THE UX ON THIS SMALL CHILD IS TERRIBLE
by LESLIE YLINEN
Originally published February 22, 2021.
Archived from https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ux-on-this-small-child-is-terrible
Not only am I VP of Reproduction for this household, but I’ve also been
the end-user of this Small Child for over three years now. I’m going to
give it to you straight. The user experience is terrible. Overall, the
Small Child is under-designed, unintuitive, and frequently fails to
meet even the most relaxed ease-of-use standards. As you may know, the
other stakeholder and I are aiming for a 2022 launch of v2.0. I’ve
gathered you here today to provide detailed feedback on the ways the
Small Child UX design could be improved for future iterations.
Storytelling
Industry experts agree that UX storytelling gives a product a
considerable competitive advantage. Users now expect personalized and
memorable experiences told in a thoughtful design narrative. Well, let
me tell you what. This particular Small Child only tells one story
repeatedly, and it’s about the time she fell on an escalator and hurt
her bottom at Bed Bath & Beyond. UX storytelling should be persuasive,
empathetic, and spark imagination! Future child iterations should focus
more on context and narrative structure and less on cheese snacks and
Band-aids.
Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
This Small Child has no clear sense of hierarchy in either the visual
or navigational sense. When it comes to troubleshooting, it is nearly
impossible to find the information you need quickly. For example, last
night the Small Child stood emitting a high-pitched scream in her
bedroom. I tried to quickly arrive at a solution in a natural, organic
way. Is the Small Child in pain? Is the Small Child hungry? It took
more than twenty earsplitting minutes to learn the Small Child was
angry that Flappy the Elephant didn’t pick her up from school. I
explained that Flappy is seven inches tall and has no central nervous
system, but the Small Child was inconsolable. Future child iterations
should include a focused effort on problem-free navigation with fewer
operational and cognitive costs.
Visual Balance
Famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pioneered the less-is-more
tenet of visual design. How he’d weep if he could see how cluttered and
over-decorated this Small Child is. It’s got unicorn print pants, a
shirt that says THE FUTURE IS FEMALE, a llama sweater, three hairclips
in three different colors, and a raincoat (also unicorns) in a region
that’s experiencing crisis-level drought conditions. If you try to
remove even one of these visual elements, the Small Child emits a
high-pitched scream, and you’re right back to the troubleshooting issue
that I’ve already described.
Copy
UX-focused writing should be clear and concise. I didn’t think simple
language would be a challenge for a three-year-old. But this Small
Child is in a Mandarin-immersion preschool, and the guiding voice reads
like, “Strawberry yogurt 头 肩膀 膝盖 脚 mommy NOW!!” Here’s another
alarming example. One night last week, the Small Child stood in my
bedroom doorway at 2 AM and said, “There’s a man with no face in my
room… again.” I’ve been in the business long enough to know that
there’s one word you do not want to describe your UX copy, and that
word is “terrifying.”
Journey Mapping
This is the area where the Small Child could use the most
improvement. There are just so many pain points creating an
unsatisfactory user journey. The child goes limp when you try to lift
it. It goes stiff when you try to change the clothes. It poops after it
gets into the bathtub, but before it reaches the toilet. The tone and
voice lack consistency, jolting from jubilant to irate in just a few
clicks. This Small Child won’t open its mouth for a toothbrush, but
won’t close it during my cousin’s wedding ceremony. It’s as if this
Small Child was not designed with accessibility in mind.
Don’t let this feedback overwhelm you. However, I feel like even the
most basic user testing in the design phase could have mitigated most
of the issues I’ve described. As we push forward to the next iteration,
let’s find ways to incorporate data-driven design elements to create a
more compatible user-centered child experience.
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