As Google’s attack on the practice of value-based design continues apace, my colleagues & I have been given to a deeper reflection on what tools will facilitate right relationship going forward.
We’re used to technology changing, of course. But we’ve come to rely on our tools for maintaining our client relationships, building infrastructure, and expanding our skillsets. Since value-based design is such a nascent industry, we’ve watched our tools change rather frequently, especially over the past few years.
We’re currently settling on some final recommendations for new tools that are likely to stick around for a while and consciously support small & mid-sized businesses. These will go out to paid members in a couple of weeks. They will involve a complete disengagement from businesses that have consciously proven themselves, through their actions, to be hostile to the business that we wish to practice.
I’m reminded of a conversation I had with the creator of a promising new experimentation framework. He asked what he could do to make our relationship positive into the long term. My reply was blunt: don’t fuck us. Why? Because value-based design tools have a long history of fucking us. Now we’re all tired.
Deeper discernment will be necessary in order to understand what truly nourishes the practice going forward. Wild to think, considering that our needs, at the end of the day, are simple.
This week, for paid members
- Our paid lesson this week discusses how to measure site speed now that Google has incorrectly discarded this essential metric in GA4.
- We held our monthly office hours, talking about all sorts of new developments in value-based design. Lots to cover!
- And our design of the week covers a common issue with variant selection. Don’t make the same mistake!
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Links
- Jan Chipchase on research frameworks. Essential read.
- Baymard surveys hundreds of stores’ home pages & information architecture and finds out that pretty much all of them are terrible.
- Should we implement infinite scroll? The answer is usually “no,” but it really does depend on the context. Infinite scroll lacks deeper structural utility for almost all stores, and should be avoided by default.
- Talk to one customer per week. Why not more?
- This article on machine learning is right in that ML models presently contain significant usability issues and are too free-form to act as broadly useful computing models. I’m not quite so sure that machine learning is a new computing paradigm, though. After all, you still have to enter commands to get a machine to do something.
- This is incorrect. UX is not dead because UX is now everywhere, forever, because those in power recognize that UX is itself a form of leveraged power. Makes for a good headline, though.
- This is correct. Most design is theater, but it really shouldn’t be.
- Olive oil.