If the ideal UX is one that doesn't make us think, and implicitly doesn't make us do things, delivering the ideal UX probably means predicting the experience people want, doing what they want, and reusing thinking they've done in the past. Where predictions and reuse don't remove the need to think, we can reduce and reward remaining thinking. While there are many frameworks for improving UX, I find myself mostly trying to predict, reuse, reduce, and reward thinking.

Predicting thinking

Most products are sold finished because suppliers predict or, if they have enough evidence, know buyers don't want to assemble their own products. Search engines predict, based on the few characters you've typed, what you want to search for. Predicting what people want, predicting what people will think given a set of choices, seems fundamental to product development. Unless what we want is to think, we'll wish to receive our wants without thinking or doing, and the best products will predict as much of this thinking for us and deliver the predictions best.

Reusing thinking

Metaphors are a plain example of thinking reuse. A metaphor makes existing intuition portable to something new, and products or features can reuse thinking this way too. For example, we group related information together because related, non-information things are often grouped together; a tree's trunk is found near its roots and branches, and the tree is spaced from neighboring trees, and thus a tree is this group of its trunk, roots, and branches. Reusing thinking can come naturally, but sometimes there isn't an obvious analog for our new thing. Still, it can help to find even the roughest analog because being forced to think a little is better than being forced to think a lot.

Reducing thinking

Technology often removes thinking and doing. Elastic slip-on shoes removed the need for us to tie shoelaces. Most of us still wear laced shoes, but I'd guess that's because shoelaces are traditional and fashionable. Many products don't suffer or benefit from forces like fashion, so when making the equivalent of a shoe, its usually best to consider them without laces. Removing product features or steps in a product experience can be as simple as forgetting the other shoes we've seen and remembering the ideal shoe performs the tasks of a shoe best; the ideal shoe probably isn't an existing one with slightly better laces.

Rewarding thinking

Sometimes, thinking isn't subject to prediction, reuse, or even reduction. Often, certain kinds of thinking are part or the point of a product. Having otherwise removed or reduced thinking, customers can fully attend to required or desired thinking, and while that's a significant benefit on its own, we can pursue opportunities to reward customers further. The message you want your product to send isn't only "we know what's important to you" but also "we're grateful for you" which often means making sacrifices beyond the product's scope or specification. A customer may be 100% satisfied with your product, but if you can provide satisfaction external to your product too, whether tangible or emotional, the total satisfaction your product provides can exceed 100%.

Introducing new thinking

I like to imagine the ideal UX creates a thinking surplus to be spent on introducing new thinking. New products often require new thinking, and we need customers to reserve enough thinking to experience the unique value our product delivers. The above rules can be applied to any thinking we imagine is new, but the unpredictable, irremovable, irreducible thinking that's left over is the anti-experience that's created when new experiences come into being. As you learn to predict, reuse, reduce, and reward this new thinking, you can introduce more new experiences and thinking. Hopefully, before long, you've created tons of accessible value that didn't exist before.

