I internalized that UX is super important from two major mishaps:
-
While collecting money for a donation from students in 5th class, I messed up noting the amount in my notebook. I wrote “1” in a way that was very close to “2” and it caused me to go check-in again with the folks wherever there was confusion.
-
While working on an early-stage startup idea, I added a feature in our app for onboarding new customers. While building it out, I had a flow in mind that the operations team would open a profile, click on a button that opens a popup to take in new data, fill out their contact number, click on save, and go back. What happened was the team member missed clicking on the save button. They filled the number and pressed back as the app allowed them and this flow made more sense to them. I was there going door-to-door with my operations team member to see how it goes on the first day. I’ve never felt more stupid.
Bad UX cost us numbers! We went door-to-door and failed to capture any data. That’s when I finally started exploring the world of design. If you’re interested in learning more about UX, the book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug gives a nice introduction. The easy language will tempt you to read more. It’ll motivate you to do usability testing and also keep accessibility in mind. It also provides great insights into how we use the web today.