Create Better User Experiences with the 7 UX Factors - Design Tool Tuesday

Summary

The video introduces a ux framework called the honeycomb of user experience with 7 key factors - usefulness, usability, findability, credibility, accessibility, desirability and value. It explains how each factor impacts the overall user experience and provides guidance for ux designers to evaluate and optimize products using this framework. The presenter gives examples of using the honeycomb model to identify gaps, create hypotheses and drive measurable ux outcomes when working with stakeholders. The goal is to make more informed decisions to design better, well-rounded user experiences.

Takeaways

• 💭 The 'Honeycomb of User Experience' by Peter Morville (2004) serves as a foundational framework for improving UX by addressing specific factors.
• 💡 Usability and usefulness are core to the UX, emphasizing the importance of products being practical, beneficial, and meeting user needs to complete tasks and achieve goals.
• 🔎 Findability is crucial, requiring clear affordances and intuitive navigation to help users easily locate what they're seeking within a product.
• 📝 Credibility stems from brand perception and other signals, influencing user engagement based on trust and expectations of the product.
• ♻️ Accessibility is paramount, demanding that products cater to users of all abilities, ensuring inclusive experiences that comply with various standards.
• 😍 Desirability focuses on the emotional and aesthetic appeal of a product, highlighting the importance of design in attracting users.
• 🎁 Value is central, encapsulating the overall benefit derived from the product, influenced by its usefulness, usability, findability, credibility, accessibility, and desirability.
• 📊 The framework encourages a holistic approach to UX design, advocating for the evaluation and enhancement of each factor to create superior user experiences.
• 📚 Practical application of the framework involves using it to assess current projects, identify areas for improvement, and guide UX strategies and outcomes.
• 👨‍💻 Engagement with stakeholders is enhanced by structuring improvements around the framework, leading to more informed decision-making and impactful design.

Q & A

What framework does the speaker introduce for evaluating and planning UX?

The speaker introduces the Honeycomb model of user experience, developed by Peter Morville in 2004. It consists of 7 key factors that influence UX - useful, usable, findable, credible, accessible, desirable, and valuable.

What does the 'useful' factor in the Honeycomb framework refer to?

The 'useful' factor refers to how well the product or service fulfills the user's needs and helps them complete their goals or tasks. It should provide enough value and practical benefit to the user.

What does the 'usable' factor refer to?

The 'usable' factor refers to how easy and frictionless it is for users to complete tasks and achieve their goals using the product. It should be efficient and effective without major usability issues.

Why is findability an important UX factor?

Findability is important because users need to be able to easily find what they are looking for within a product. This requires understanding user needs and journeys, and enhancing information architecture and navigation so key tasks and content are easy to find.

What builds credibility for a product experience?

Credibility comes from brand perception, recommendations, look and feel, and giving the user ownership and control. These factors build user trust and set proper expectations about the experience.

Why has accessibility become an important factor in UX?

Accessibility is crucial because products need to be inclusive and support users of all abilities. There are legal compliance requirements as well but also commercial and ethical necessity.

Where does desirability tend to play a key role in UX?

Desirability in areas like visual and emotional design helps attract users initially and persuades them to choose a product over competitive options. It influences perceived value and experience quality.

How can the Honeycomb model be used in UX projects?

The model can be used to evaluate experiences based on the 7 factors, identify gaps and areas for improvement, drive outcomes and hypotheses to test, and provide structured messaging when briefing stakeholders.

What role does value play in the Honeycomb model?

Value represents the balance of benefits the experience provides against any costs like price. It depends on optimizing the other 6 areas to maximize the value fit for users.

Why is having a UX evaluation framework beneficial?

Using a structured framework makes analysis more complete, improvement choices clearer, and messaging to stakeholders more credible. It leads to better UX decisions compared to general subjective judgments.

