User Constraints
1. Access restrictions
[Is there any need or criteria to restrict users before engaging with your product?]
Sometimes products can only be designed for certain target groups or for a specific use case. When multiple users are involved in a product (which usually are the case), each UX flow has to be clearly differentiated. The following are two possible types of interventions to restrict the type of users - through authentication or create conditional requirements.
Authentication helps to fully control the type of user accessing the product. This allows new to product users to start a fresh new experience with the product and for existing users to continue theirs by signing in.Alternatively, only certain features within the product might have restrictions that require users to declare or be granted access in light of business limitations, legal cases and/or societal consequences .
Restrictions: Pinterest differentiates their two types of users: Public users who can freely browse through galleries of images and Registered users who sign in to a more personalised feed.
Restrictions: Instagram blocks out sensitive content with an overlay over the images. Users who are comfortable to proceed or of age are required to click on “See Photo” in order to access the content.
2. Proficiency
[Can non-target users still understand the way your product works and performs the intended tasks?]
It is a pitfall for designers to assume that every user has any form of prior baseline knowledge or expectation of how the product or service is going to perform. Not just for users with low to little tech proficiency, common UX interactions might be foreign to certain groups of users. Digital products have to be guided or have certain barriers designed in place to prevent errors and allow for idiot-proof usability. These products have to be intuitive and familiar for varying target groups - allowing for in-depth learnability yet at the same time, speedy for seasoned users.
Tech proficiency: Though the BOLD B is clear to most people that it is a feature to bold certain words, a tooltip will appear after a few seconds of hover for new to tech users to understand quickly what the feature does to prevent any possible errors.
3. Contextualisation
[What needs to be designed in relation to the user’s expected behavior when using the product?]
It is important to remember that users always make mistakes. In order to guide deviating users to the ideal user flow journey, the first rule of thumb is to allow them to return or switch to their preferred user flow immediately. The most common way is to include a back button where necessary.
One example of contextualising user behavior is to consider the periods of inactivity where users might be away from your site to perform other tasks such as research or leave the site. Having features such as time-out components helps to ensure that the process is secured and gives the user assurance that nothing is lost, especially for high-profile services such as banking or document transactions.
Contextualisation: Banking is a sensitive and secured transaction process and customers of HSBC are required to maintain some form of user activity within the service, if not they will be automatically logged-out after a certain duration.
4. Localisation
[What are the possible contextual differences that alternative users might engage with your product/service differently?]
It is very hard for digital products to be designed for cross-regional accessibility. Designing for these constraints requires multiple testing, understanding the business needs and conducting various market research, to understand the potential contextual differences that guides non-target users to use the feature a certain way, in parallel with its native function.
Localization: Common in most banking apps, OCBC offers a range of login methods depending on the contextual use cases and phone feature capabilities in various markets such as SingPass, touch ID or Face ID.
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