Well, just when I thought I'd seen enough of bad UX in action, this website certainly tops the charts...
at least in a game (thankfully!)
Meet the User Inyerface
Yes, that's Inyerface or in your face, really.
It took me a good initial 24 seconds before I was that close to ripping my hair off and throwing the laptop out of the window. That was an exaggeration, but this website truly defines what a user experience should (not) be, whether designed intentionally (for conflict) or unknowingly.
I decided to bear the brunt and fight through this calamity of an interface, which ultimately took me 6 minutes and 12 seconds.
That's a personal achievement, really, considering all the obstacles within. Nonetheless, this underscores what a seemingly poor experience can do – creating feelings of stress, anger, and frustration.
As a self-proclaimed tech power user, that's usually bearable given a fair bit of tolerance. However, to general users of our community, this is an experience they should never have to encounter.
This is why designers like us ought to embrace usability testing as an inseparable process, more like culture and habit, really. To understand how users consume and act on day-to-day experiences they're in tune with and bridge these behaviors to create a smooth transition to your product.
So, What Happened on User Interyace?
Rather than talking about how traumatic... I mean poor this experience was, let's dive deep into some of the negative examples.
Example 1: The Anti-Reminder
While trying to absorb what was required of me in the first screen, I noticed a timer along the top of the form, which was acting more like a stopwatch more than a countdown.
That didn't stop the interface from triggering a pop-up at each minute, reminding me (the user) to quickly complete the form.
Why is this required? There's endless time ahead, why the hurry?
The single, inviting green call-to-action in the middle serves no purpose of closing the pop-up, instead locking it and eliminating all other possible actions. The only way out was an obscuring "©lose 2020" text hidden in the corner.
None of this was necessary, for there is no real reason to rush the user in completing the form unless it is actually time-bound (security). If it was, it should be clearly indicated.
Example 2: False Placeholders and Data Attributes
Placeholders help guide the user to understand what data should go into an input, and data types strengthen this recognition by providing appropriate feedback on the information that has been filed.
In this screen, besides the obvious error in placeholder language (“Choose Password),” which affords a different meaning (selection), the placeholder text turns out to be part of the input data. The user would have to go the extra step to delete this pre-placed information or bear the outcome in which their password or any other info is prefixed with this text.
Both are entirely plausible outcomes, especially for less tech-savvy users, which often begs the question: “Who are you designing for?”
Feedback on password type inputs (turning values into obscured icons) is also common in form interfaces today. Yet, the lack thereof becomes sort of an “anti-signifier,” placing additional anxiety on the user to wonder if the data submitted is secured or not.
Example 3: Multi-Selection Checkboxes – Choose 3 or Remove Till 3?
Good user interfaces bring convenience to users. Its general purpose is to help users solve a problem quickly and efficiently.
In this example of poor usability, the form asks to select three interests out of a selection of 21. However, rather than selecting three boxes, the interface requires users to take the route of inconvenience by selecting all by default and removing each until three remains.
Now, by this stage of the task, I was frankly well driven out of my wits. And I was admittedly not paying attention and started to process the first thing that popped up into my head: remove all the checkboxes. Going from the first column down, I manage to uncheck most of it until I clicked on the one thing that ruined it all ("Select All").
Frustration +1000.
Thankfully, I (was awakened and) spotted the "Unselect All" button, which brought me to where I should've been in the first place.
But, to an average user, I can imagine the kind of emotional effect this would result. Anger, frustration, annoyance – you name it. And in line with all the other issues that existed before, they'd probably call it quits at this point.
Example 4: Dropdown Selection – Guess The Country
It's often understood that visuals complement text (or vice-versa). Either one brings context to the other and helps a viewer comprehend the information more fluently, which forms positive user experience.
In this example, the user is expected to choose a country from a full selection. Unlike other dropdown selections, the countries here are sorted appropriately – in alphabetical order (thankfully). However, even as the user knows what they want to select, the dropdown does not provide any means of helping them get there quickly, besides the apparent flag images.
Now, I'm not a champion with one of those "Guess the Logo" type games. But placing the flags standalone and in greyscale seems counter-intuitive in enabling one to find what they are looking for quickly and accurately.
It takes greater mental effort to process, and I had to scan row by row for what I wanted to select, and I'd wager a typical user would spend a fair amount of time doing so. That's gives more problems to deal with rather than solving them.
Example 5: Validation – The (Super) Human Test
In a modern realm of malicious bots and supercomputers, websites often employ human verification challenges or CAPTCHA to determine if a user (or otherwise) is a real human. It's seemingly an added layer of inconvenience, but one that ensures a system's reliability to handle requests efficiently and securely.
That's certainly a design tradeoff I'll be willing to take.
However, where the line is drawn is when challenges begin to lose sense. The nature of a challenge suggests right and wrong, and most users would expect a challenge to pass with a small selection of correct answers.
Yet, in this interaction, the rule is for the user to "select all pictures with glasses." Sounds easy. But all the images are, in fact... glasses. Drinking glass, optical glasses, and window glasses – which is the correct kind of glass the designer expects?
Either the designer has failed to rightly state the type of glass they're looking for, or the challenge is inappropriately designed with clear anti-affordances to lead the user to the obvious.
(Sidenote: this stage of interaction appeared scrolled right to the bottom, hiding a layer of checkboxes along the top. I was unsure if this was deliberate planning, but it was definitely something that I thought was broken when I could not submit initially.)
Bonus: Privacy and Cookies – The False Function
If there's anything about the Internet I've learned, it is that privacy and security are two highly important and sensitive aspects of a user's use. Every individual deserves to have the right of choice, and I would rather opt not to be tracked with cookies or other analytics tools.
On this website, the user is prompted with a notice that informs about cookie use on the website and asks if it is an issue. Sounds seemingly courteous. Except clicking on "Yes" does... absolutely nothing. Selecting "Not really, no" closes the prompt, as though I (the user) had consented to share my usage information.
Thankfully, this was a game of apparently bad UX.
However, I can imagine a real platform, especially one that collects a lot of data from a user (e.g., e-commerce platforms) employing such "innocently flawed" techniques to force a user to opt-in unwillingly.
Stripping a user of choice is a pretty deceptive technique and one which I personally feel highly against. And in any product or form of user experience, that's one usability scenario that should not be there, ever.
Conclusion
It was certainly a rollercoaster ride to deal with this experience, and it is a blessing that no real website has had that many usability issues at one go, at least in my experience.
This small exercise emphasizes the need for designers, like ourselves, to be extremely mindful when designing for people where certain aspects of the interaction, especially those that request information from the user, have to be treated with care and a degree of trusted assurance.
And common sense, of course.
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