Habituate ≠ usability
In our daily life we face several challenges, workarounds and adjustment while using a product. For example we had to deal with loose mobile phone chargers, tight door latches, dumb switches etc, we do find it difficult on the day one and apparently in a week’s time we get used to it and surprisingly we do the same with no hesitation in a month’s time. Similarly when we buy products that are not designed to meet our goal, yet we get used to it and in few days we force ourselves to believe that it’s awesome.
A product can be felt awesome in a month or year’s time handling, because we humans get better while performing/practicing something repetitively. This doesn’t earn any credits to the product but to our own selves. There are high chances of drop in usage of these products before one master the function, Instead what if a product is usable right from the time when it is unboxed. Such designed experiences are very important for any product for the customers to feel the awesomeness from day one till it goes to the trash.
Similarly we are used to certain interfaces just because we use those applications out of no choice. Every unusable interface has a frustration point where the user may switch to another competitive solution wherever feasible.
We all would have not realised one true fact, at times we feel the interfaces or UX/UI patterns what we design are highly usable just because we arrived at it and we get used to it. Every designer must overcome such false-consensus bias. Such false perceptions will lead to serious failures.
Let’s all push ourselves beyond boundaries and come up with usable solution and not just get used to current problem.
Cheers
AK
