> If your marketing department wants to know anything about why the user is cancelling, put it in the form. Two pages of boring questions is a great way to reduce conversion.
> Break the form into many pages so it takes longer. Include links to FAQ pages. And avoid using defaults; it maximizes the number of conscious choices for the user.
> Ask them to explain their reasons for cancelling, and require at least 100 letters of text. Explaining is hard when your reasons are emotional.
Really? Obviously I don't want to make it too easy for users to cancel, but to make it too hard just seems petty to me. Asking them to fill out the reasons for cancellation is a great idea (and worked really well for us), but forcing them to write at least 100 letters is just horrible.
Also, there are some users that you really do want to cancel. You know, the ones that suck up twice as much support as anyone else and complain incessantly.
Surely its more important to be focusing on why users are cancelling, not luring them through a maze of "two pages of boring questions"? Does anyone reputable actually do this?
There is a sweet spot somewhere in between, but this seems to be irritating and would just make me want to write complete junk responses.
"Designers, if you call yourself a “UX Designer”, you’d be the dev who called themselves a “Variable Declarer”."[0]
Anyone who thinks they are a UX Designer who wants to make the cancellation process as hard as possible obviously has a very shitty product if the only way to retain your users is to try and make them fill out forms with minimum values. Really, 100 characters? "aksfwejfjwefjwewefj" will be all you get, you evil shit.
Cancelling a service should ALWAYS be easy and painless. I make sure all apps/services I have are just as easy to cancel as they were to sign up.
I actually find that about 50% of people who cancel end up coming back. I also have NEVER had a user contact me about how to cancel their account. They just do it. No problem, no interaction, no bullshit 'let me talk to you first' run around.
If you are trying to keep people from cancelling by making it difficult to do so, YOU ARE BAD AT BUSINESS.
Joel, this work appears to be heavily plagiarised in places. I've only had a quick browse, but it looks like you've cribbed content from UX textbooks and online sources. Some people would consider this unethical, particularly since you have something to sell on your site (your book on 'Persuasion, manipulation & brainwashing.').
The solution is simple, you need to clearly cite and link to your sources.
As well as making the source authors happy, this will be very helpful for readers who want to do further research.
I think this actually represents a massive gap between what UI or UX designers believe and what users actually prefer.
Consider this: Microsoft Windows (prior to Windows 8) was by all accounts a clunky, poorly conceived UI...that allowed users to modify it to look just about any way they wanted.
Now we have applications like Twitter and Facebook constantly re-arranging their users layout, and the most recent changes have been to increase font size, reduce the information on the screen, all of the things that many users (such as myself) do not want.
I find this perplexing...how did we as a UI culture going from having bad design that I could control to having bad design that I can't control?
Can't agree more, but it could be a cultural thing too - see all the discussion around Western vs East Asian web/UI design, for example. So your psychology might actually be the norm for an Asian user, if by "most users" you mean the West.
I did end up skimming a few more sections to see if it picked up & it was still all hollow, common sense stuff eventually descending into predatory gamification/addiction tactics. I know there are a lot of burgeoning startup types on here but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand that responsible developers should strive to make a product that serves a real need for users. I want to make software that retains customers through convenience, features, value.
This guide reads more like those old guides for how to use SEO to drive traffic to your dung-heap. I don't know how others feel but I want to create a good experience for my users, not convince the masses that they are my users so I can go to some freemium lowest-common-denominator model.
Is web dev the wrong place for me or are we just in a bubble phase for these people who try to use their "clever interfaces" to regress humans to some animal state? (If you look at the chapter headers in this guide I don't think I'm out of line... its literally about addiction, sex, etc.)
We seem to be in a phase where there are many solutions being developed in search for problems which either are so trivial as not to be worth solving or which don't exist in the first place. The PC and the 'net were the incubators for this phenomenon which really took flight when the 'net became small enough to fit in the average pocket. Now there are 'apps' for everyone and everything, all vying for your limited attention.
Alls you need to do is go back in time a bit, say 150 years, to see some parallels with the way that newfangled electricity thing was seen as the solution for all life's problems. Doctors waving Geissler tubes over their patients to cure, electrical beds to improve women's sex drive, electrical hairbrushes because, well, it's electrical and thus cures rheumatism and constipation, electrical baths - both dry and wet - to improve health and stamina, electric underwear to 'cure any ailment'.
And now? Electricity has certainly revolutionised society, but not by using it to cure constipation or zap innocent bathtubs. The web also revolutionised society, and the mobile 'net is poised to extend that revolution even further - but not by creating dating apps or yet another calendar-planner-todo-list-organiser.
As a developer, the only thing that I have to say is: Why are you using a million canvas on your page? Are you trying to do some kind of benchmark? Please improve this.
Hey Joel- great stuff. Can you post your sources? For example, in the Cognitive Bias Lesson in the Decoy section, where did you get this factoid: "even though nobody chooses [the decoy], if you remove it, about 60% of people will choose the cheapest option instead.". Thanks for assembling these lessons!
I used to think UX meant a wider "systems" approach to the man-machine interface, incorporating findings from CHI, cognitive science, user studies, etc.
Now it seems like it is becoming a name for the design of marketing your product in the experience economy, not helping perform a task more efficiently (unless the "task" is selling to the user).
I'd like to see some discriminating term separating this from the UI-to-the-machine (UIttM ?) where streamlined presentation of the right info just-in-time is important, versus the "create more clicks for A/B testing" sales growth-hacking / I can make a web page with fonts.
I dunno, maybe this is a false dichotomy and reflects some kind of design thinking that UX is a term to apply to everything. Did a UX person design the pattern on my toilet paper?
