams of one person, has a slightly higher chance of success than designing at random.
This approach is most effective when the main users of the product are members of the development team. For example, many of the internal tracking bug systems are designed “for themselves” and are pretty good. They do exactly what the team needs.
If, when designing “at random,” decisions are often made according to the principle: “we do it as it is easier to program”, then when designing “for oneself”, decisions are based on the experience of team members using the product. The more seriously the team members use the product, the higher the quality of design decisions can be.
Design Style # 3: Genius Design
Teams that use Genius design do not look beyond their own experience in finding information for decision making. In the same way as when designing for themselves, but in Genius designing they have a lot of support from the extensive previous experience of team members.
The photographer of the company REI used this style when deciding to show the soles of the shoes in the photographs. He recalled his long-standing observations of people making purchases, which served as the basis for his decision.
This type of design works well with very experienced team members. If you have already designed five web stores, and for each of the projects you carried out a preliminary study of users and their behavior scenarios, and subsequent verification that your design meets the expectations of users, then you may be able to remarkably design the sixth store without conducting such an exhaustive study.
The secret is that you need significant experience from past research to base today's decisions on it. The fact that you previously designed such functionality is not considered. (It would be better to call such an approach the approach “Floated, we know.”) The experience of conducting research is important.
Design Style # 4: activity-oriented design
The team that applies activity-oriented design, when planning and conducting research, first of all look at the behavior of users and their activities. For example, when working on a site where people post their photos in public access, the team will investigate the specifics of uploading, sharing of photos, their printouts and other most requested functionality.
This style is used when the team does not have sufficient knowledge of the user domain, and cannot rely on their own experience, as in the case of Genius Design. Such research-based methods as workflow diagrams and usability testing based on user tasks are often used for research. Using these fairly simple methods can help you dramatically improve design decisions.
Design Style # 5: User-Oriented Design
Teams that use design aimed at users, more than others are engaged in user research, being interested not only in their activities. They deeply study the goals and needs of users, the context of use, using the information obtained to make decisions so detailed that they could not be taken using other methods.
This style is both the most professional and most expensive. It is simply necessary if the team is focused on creating a product with a super user interface. The methods used in this approach include conducting field research and character creation, which provides a better understanding of the project team's experience and user experience.
For example, a team that uses these techniques, when working on a site where people post their photos in public access, may find that users often carefully study photos posted by people they don’t know, interested in their artistic abilities or photo themes. Such observations can lead to the idea of ​​the usefulness of functionality that would allow users to track information about interesting photographers or photographs taken using a particular type of camera. These "non-obvious" ideas would be difficult to obtain with the help of any other decision-making style, but their elaboration may lead to the appearance of demanded functionality.
Many styles, good and different
Our study showed that the most effective teams owned all five decision-making methods, choosing the one that best fits the needs and goals of the project. For example, they could simultaneously engage in detailed research in a user-oriented project, rely on their own experience in a project designed by Genius, and make some small decisions “at random” in design.
Are all of these styles important if teams use all of them at the same time? The results of our research suggest that they are important. The teams that were able to create the best design quality were familiar with all decision-making styles and knew how to quickly switch between them. They knew when they needed all the meticulousness and accuracy of user-oriented design, and when it was more important for them to make a decision very quickly, knowing that its consequences would be insignificant. The best teams have a rich arsenal of design methods and a good understanding of how and when to use them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/54489/
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