Never trust your users (during market research)

July 3, 2012July 5, 2012 Gadi Shamiadesign, focus groups, product management, UX1 Comment

The first time I viewed a professional focus group I was impressed. We sat behind a mirror wall, were served great food and wine and watched business owners answer questions asked by a professional moderator. For a long while, I was in love with the concept: pay some money and get a glance into the future, read your potential users minds and build the perfect product that they will use for ever. If only it was so simple…

Later in life I understood that the most important thing to remember about any user feedback is that people don’t tell you what they think, they tell you what they think they think… Continue reading “Never trust your users (during market research)” →

Don’t drive your designer up the f**king wall

April 3, 2012April 3, 2012 Gadi Shamiadesign, product management, UI, UXLeave a comment

Most designers secretly or publicly hate their managers. It can be a CEO in a startup or a product manager in a larger company. They hate us all. Some of it has to do with the fact some of them are just precious flowers and their work can not be criticized by regular humans but often, it is only our faults.

Here are some dos and don’ts that will make your designer much more productive, and therefore creating better products:

Your “gut feeling” about the design is not important: We all watch baseball matches but don’t think we can play professionally. We all watch hospital dramas but don’t think we can operate on anyone. We all use web products but we DO think we can design them better than the designer we hired. Your design expert is the designer you hired. If he/she are not good enough, replace them. You are unlikely to be better than them. Continue reading “Don’t drive your designer up the f**king wall” →

When bad UI can make your product unsafe

February 25, 2012 Gadi ShamiaComputer security, UI, UX1 Comment

I’ve been building software/internet products for a long time now and always cared a great deal about User Experience and design. Good UI can get your users more engaged, can lead to higher conversion rates, better engagement and overall better user experience. But did you ever think that good UI can make your product safe?

I was watching this TED video today where Avi Rubin, a security expert, explains how everything (from your car to your Pacemaker) can be hacked. It was all very interesting but what I found fascinating was his example about hacking the two way radios that are used by law enforcement officials. These devices, made by Motorola (not known for employing the best in UX…), have an option to encrypt radio transmissions with a switch of a button. As you can see from this image, moving from open air to a secure channel requires 1/8 turn of a multi-purpose switch. When secure, the device is showing an indicator which is few pixels large. Because of this failed UI, 20% of the discussions in the secure channels that were sampled, actually happen in open air. Continue reading “When bad UI can make your product unsafe” →