Palmistry UX

    Recently, leading British teachings have found that all people in the world want to be rich, healthy and happy. And some are also full. Moreover, it turned out that people are ready to carry any money to any place where they will create, show, do, wish the image of success and wealth that they themselves always dreamed about.

    But seriously, this text is that my great-grandmother Evdokia was a medicine woman and fortuneteller by hand, and therefore she made this breakthrough alone 100 years earlier than the entire world scientific community, simply wishing people happiness, health, marriage, and others good Actually, it was she who taught me all the usability knowledge at the master's level, which I now hasten to share with you.

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    Part 1: Magic


    Of course, sets of lines on the arm, their shape and bends in themselves do not mean anything at all. You can digitize every cell in the palm of your hand, build a mathematical model and all kinds of graphs, create rows of tables and columns and brag about using BigDate for a long time, but in principle there are no useful information for the experienced healer in the lines on the hand. It is everywhere, the whole world is information, everywhere except lines, it can be infinitely scooped and used. The lines themselves were needed only to divert eyes, to create an aura of mystery and secrecy of great knowledge, because no one needs accessible free information, only secret, paid, from under the floor, through the keyhole is valuable.

    Real magic at all times was contained in these simple wisdom. The voice of the common people in the image of my great-grandmother sounds in my head at every usability conference, as soon as the internal bullshitmeter of innovative methods starts to roll off:

    - First look at how a person is dressed, how long he’s been going to you, whether he’s accustomed to order, clothes are also a language that can tell a lot to others. Then look, whether you’re tired, not in grief, mistrustful or mocking, ready to listen or to speak out for the first time and say everything about yourself.

    Then about the hand - how did they give the hand, quickly or slowly? How did they “open up,” that is, what was the gesture of turning the palm upwards itself? The hand itself is heavy or light, hot or cold, with a slight trembling it is held on weight, or falls down on the table like a cul. Well, the eyes, how they look, what they expect, how they react.

    A little warn him against the bad, say a couple of small sorrows, and in the end give him hope, joy and light as much as he can carry with him. That’s all wisdom, no hypnosis, simple healing from internal anxieties and doubts.

    Jobs Hypnosis


    In each company, there is always a person who is sincerely convinced that none of his entourage has heard of Jobs and with a mentor tone will begin to retell the story of how a brilliant visionary, without talking to anyone or testing anything, sat motionlessly in the Tibetan cave a thousand years in the lotus position, and then he came out and received his sight, and comprehended, and invented ... Today I will be such a person.

    Jobs is an ideal example of a palmist and a hypnotist who has managed to immerse the whole world in a kind of mass psychosis for several decades. After all, all his life he did not sell phones and computers, he sold the image of success, such excellent exclusivity. I would even say - delight from the process of using any product.

    And it doesn’t matter what kind of goods would go in the load to the Superman’s image made by him: he could equally well sell nails to stylishly hammer them into his head (two colors, a minimum of settings, on a nail head - a symbol of difference from the rest of the gray majority and herd ) The main thing was that as an experienced palmist, Jobs knew the Secret: people always buy exactly one thing - new improved images of themselves.

    I, but more self-confident; I, but fashionably equipped with different cars; I, but arousing interest in the opposite sex; I, but not dying of boredom in the subway ...

    It will not be a big mistake to say that the vast majority of people are not enthusiastic about themselves and this is completely natural - we get older, tired, sometimes even sick, that is, our body is barely noticeable, but every second regresses towards old age and death. And each of us hopes that a new image, a bright look, an unexpectedly fresh supply of his suffering body - will be able to change his fate, and affect the attitude of the community and improve the place for distribution of nishtyaks.

    The technology of the touchscreen itself, from the point of view of anatomy and human evolution, its technology of flat buttonless phones - has been and remains truly terrible and catastrophically inconvenient. Billions of years of human evolution did not imply such degradation: the transition from the three-dimensional world of a mammoth hunter with tactile sensations and smells to a more primitive two-dimensional one, with imperceptible control over flat weightless elements.