Back when I was at university (not so long ago), usability was like you described - it helping the user get their task done efficiently. Not the more modern version of "delighting the user in surprising ways".
Thanks. It's a good quick run-through with the fundamentals and lives up to the title. I wish there would be simple and short illustrative examples/case-studies - or links to it - in the lessons to prove each point.
[+] [-] JonoBB|11 years ago|reply
> If your marketing department wants to know anything about why the user is cancelling, put it in the form. Two pages of boring questions is a great way to reduce conversion.
> Break the form into many pages so it takes longer. Include links to FAQ pages. And avoid using defaults; it maximizes the number of conscious choices for the user.
> Ask them to explain their reasons for cancelling, and require at least 100 letters of text. Explaining is hard when your reasons are emotional.
Really? Obviously I don't want to make it too easy for users to cancel, but to make it too hard just seems petty to me. Asking them to fill out the reasons for cancellation is a great idea (and worked really well for us), but forcing them to write at least 100 letters is just horrible.
Also, there are some users that you really do want to cancel. You know, the ones that suck up twice as much support as anyone else and complain incessantly.
Surely its more important to be focusing on why users are cancelling, not luring them through a maze of "two pages of boring questions"? Does anyone reputable actually do this?
There is a sweet spot somewhere in between, but this seems to be irritating and would just make me want to write complete junk responses.
[+] [-] thejosh|11 years ago|reply
Anyone who thinks they are a UX Designer who wants to make the cancellation process as hard as possible obviously has a very shitty product if the only way to retain your users is to try and make them fill out forms with minimum values. Really, 100 characters? "aksfwejfjwefjwewefj" will be all you get, you evil shit.
[0] https://twitter.com/iamdevloper/status/448918439793815552
[+] [-] silverbax88|11 years ago|reply
I actually find that about 50% of people who cancel end up coming back. I also have NEVER had a user contact me about how to cancel their account. They just do it. No problem, no interaction, no bullshit 'let me talk to you first' run around.
If you are trying to keep people from cancelling by making it difficult to do so, YOU ARE BAD AT BUSINESS.
[+] [-] JoelMarsh|11 years ago|reply
I agree. After a few minutes of after-thought I have updated the article to reflect this feedback.
Thanks, everyone. I appreciate the input.
[+] [-] harrybr|11 years ago|reply
The solution is simple, you need to clearly cite and link to your sources.
As well as making the source authors happy, this will be very helpful for readers who want to do further research.
[+] [-] Aardwolf|11 years ago|reply
I want more information on screen, more settings, more logic.
The UI trend however seems to be less information on screen, less settings, and more "The UI knows better what you want than you do" :(
[+] [-] silverbax88|11 years ago|reply
Consider this: Microsoft Windows (prior to Windows 8) was by all accounts a clunky, poorly conceived UI...that allowed users to modify it to look just about any way they wanted.
Now we have applications like Twitter and Facebook constantly re-arranging their users layout, and the most recent changes have been to increase font size, reduce the information on the screen, all of the things that many users (such as myself) do not want.
I find this perplexing...how did we as a UI culture going from having bad design that I could control to having bad design that I can't control?
[+] [-] userbinator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tommi|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fat0wl|11 years ago|reply
This guide reads more like those old guides for how to use SEO to drive traffic to your dung-heap. I don't know how others feel but I want to create a good experience for my users, not convince the masses that they are my users so I can go to some freemium lowest-common-denominator model.
Is web dev the wrong place for me or are we just in a bubble phase for these people who try to use their "clever interfaces" to regress humans to some animal state? (If you look at the chapter headers in this guide I don't think I'm out of line... its literally about addiction, sex, etc.)
[+] [-] Yetanfou|11 years ago|reply
Alls you need to do is go back in time a bit, say 150 years, to see some parallels with the way that newfangled electricity thing was seen as the solution for all life's problems. Doctors waving Geissler tubes over their patients to cure, electrical beds to improve women's sex drive, electrical hairbrushes because, well, it's electrical and thus cures rheumatism and constipation, electrical baths - both dry and wet - to improve health and stamina, electric underwear to 'cure any ailment'.
And now? Electricity has certainly revolutionised society, but not by using it to cure constipation or zap innocent bathtubs. The web also revolutionised society, and the mobile 'net is poised to extend that revolution even further - but not by creating dating apps or yet another calendar-planner-todo-list-organiser.
[+] [-] boyander|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] brianjoseff|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoelMarsh|11 years ago|reply
All of the cognitive biases are described on Wikipedia. The links are in the articles.
[+] [-] toddkaufmann|11 years ago|reply
I used to think UX meant a wider "systems" approach to the man-machine interface, incorporating findings from CHI, cognitive science, user studies, etc.
Now it seems like it is becoming a name for the design of marketing your product in the experience economy, not helping perform a task more efficiently (unless the "task" is selling to the user).
I'd like to see some discriminating term separating this from the UI-to-the-machine (UIttM ?) where streamlined presentation of the right info just-in-time is important, versus the "create more clicks for A/B testing" sales growth-hacking / I can make a web page with fonts.
I dunno, maybe this is a false dichotomy and reflects some kind of design thinking that UX is a term to apply to everything. Did a UX person design the pattern on my toilet paper?
[+] [-] collyw|11 years ago|reply
https://developer.android.com/design/get-started/principles....
Back when I was at university (not so long ago), usability was like you described - it helping the user get their task done efficiently. Not the more modern version of "delighting the user in surprising ways".
[+] [-] usablebytes|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theblackswan|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]