Forgive how naive this all sounds, and forgive my tone if it sounds authoritative. I haven't formally or even informally studied user experience. I'm mostly boxing up, in this abstract half-baked form, how I think about UX when I think about it to the extent that I can think about it. I'm not sure any of this is even directionally onto something, but it's what my mind produces when I try to put my feelings about UX into words. If I were better at writing, each sentence would have in it some form of "maybe" or "probably" and end with a question mark. So, imagine those are there.
If I were better at writing, each sentence would have in it some form of "maybe" or "probably" and end with a question mark. So, imagine those are there.
But ^ would be horrible reading UX/worse writing
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In the same way it's redundant to begin with "I think", a reasonable and charitable person can infer those "maybe"s and "probably"s.
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I think you are wrong about "I think" being redundant at the beginning of a sentence.
You are wrong about "I think" being redundant at the beginning of a sentence.
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Why'd you write the same thing twice?
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby 5 Jul
Touche.
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I do think it can read differently, so I wouldn’t say to never do it. You just don’t need to preface everything with it, because it is implied.
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1000 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 6 Jul
This resonates! I know that you came with similar conclusion in "Rewarding thinking", but I still have a reaction to the first sentence :)
Is the ideal UI really the one that doesn't make us think? What if we push that idea into it's maximum - if you interact with any interface there's exactly zero thinking involved. But doesn't that kill creativity? Doesn't that kill gradual learning? Doesn't that kill exercising our brains?
I think it might - and so while "making UI that doesn't make users think" is a good rule of thumb, it's one of those where too much is too much.
The adjustment that I would suggest is to think through what is the core responsibility of the given app/UI, to think through what is the main goal that the users are trying to achieve while using the interface. I believe that everything that's not related to this core responsibility/goal should be eliminated, automated, optimized away (in this order) as much possible, but for the core responsibility - give the user some degrees of freedom, let them be creative, let them surprise you, outsource your "visioning" to your user.
And so maybe the first sentence could be adjusted as "The ideal UI is the one that doesn't make us think about things unrelated to what we are trying to achieve."
In this context it may be also worth remembering #42818 (When to design for Emergence).
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The ideal UI is the one that doesn't make us think about things unrelated to what we are trying to achieve.
This is an excellent edit and great points all around.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on UX, I appreciate the effort to understand and do better, especially coming from (I assume) a technical environment.
There's a great book about Metaphors We Live By written by G. Lakoff & M. Johnson. It explains how metaphors, created as a consequence of our cultural behaviors and experiences, are reused in multiple fields and contexts to simplify the understanding of more abstract ideas -like time, work, and feelings- we usually put into boxes and categorize.
† Just found this saved as draft as never hit the reply button!
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I feel like UX has gotten way way worse since the moment UX was invented. The following detrimental practices have appeared:
  • Slowing down interaction because of some animation playing on the screen
  • Removing information about the internal state of the product, like removing the car coolant temperature gauge, even when this information is not detrimental and can be ignored by the end user himself ("why do you need to know that" is an insult to the user)
  • Making state changes automatic when a single setting is changes (Removing the "apply" button and workflow in windows when changing the display settings... yeah, if I want to change the resolution of the displays, scaling and which is my primary display I sure want to wait for the screens to go blank for 5 seconds every single fucking time i change a combo box or a checkbox value... Great user experience...)
  • Making common workflow steps automatic without ability of modification (when clicking on a search suggestion in google, the site automatically searches for this instead of allowing me to edit or finish the search terms... Good that i can at least still do that using the keyboard arrows)
  • Removing functionality not because it is expensive to maintain or because it confuses the users, but because "only 1% use it" or something like that. This is insulting to the user. (Removing the ability to select and copy just part of the massage in most messaging apps)
  • Paradoxically adding 500% unnecessary interaction steps (the elevator in my office building has a touch screen on each floor where you select the desired destination floor in advance. Well, after a period of inactivity the floor selection numbers disappear and a welcome screen appears, which you must press in order for the number buttons to show up... Genius...)
  • Text that does not fit in the box it is show in and is truncated with no way to see the whole text (once upon a time hovering the mouse over such text will reveal it, but I guess this is too useful for modern UX practices)
  • Things popping up under the mouse cursor or under your finger on touch devices, leading to misclicks. This is fucking stupid, especially on a PC with a mouse. The mouse has a right button that should bring the context menu. No fucking menus should appear unless i click this button. It even seems like the desiners design the delay of these automatic menus so that it appears just as you are about to click something, maximising chances of misclicks
Jesus... UX of windows 98 was better than the modern UX... And people defend these practices
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Solid line of thought here! I think keeping a strong focus on typography and hierarchy is key. Things need to be clearn and logical, but also very responsive as well.
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I think this is a good framework.
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I agree! It's of course an iterative process too. Whenever I have to build something for myself, I find what a proper UX is on the go and as I use the tool. I never get it right at first even if I know myself and what I want to do. Even if the final setup is nothing like the initial, only by using that initial sketchy setup you start realizing what you need and what the possibilities are. I think all of the above haves the same final result, which can be used to define those points from the opposite side: if you find yourself battling against it despite prolonged use, it's not good UX. Even for my own setups, if I initially find myself battling against something, I let it be to see if it's only because I'm not getting used yet. If time passes and the same battle is still raging on, I change the setup because the problem is the interface, not me. Same reasoning applies for a setup made for many, by averaging the user.
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That's an approach, I've never listened to.
But, you're right! This has to be the approach while trying to better any UX/product.
Bookmarked it because I need it for reference somewhere. Thanks @k00b
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This is the best way to implement evrything. A great article once again!
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it is always helpful to Maintain consistency across different sections to help users predict where to find information or actions.
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Your approach to UX—predict, reuse, reduce, and reward thinking—is insightful. Balancing ease and engagement ensures a seamless user experience while valuing the user's cognitive effort.
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.