You put a lot of effort into your design, tested it, and users seemed to like it – but after release your product flops, and no one is using it. It’s happened to most of us at least once, and it can be devastating. Understanding why seemingly good designs fail can help us recover from these types of misses or, even better, prevent them in the first place. This presentation will examine some common causes for design failures, using examples and stories from more than 15 years of experience in UX design.

1. You built it and no one came
Why good designs miss and how to recover
Dorinne Hammons
UX Supervisor

2. Good designs sometimes
miss!
• “I was too busy doing my job to use your
software”
• How do we discover this as quickly as
possible?
• How do we course correct to make the
design better?

3. • You built what the business asked for, or what the user asked for, but did you build what they
need?
• Maybe your design targets the wrong users?
Solves the wrong problem

4. Start solving the right
problem!
• Dig deeper into the users ultimate goals –
what are they trying to accomplish? Why?
• Ask why a lot
• “What decisions do you need to make with
this data?”
• Do testing early and often with end users
as well as SMEs
• Map out the communication models for
users in the same space – who is your
target user getting data from? Who are
they sending data to? These may also be
users of your product.

5. • Designs may fail if they are missing information about how the users actually work.
• What order do they complete tasks? Does the interface match their natural workflow?
Missing information about the user’s workflow

6. • Ask the users what their current workflow is – see if you can
watch them walk through it!
• Test your designs early and often!
Identify gaps between the
user workflow and design!

7. • Do they have reliable internet connections?
• What are their working conditions?
• Do they have a place to put their laptop?
• Do they use a laptop, or are they using things designed for desktop on a mobile device?
Don’t know the user’s environment

8. Get to know the user’s
environment!
• Visit, if you can! Onsite research is the best.
• Ask for pictures
• Get a video tour
• Ask a lot of questions!

9. Things have changed

10. Stay in touch with users!
• Touch base with your users often to see
what is changing about their needs and
processes.
• Test your design often – this may open up
communication to see what might have
changed.

11. Your design doesn’t scale

12. Test your design with
realistic data!
• Ask for real examples of the data that will
need to be displayed.
• Think about future data needs – what
happens when you have 1 year of data? Or
5 years?
• Research other ways users might use this
application – will it be used for other sites?

13. Summary
• There are a lot of different ways that
designs can miss – but the key to
discovering all of them is involving users in
your design process early and often.
• Doing good user research up front can help
head off some of these mistakes before
they start!
• Doing design reviews with users and
usability testing throughout the project can
help identify any of these issues during the
project and allow you to pivot to make the
project successful.

14. Questions?