Beyond Technical Usability

Photo by Fabian Gieske

You might have noticed in our recent post, Inconsistent Experience, A UX Audit Case Study, which highlighted a UX & Design Audit example from the insurance space, that the issue described was not entirely about a technical usability audit. The focus on product trust impacted by inconsistent onboarding is very much part of the umbrella term ‘usability’ but it has more to do with users’ conceptual and mental modelling of a product over the technical usability (navigation, etc). When assessing this consider the following:

• It is important to initially assess users’ comprehension of your product. This includes both direct communication, such as textual articulation of the value proposition(s) and call(s) to action, and indirect such as visual communication that helps establish trust, relatedness, metaphors, and support communication. If there are no obvious issues with users’ comprehension of the intended communication then we can move on to assess gaps in the conceptual and mental models formed by users about your product.
• We would love users to make a cup of coffee, sit back, take their time to read every single word we wrote for them and carefully enjoy the visual experiences we worked so hard to craft for them. However, as product designers/owners, we know that in reality users are more likely to skim through a new digital product over a few, brief seconds at best. In this short time, users gather different cues from the textual and visual communication elements and form a conceptual understanding of what the product is and how to interact with it. Therefore, once we establish that users generally understand the main product value proposition and its main premises we also want to assess how they conceptually envision the entire journey and experience. Importantly, we also want to assess any gaps between what the user initially held in their mind about the product and their actual experience navigating through the product.

There is a variety of methods to confidently assess user comprehension and perform conceptual and mental modelling.

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