Background
Design is never smooth-sailing. Especially for populations in low developing countries and less tech-savvy users, the idea of designing for error prevention helps to minimise risks and user’s pain points when they use the product differently from the ideal expected use case. A well-thought designed product is able to cover a range of constraints and still function perfectly up to its dedicated tasks.
It is the duty of Designers, Product Managers, User Researchers, Developers and Engineers to always have it surfaced and catered for when developing any products or services and to repeatedly conduct user testing and feedback to uncover the relevant constraints.
How do interfaces handle constraints?
Seen in many systems, mobile apps and web interfaces, there are always stop-gap measures in place to deal with unintended or unforeseen situations. These errors and constraints can be dealt with in two different ways. Firstly, preventive measures highlight potential constraints and intervene right at the forefront, before the problem even arises, usually in the copywriting. The second alternative approach is to use diagnostic measures which recognises or follow up after a particular problem or issue is faced. This is also commonly known as “error states”.
There are four broad segments for constraints -
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How can we design to cater for these constraints?
Based on these broad segments that constraints can be covered under, below are 7 learning points that designers can include/take note of when designing for better products.
1. [User] Ensure there is embed learnability so new users can quickly adapt.
Even though Google Docs might believe that the BOLD B is very intuitive that it is a feature to bold certain words to most people, they went on to design a hovered tooltip that will appear after a few seconds for new to tech users to understand quickly what the feature does to prevent any possible errors.
2. [User] Ensure vast coverage on localisation & contextualisation behaviours by doing extensive research.
Common in most banking apps, OCBC do not just offer a single login method but a range of alternatives depending on the contextual use cases and phone feature capabilities in various markets such as SingPass, touch ID or Face ID.
3. [Medium] Ensure flexibility in scalability of design elements.
Ensure design elements are not cut-off when switching between different screen sizes. The quickest way to cater for an omni-channel experience is to use a responsive design. An alternative, like Spotify, is to allocate resources to different product owners to develop the specific design for each medium.
4. [Medium] Always use bold colours and clear high-quality visuals for important information.
No matter the brightness level or exposure on the digital screen, important information should still stand out and the product should still be visibly usable.
5. [Data] Ensure any usage of personal data has a clear explanation on how it is handled and the source of the data extraction.
Any usage/extraction of personal data requires clear explanation and permission access. This permission can either be a single pop-up during each experience or permanently enabled and users are given a choice.
6. [Network] Ensure users are able to minimally perform essential usage of features during an offline state.
There are three types of offline state: Skeleton loading of the UI, Restriction on certain features and lastly, disabling of the feature altogether.
7. [Network] Use indicators/statuses with detailed descriptions to show progress.
Like Fitbit, they indicate clearly using colours, symbols, icons, text etc. to show status and progress to inform users that the network is still working and the product is still functioning.
Conclusion
Though there are many more constraints that could potentially be designed for, user testing and research still is the best way to identify these constraints and limitations that hinders product usage by the users.
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