Outlines

00:00

🛠 The Honeycomb Framework: Enhancing User Experience

This paragraph introduces a valuable tool for both individual contributors (ICs) and managers in the field of user experience (UX) design, known as the Honeycomb of User Experience by Peter Morville from 2004. It serves as a foundational framework to evaluate and improve user experience by ensuring that products are useful, usable, findable, credible, accessible, desirable, and provide value. The speaker emphasizes the importance of each factor, using practical examples to illustrate how they influence the design process. The usability of an adapter for Mac as an example shows the real-world application of these principles, highlighting the balance between functionality and user satisfaction.

05:00

🔍 Deep Dive into UX Factors: Credibility and Accessibility

In this detailed exploration, the focus shifts towards the importance of credibility and accessibility in UX design. Credibility is tied to brand perception and user trust, which can significantly impact a user's decision to engage with a product. The paragraph also highlights how accessibility is paramount in creating inclusive experiences that cater to users with diverse abilities. The narrative stresses that every design decision, from visual appeal to user control and ownership, contributes to building a trustworthy and accessible user experience. By incorporating user feedback and testing, designers can ensure their products are not only functional but also resonate with their target audience on a deeper level.

10:01

🌟 Value and Desirability in UX Design

This segment wraps up the discussion by emphasizing the critical roles of desirability and value in the user experience design process. Desirability, often influenced by visual and emotional design, plays a key role in attracting users and differentiating products in a crowded market. Meanwhile, value is portrayed as the culmination of all UX factors, establishing a 'value fit' for the user. The speaker shares personal insights on applying the Honeycomb framework to assess and drive UX outcomes, advocating for a structured approach to design that addresses all aspects of the user experience. This holistic view encourages designers to go beyond mere usability, aiming for a product that excels in every dimension of UX.

Keywords

💡UX Factors

UX Factors refer to the various aspects that influence the design and implementation of user experience strategies. In the video, these factors are presented as crucial components in planning, testing, and executing UX projects. They serve as guidelines to enhance the overall usability, desirability, and effectiveness of a product or service. The speaker introduces Peter Morville's Honeycomb framework as a tool to evaluate and improve UX by considering these multifaceted elements.

💡Honeycomb of User Experience

The Honeycomb of User Experience is a framework developed by Peter Morville in 2004. It is used to evaluate and guide the improvement of user experience in products or services. The framework consists of seven facets: useful, usable, findable, credible, accessible, desirable, and valuable. This model helps designers and managers identify areas of improvement and prioritize UX efforts. The video uses the Honeycomb framework as a central theme to discuss how each aspect contributes to a holistic user experience.

💡Useful

In the context of the video, 'useful' refers to the practical or beneficial impact a product or service has on its users. A product needs to provide value by enabling users to complete tasks or achieve their goals effectively. This foundational aspect of UX design emphasizes the importance of aligning product functionalities with user needs. The speaker discusses how assessing and enhancing a product's usefulness is a critical step in UX design.

💡Usable

Usability in UX design refers to how easily and efficiently users can interact with a product to achieve their objectives. It focuses on optimizing the user interface and experience to reduce friction and make the product more intuitive. The video highlights usability as a key factor that UX designers prioritize to ensure that users can complete their tasks and goals effectively, using the example of an adapter to illustrate the concept of improving a product's usability.

💡Findable

Findability relates to how easily users can locate information or features within a product. It is critical for good UX that products and their content are easy to navigate and that users can quickly find what they need. The speaker emphasizes the importance of clear affordances, information architecture, and user testing in enhancing findability. Designing for findability involves understanding user needs, goals, and mental models to optimize navigation and information retrieval.

💡Credible

Credibility in UX design concerns the trustworthiness and reliability perceived by users. It is influenced by the product's brand, design quality, and user feedback, among other factors. The video discusses how credibility can be enhanced through improved product expectations, trust-building measures, and effective communication. Credibility is essential for engaging users and encouraging them to invest their time and resources in a product.

