6 Components that Ensure a Successful UX Evaluation
At Nova, we believe that a successful user experience is achieved when the user feels empowered - empowered to take action, leave with more knowledge than they came with, and the ability to ask the questions they didn’t know they needed to ask. But before we can get close to achieving this, we must take a step back and look at the experience from a variety of lenses.
Evaluating any experience encompasses several components, and there are typically 6 high-level angles that we take when performing any UX evaluation.
Visual Consistency
Accessibility
Cognitive Load
Seamless Workflows
Screen Real-estate Usage
Functional Consistencies
Visual Consistency
Visual Consistency is the practice of creating a set of visual styling rules and guidelines that a user interface must follow, which creates a fluid, predictable and trustworthy experience. Inconsistencies offer the risk of hindering the user’s experience because they can create unnecessary distractions and potential user errors.
Creating a thorough UI style guide will help to reduce the risk of visual inconsistencies that may occur.
Accessibility
Accessibility is the practice of making an interface usable for as many people as possible, which means that an interface must prioritize clear legibility and frictionless touch interactions. Every product isn't designed to service every single person on this planet, but it should meet the needs of their core users. So before an accessibility evaluation is done, there should be a sound understanding of who those users are, and how they’re interacting with a product.
Persona development is a fundamental exercise that helps us to understand who our core users are, and how we can best support their needs.
Cognitive Load
Cognitive Load relates to the amount of information that the average working memory can hold at one time. This means that an interface must be mindful of how much information is presented at one time and of the hierarchy in which it is presented, especially if the information being shared is dense or complex.
To prevent users from feeling overwhelmed, it’s important to test informationally-dense concepts with stakeholders in order to gather honest insights from their experience. Then, we can evaluate what improvements can be made in order to provide more ease for those users.
Seamless Workflows
A Seamless Workflow is when a user has reached the end of a particular task and is presented with a clear set of options on how to proceed within the experience. To ensure that a user’s journey can continue, the goal would be to offer the next steps to the user in order to continue to move seamlessly through the app.
In order to ensure a robust workflow, creating a user journey map is helpful in order to understand where the user might get stuck, or hit a dead end in their workflow.
Screen Real-estate Usage
Screen real estate is the amount of space available on a display for an application to provide output. Considering how that space is used is critical to delivering information effectively and efficiently. This will vary depending on the type of device that is being designed for.
Developing an informational hierarchy system is a helpful exercise to identify primary, secondary and tertiary levels of information. Evaluating how other similar products are utilizing screen space is another valuable component to consider.
Functional Consistencies
Functional Consistency is the principle to which a UX mechanism should act and respond to user actions across a given platform. Utilizing UX best practices and industry standards is a good place to start because there are several behaviors and micro-interactions that users are already familiar with.
Our favorite resource to refer to is Google Material Design because it provides a thorough share-out of best practices and how to implement them.
However you decide to approach your UX Evaluation process, there is one thing that is always certain - products are ever-evolving. In order to ensure that your product is showcasing best practices, and meeting accessibility standards, it’s helpful to have a fresh set of eyes go through with a fine-toothed comb so that the future of your product will be well-positioned amongst its competition.
If you’re interested in conducting a UX Evaluation as part of your broader strategy, feel free to get in touch with us. We would love to chat with you.