I don't think the 2nd UX was in any way less "straightforward"
For an app that is heavily reliant on geographical location, showing things on a map is way more intuitive than just showing whatever random location was last reviewed
Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
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Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#12IMHO they’re taking the wrong lesson from this. Users don’t want complexity and they don’t want to hunt, but they desperately want not to waste time — they want some confidence that the action they’re about to take will further their goals. Showing an unordered list of unfamiliar names doesn’t further anyone’s goals, and it gives no confidence that further action will help, either. Why keep scrolling if all the names…
I agree with this. The initial design presents trail names and a report with no context. I would immediately wonder what the list was..is this all trails within 30 minutes, 100 miles, or something else? Why is this trail sorted at the top...because it's the closest or the best, or most recently reported on? And why this particular report? Is it just the most recent, or the most upvoted? And those tags...is that the t…
Yeah, I totally agree — lack of context. Even a little context would help the original list, e.g., “Most reviewed trails in the last 7 days.”
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#13The title is really a stretch. The "less straightforward UX" presented new information that the original UX did not—viz., where the locations were on a map—and made it easy for people to find the most recent report from a given location. I guess if you have memorized the names of all the trails you're interested in, and know their locations, then technically the original UX can be used in the same way by typing in those names; but if that's not the case, and if your approach is "look at the locations in approximate order of how nearby they are and view the most recent report for each", then the new UX is more straightforward. (Maybe it was less straightforward for the author to implement, but that is not what "straightforward UX" means.)
He says himself: "When surveyed, 76% of users reported that they only skied at trails within 30 minutes of their home. This was a huge breakthrough. It indicates that people place the highest priority on nearby trails". And so the users are happier with an interface that shows location. The idea that this is explained by users wanting their interface to be an unsolved Rubik's cube and users liking to hunt for information rather than having it be presented to them ... I can only hope that he's joking.
Incidentally, he could also have taken the original UX and added some "Sort by: [date | proximity | ...]" tooling, plus a field saying "X miles away", which would probably be more efficient all around.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#14The first UI is just bad. It doesn't tell you how far the trail is from you, it doesn't tell you how many other reviews of the trail there are, it doesn't tell you the average rating of the trail, it can't be sorted or filtered.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#15The post is missing the key point entirely. The issue here is not about a "straightforward" vs "less straightforward" UX. The "card" view likely did not work because users primarily wanted to check reports for a specific trail located in a specific area, and not browse through a feed of reports for pleasure. The UX wasn't just not straightforward—it basically did not work for the primary use case.
It would have been more interesting to compare "straightforward" vs "less straightforward" on the map view. E.g. show markers for all trails nearby vs show markers for your favorite trails (similarly to what the "card" view attempted to do).
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#16I think the lesson is to not think first about your data and how to put it on a screen.
Start with the user and then figure out how to utilize your data to support your UI.
Dumping database records to a list view on the screen, no matter how pretty you make each entry, is rarely useful.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#17IMHO they’re taking the wrong lesson from this. Users don’t want complexity and they don’t want to hunt, but they desperately want not to waste time — they want some confidence that the action they’re about to take will further their goals. Showing an unordered list of unfamiliar names doesn’t further anyone’s goals, and it gives no confidence that further action will help, either. Why keep scrolling if all the names…
I think you're right. The expected value of a result is generally low in these fundamentally geographical applications that try to avoid displaying a map. There tends to be both inclusion and exclusion error, and viewing things on a map helps for most applications of this type.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#18The title is really a stretch. The "less straightforward UX" presented new information that the original UX did not—viz., where the locations were on a map—and made it easy for people to find the most recent report from a given location. I guess if you have memorized the names of all the trails you're interested in, and know their locations, then technically the original UX can be used in the same way by typing in th…
"This was a huge breakthrough" caught me off-guard.
People prefer trails within 30 minutes of their home as opposed to what? Within 72 hours of their home? I am not sure if a user survey was needed to determine this obvious fact.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#19Title is clickbait close to trolling. The Original UX was not optimized for the top use case and then OP came up with a better solution.
Re: Sometimes users prefer the less straightforward UX
#20May be finding a spot on the map may be much more intuitive, faster and comfortable to a lot of people than typing the name in a search box?