💡Accessible

Accessibility refers to designing products in a way that all users, including those with disabilities, can use them effectively. The video underscores the importance of inclusive design practices that accommodate various user needs and abilities, highlighting that accessible experiences are paramount for compliance and ethical reasons. Accessibility aims to ensure that products are usable by people with a wide range of physical and cognitive abilities.

💡Desirable

Desirability in UX design focuses on the appeal and attractiveness of a product to its users. It encompasses the look, feel, and emotional connection a user experiences. The video explains how desirability can be influenced by visual design, brand identity, and emotional design, noting its significance in differentiating products in competitive markets. Desirability encourages user engagement by appealing to their aesthetic preferences and emotional responses.

💡Value

Value, as discussed in the video, represents the overall benefit or utility that a user gains from a product, balancing its costs and rewards. It is a holistic measure that incorporates all other aspects of the Honeycomb framework. The speaker mentions that value is about creating a positive experience that meets or exceeds user expectations, thereby fostering user satisfaction and loyalty. Assessing and enhancing the value offered by a product is crucial for its success.

💡Framework Application

Framework Application refers to the practical use of the Honeycomb framework in evaluating and improving UX design. The speaker shares experiences of using the framework to assess product experiences and drive UX outcomes by creating structured approaches for identifying and addressing areas for improvement. This process involves analyzing each facet of the framework, developing hypotheses, and testing changes to enhance the product's overall user experience.

💡User Testing

User Testing is a method mentioned throughout the video for validating design decisions and improvements. It involves gathering feedback from real users to assess the usability, findability, and overall effectiveness of a product. By conducting user testing, designers can gain insights into user needs, preferences, and behaviors, which helps in refining the product to better meet its users' expectations. The video highlights the importance of user testing in making informed UX design choices.

Highlights

A simple framework to understand what you could do to improve a user experience

The user experience has to be useful and provide enough value for users to complete tasks and achieve goals

Usability is providing users the ability to fulfill tasks and goals without major friction points

Products and content should be easy to find, with clear affordances of what users can do

Credibility comes from brand perception, past experiences, and look and feel signaling expected experience

Accessible experiences serve users of all abilities and are deeply inclusive

Desirability involves emotional and persuasive design to make a product stand out

Value depends on balancing all factors to equal or exceed user perceptions of cost

