Vitaly Friedmanโ€™s Post

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Vitaly Friedman Vitaly Friedman is an Influencer

โ˜‚๏ธ Designing For Edge Cases and Exceptions. Practical design guidelines to prevent dead-ends, lock-outs and other UX failures โ†“ ๐Ÿšซ People are never edge cases; โ€œaverageโ€ users donโ€™t exist. โœ… Exceptions will occur eventually, itโ€™s just a matter of time. โœ… To prevent failure, we need to explore unhappy paths early. โœ… Design full UI stack: blank, loading, partial, error, ideal states. โœ… Design defaults deliberately to prevent slips and mistakes. โœ… Start by designing the core flow, then scrutinize every part of it. โœ… Allow users to override validators, or add an option manually. โœ… Design for incompatibility: contradicting filters, prefs, settings. ๐Ÿšซ Avoid generic error messages: they are often main blockers. โœ… Suggest presets, templates, starter kits for quick recovery. โœ… Design extreme scales: extra long/short, wide/tall, offline/slow. โœ… Design irreversible actions, e.g. Delete, Forget, Cancel, Exit. โœ… Allow users to undo critical actions for some period of time. โœ… Design a recovery UX due to delays, lock-outs, missing data. โœ… Accessibility is a reliable way to ensure design resilience. Good design paves happy paths for everyone, but also casts a wide safety net when things go sideways. I love to explore unhappy paths by setting up a dedicated design review to discover exceptions proactively. It can be helpful to also ask AI tooling to come up with alternate scenarios. Once we start discussing exceptions, we start thinking outside of the box. We have to actively challenge generic expectations, stereotypes and assumptions that we as designers typically embed in our work, often unconsciously. And to me, thatโ€™s one of the most valuable assets of such discussions. And: whenever possible, flag any mentions of average users in your design discussions. Such people donโ€™t exist, and often itโ€™s merely an aggregated average of assumptions and hunches. Nothing stress tests your UX better then testing it in realistic conditions with realistic data sets with real people. Useful resources: How To Fix A Bad User Interface, by Scott Hurff https://lnkd.in/ecj6PGPU How To Design Edge Cases, by Tanner Christensen https://lnkd.in/ecs3kr8z How To Find Edge Cases In UX, by Edward Chechique https://lnkd.in/e2pfqqen Just About Everyone Is an Edge Case, by Kevin Ferris https://lnkd.in/eDdUVHyj Edge Cases In UX, by Krisztina Szerovay https://lnkd.in/eM2Xynba Recommended books: โ€“ Design For Real Life, by Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Eric Meyer โ€“ The End of Average, by Todd Rose โ€“ Think Like a UX Researcher, by David Travis, Philip Hodgson โ€“ Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, by Kat Holmes #ux #design

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Janefrances Christopher (LadyF)

UI/UX Design Mentor and Coach || Founder at Meteora || Serious about growing your career as a UI/UX designer? Welcome ๐Ÿ‘‹๐Ÿป || I train entry level and newbie UI/UX Designers to position themselves to attract and land jobs

5mo

Design full states for conditions Loading Success Default Partial Blank Error This should be a norm. You never know how all users will interact with your product. Thanks Vitaly for the awakening call

Arsen M.

UX/UI Designer-freelancer looking for a position in a product company #OpenToWork

5mo

Do you really read all these books (and resources) you recommend? Just curious. If so, then how do you have so much time? ๐Ÿ‘€

Josh Harwood

Design Technologist, Design Systems

5mo

Don't forget the state: Full Show that UI groaning at the sides, what happens beyond the "ideal" state where a lot of concepts stop

Aneesa Zoraiz โœจ(Product Designer)

UI/UX Designer | 3X Conversions & Profit boost for business owners by converting their ideas into captivating & user-friendly digital solutions. | User Experience design Specialist | User interface design & Figma Expert

5mo

Very useful,...making user aware of whats the current state of the process with the action take,preventing irresponsible actions by making them reversible by asking for confirmation, leading user in navigations by providing action to return to specific page, so they not feel lost, are all very important, One have to be so careful while designing these out.

Marek Olczyk-Brzeziล„ski

Lead UX Designer || marekbrze.com || Creative Problem Solver ๐Ÿง 

5mo

Thatโ€™s where chatgpt and other ai chats help a lot - defining edge cases. You explain what is the system and how it behaves and chats helps to identify what can go wrong ๐Ÿ™Œ

Scott Hurff

Founder at Churnkey ๐Ÿ”‘. Previously: Founding Team at Casa, Creator of Super Like at Tinder

5mo

Thanks for including my piece and the UI Stack :) Always grateful. For anyone interested, here's what I'm working on now! https://www.linkedin.com/events/stateofretention2024withscotthu7166726549520547841/theater/

That is such a useful resource! Saved ๐Ÿ‘

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Elsie NGAN

Helps businesses gain profit through user-centered design

5mo

Thanks for sharing. We definitely need to remind ourselves and execute the good practices in every project. It is a baseline that we need to keep up as a practitioner. If any hippos force you to drop the baseline, just show them the consequences. Amen.

Tian Yuan (ๅคฉๅ…ƒ) Z.

Web3 product designer, strategist, researcher since 2015 | ex-RBC, ex-ConsenSys, ex-GoodDollar

5mo

I actually have an acronym I came up with that I call the "FEEEL" States: First-Time Errors Empties Exceptions/Edge Loading

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Aditya Kushwaha

Passionate UI/UX & Graphic Designer | Transforming Concepts into Captivating Experiences | Let's Create Something Extraordinary!

4mo

How do you prioritize edge case scenarios during the design process?

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