BHAGs: Setting Long-Term Goals
This week introduced the concept of BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals). BHAGs are ambitious, long-term goals that inspire and unite a company. They provide direction, create a sense of urgency, and motivate employees. Examples include JFK's moon landing mission and SpaceX's goal of colonizing Mars.
Developing Our Brief
We began crafting our design briefs by defining our target audience's demographics and outlining research methods. The concept of looking beyond apps and websites for design solutions was emphasized, with Hudsons+HGUIS as an example (https://www.hudsandguis.com/home/tag/news). We were introduced to tools like Miro and IDEO's design challenge framing approach .
Laws of UX: Making Design User-Friendly
The session explored key UX design laws:
- Hick's Law: The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number of choices available.
- Onboarding: The process of getting users started with a product or service effectively (screenshot lecture notes).
- Offboarding: The process of guiding users through the end of their interaction with a product or service to avoid frustration (screenshot lecture notes).
- Dark Patterns: Deceptive design practices that manipulate users into unwanted actions (https://www.deceptive.design/).
Empathy in Design
The importance of user empathy was underscored. The session covered:
- Needy Design Patterns: Design elements that create unnecessary user dependence on the product (consider NN/g resources on this topic).
- The Blank Slate Fallacy: The misconception that users have no prior knowledge or experience.
- 404 Pages: Effective design of error pages for a positive user experience.
User Personas vs. Jobs to be Done
We explored the difference between user personas and the "Jobs to be Done" framework:
- User Personas: Representations of fictional characters that embody the target audience. While valuable, they can be artificial averages. The "persona spectrum" approach acknowledges user diversity.
- Jobs to be Done: This framework focuses on the tasks users are trying to accomplish and the context in which they do them.