The framework can evaluate experiences and drive outcomes for the next iteration

Using frameworks makes messaging to stakeholders more structured and sensible

A useful product answers user needs and goals they are trying to complete

Enhancing information architecture and testing helps match navigation to users

Building trust improves expectations and gets users to engage

Inclusive experiences consider and test with different user types

Appreciating visual and emotional design creates desirable experiences

Transcripts

hey it's another Tuesday and it's a

design tool Tuesday as per usual or as

every now and then you know I sometimes

skip them but forgive me today I want to

share with you a simple framework and a

tool which I've been using in my IC days

but also in my management paths and

coaching and everything in between it's

ux factors which influence how you plan

how you test how you do

ux

and it's I think from 2004 by Peter

Marvel which is called as honeycom of

user experience it's actually a perfect

framework to kind of use as a starter to

understand exactly what you could do to

improve a user

experience but to explain the actual

framework the user experience or your

product has to be useful for example if

from a practical sense or beneficial

sense if it does doesn't add enough

value to the user and it doesn't provide

them with an ability to complete their

task or to achieve their goals when when

that product doesn't really provide good

ux it has to be useful for someone who

actually owns that piece of experience

it could be that you're just an app user

it could be that you're a service user

and you're going through a lot of

different digital or physical touch

points it has to provide you enough of

use so that you can achieve your goals

and it answers your user needs and

that's really important it's almost like

a foundational uh segment or a honeycom

piece which you can then reflect and say

hm well this existing product or service

maybe it's not so useful what could I do

to make it more useful and track the

Delta and create hypothesis and then

make that

redesign and now the next one is usable

and it's the main I think fact factor

which we as ux designers keep

considering and you know we sometimes

say oh I redesign this app because I

wanted to improve the usability it's

exactly what this is coming from it's

really providing with the ability for

the users to again fulfill their tasks

or their goals or their jobs you know to

be done or to complete the jobs to be

done with the usability in mind so it's

efficient it's effective they can

complete their tasks and goals again

without no major friction points and if

you kind of zoom out and look at the

reality of it like there is plenty of

products which are just clunky and give

you immediate example this adapter for a

cable to get into my Mac you know from

USB a to USBC You could argue hey we

just get a better cable but the product

itself as an adapter was created to ease

the use somewhat but it's still too

clunky it still could be improved it

still could become much more usable it's

useful right and it's successful

obviously sold they paid was you know 20

quid or something for it but it could

kind of improve in very stages of how

usable your products get and so you as a

designer can kind of reflect and say hey

maybe it's at that kind of like a good

enough State how can I make it just a

bit better and more useful in the

end and now the next one is findable

what you have to do is really to ensure

that you

product and content in it are easy to

find the affordances and what exactly

the user is able to do with a product

should be very clear and at a glance and

let's say if you want to find something

specific like hey I would like to remove

my account they should know where

approximately it should be and as we

kind of go through the Jord and remot

flows we should uncover that specific

tasks so they can find what they seek

and this is super important because to

design for that you then need to be able

to understand and and deeply understand

the user needs and the jobs we're trying

to complete like all the their goals and

expectations and how quickly they need

and even the priorities the mental

models comes into place because not

every person wants to find that specific

information and other people might need

something else and as a designer you

need to focus on increasing the clarity

of those affordances you need to enhance

information architecture obviously and

enhance it so it makes sense for that

particular user that's why you do user

testing let's say so you understand how

natural the journeys are whatever your

product is navigation is King the

customer should be able to adopt your

navigation

instantly and now the next one is

credibility and it stems from the actual

brand perception but also you know what

other people say it stems from a lot of

different signals around it it's not

just about the product itself but of

course there is a lot of factors to it

too especially if it's a novel product

that's how people would perceive it and

kind of acur gauge of the experience and

what sort of user experience it could

entail before they even engage there is

so many different signals around it it

could be again recognition of a brand it

could be the past experiences you had of

similar products or the look and feel of

it let's say if you know your actual

product you design just doesn't look

that great or looks dated you naturally

would assume that the experience you're

going to have with it is going to be

also dated not going to have all the

bells and whistles you would expect from

the product which would again fulfill

those needs and as such you wouldn't

even engage of it your experience would

likely end there you might pick up

something else out there if let's say is

as affordable or other factors

considered where the value of a product

clear LLY overlaps with what you need

from it and as a designer if let's say

you would pick up a product like that

which needs to improve the credibility

you kind of can zoom out and say okay we

need to improve the expectations of

actual product we need to improve the

trust and build the trust it could be

copy based content-based messaging and

so forth it could be that you need to

engage your user much earlier in

different meets and use other channels

like customer experience channels like

let's say email campaigns or kind of you

know drip feed and try to hook people in

so they can understand that hey your

product is not that bad which let's say

a lot of the brands have been doing

lately and where you see let's say oil

Giants adding ads and a lot of different

TV campaigns and some of it is rightful

some of it is greenwashing obviously but

there was a big effect of creation of

credible experiences so that people who

are using the product from let's say one

of the oil manufacturers they could

actually trust it enough because there

is some sort of of care perception from

the actual brand and of course the last

one which adds to The credibility and

designing the product is giving

ownership to the actual user because

nobody's going to trust the product if

they don't have enough control of that

product and this is super applicable for

SAS experiences let's say where very

small cost of Entry where let's say you

might sign up for something like £10 or

$10 a month subscription and you can

cancel it anytime therefore it has to be

credible enough for you to submit even

that small kind of frictionless point of

entry which end ends up obviously being

thousands down the road but you don't

know about that but credibility from a

brand from the actual product is going

to matter for you to even start and sign

up and now the next one is accessibility

and accessible experiences are Paramount

like every product you design are going

to become more and more restricted by

the compliance where you're going to

have to be open and supportive of all

the different abilities out there they

have again permanent or temporary or

situational disabilities of source could

be visual impairment it could be that we

have just a migraine and you need to

support those users CU again it could be

safety concerns commercial concerns

could be quite lethal in different

scenarios if you design something like

Hardware so a lot of different things to

consider depending on what segment you

represent or what industry you're part

of but accessible experiences are good

user experiences you absolutely need to

serve the users of all abilities doesn't

matter where we come from what your

background is again it's deeply

inclusive approach to it and this really

should be changed in this day and age as

inclusive experiences because

accessibility is kind of part of that

but as a designer obvious takes is to

consider more to test more to include

different user types to basically

reflect exactly how easy and accessible

your products are it's to start but also

use and also exit and kind of throughout

that life cycle Journey shaping the

product so that it's

inclusive and the next factor is

desirable and actually that's how a lot

of a designers start with ux because

they think from that desirability

standpoint they see a product they might

like let's say they love it they love to

use it and they think oh I would love to

do this for a living I would love to get

paid to do this as a hobby as a paid

Hobby and maybe get invested in it and

learn and break into the field and start

designing experiences for others usually

where it starts and as you know people

think with their eyes and hearing and

every other sense to follow but they

perceive things and they perceive the

value Val perceive the experience it's

going to entail they project what sort

of value it's going to deliver to them

so desireability is massive here the

look and feel the brand identity the

emotional design and persuasive design

are Paramount here as you as a designer

then need to consider what's competitive

and not competitive what is going to

excel your product from all these

different landscape of a lot of

different other products and services

and brands doesn't matter what you do in

this d&h all the lwh hanging fruits are

already picked so you need to realize

exactly what makes your brand Excel just

a little bit more and then your user to

pick that brand and use it I would just

advise you to again invest in look and

feel again not every uxer has to be

visual myestro of sorts and you don't

have to be a graphic designer you know

expert at that it's not just about that

but there is a fraction of it it could

be that you're going to join a team

which has a lot of product design

expertise it could be that you're going

to do more information architecture work

or your strategy or maybe research but

there has to be that appreciation for

visual design or that desirability

aspect when you craft the products

themselves well and last one is value

which is that Central piece you could

take every single segment and tie into a

value but value to me is all about value

fit if let's say other six factors are

completed and tick the box for the user

so they're useful they usable they're

findable very credible very desirable

very accessible that one would create a

value chain of sorts and let's say if

the cost is reasonably price which

should be strategically assessed users

can then mentally compare those factors

or at least they do to some extent and

then they gauge and say hey is this

Balan or not and if the value and the

cost roughly equals or in their

perception equals that when what creates

that valuable experience which we optain

if you lack on any of these segments

chances are it kind of draws you back

and as such the competition is going to

be rougher for you but if you optimize

those factors or you use them to

optimize your experiences you are much

more likely to nail

it and now let me tell you how I used

this framework in the past I used it

very simply to

evaluate experiences I also used this to

drive the ux outcomes because if you can

create a table which covers these

segments and say this is what's lacking

in the current project and this is what

you could be doing in the next iteration

maybe this is your hypothesis and as

such let's say if you work with a client

or with a stakeholder you can say that

okay these are the seven things we must

improve and this is how we're going to

measure each of the improvements we

might overlap on the measure sense but

it's going to make you much more

structured in your approach but also

much more sensible from the stakeholder

perspective so I would advise you to

kind of zoom out and use more of these

Frameworks when you talk about the

actual improvements instead of just

saying oh we just need to make it more

usable cuz there are just so many more

factors which would make your messaging

Much More weighty Much More rightful

because you're going to make better

choices and hopefully make better user

experiences if you enjoy this video

leave a comment down below and on that

note I'll see you next time