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    Fortunately, his intoxication gradually disappears, and people begin to recall that the tactile mechanical buttons are noticeably, several orders of magnitude superior and superior to all touch screens, which all people who have at least a little understanding of in design for the last ten years have been shouting:

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    The voice of the hypnotist Jobs gradually subsides in our head, and understanding comes that the development of smartphones could go in a completely different more rational way: to combining the phone and the trackball / joystick, which would give us all:

    • much more accurate clicks and controls,
    • perceptibility of the control element,
    • the effect of monitoring the situation at the expense of a convex three-dimensional round and pleasant mechanical element.

    Yes, small one-finger joysticks appeared everywhere in phones and over time they simply had to get bigger: not under one finger, but under a full palm. I note that the monetary prospects of combining game consoles with such phones of the future could not be overestimated. But then a great palmist came, and the games became flat and primitive, like lines in the palm of your hand.

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    Today there is no more sad sight in the world than the imitation of a convex and mechanical game joystick on a flat screen. Mankind could decide on such madness only under hypnosis and nothing else. Playing with such an interface in the GTA’s three-dimensional space is so uncomfortable and unnatural that only a veil of mass psychosis from flat screens and flat design makes it difficult to notice this.

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    If it weren’t for one talented hypnotist, the phones would naturally have evolved along this path, becoming micro-books with full Windows on board and the ability to type a complex phrase in a text document from the first, and not the tenth time, and also make other manipulations are tens of times more complicated than a swipe:

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    Did Jobs conduct research, cast doubt on his completely failed theory that any device should contain “one button or less”, and be extremely monolithic, solid and rounded?

    Of course, he had a clear and precise understanding of how inspired our society is and what percentage of the Earth’s population is simply languishing from internal pain, dissatisfaction and lack of maternal love.

    It is enough to tell all of us that we are special, beloved, and give them a rounded device with one button below, than to remind them of such a warm and adored mother’s breast, from which they were so quickly and rude forever torn off by a cruel life.

    Is it necessary to conduct multimillion-dollar studies of the simplest question: “Do people of both sexes want to pick up and interact with a device reminiscent of the most pleasant and complete love and bliss of their life?” - when the answer to it is already known.

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    However, I remind you that the military, as the least suggestible and zombie category of people, is why they are in no hurry to integrate touch-screens and flat screens with material design into their latest automatic machines and pistols.

    It sounds old-fashioned and completely un-hipster, but alas: for shots there you still need to press the lever, like 500 years ago, constantly being shy in front of more advanced friends of their conservatism. The military geniuses of the 21st century are also convinced that a three-dimensional tangible lever is many times more convenient and effective, especially when it comes to life and death, and not about the momentary throwing of show-offs.

    The more educated a person, the more practical and useful activity he is engaged in - the less he is susceptible to marketing suggestion.

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    Related article

    Part 2: everything is war


    So where do you start sketching in Sketch? The Japanese say that business is war, and since business can be translated as “business, business, occupation, firm, transaction, commercial activity,” there will be no big assumption that everything is war, and any war is unthinkable without intelligence.

    That in the era of the ancient Chinese theorist Sun Tzu, that in our digital era, it is intelligence, its quality, its results - that are the determining factor in victory or defeat. And as intelligence is divided into military (tactical) and strategic, so in market research you can distinguish between:

    A) tactical-marketing research that answers the question:
    Who, Where, How much, What are they armed with and What are they doing? Surveys (interviews) or covert surveillance (Webvisor) are best for this. The analogy with military intelligence is absolute here:

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    B) Strategic UX-studies that are not focused on the number of click-percent-users and what they are doing now - but try to look into the future of the human experience of thousands of years, determining the potential for development, looking for the shortest way for a possible victory. The questions here are of a different order:

    What is the person planning? What can he use? What is most afraid of, and what can triple his strength?

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    The easiest way to illustrate this difference is as follows:

    Grabbing the “tongue” and then torturing him for a long time, finding out how many fighters and machine guns are in his squad, while hoping that he does not lie and does not pass out after a second from fatigue - this is the most clumsy tactic. Having counted testimonies from hundreds of such “languages”, you can find similar testimonies and call them “conditionally reliable”, because people lie differently, but the pieces of truth that spice up the lies will always be identical. But it is not exactly.

    To find out that a herd of buffaloes is grazing nearby , with which you can simply sweep the enemy’s army, reaching the goal and saving your most valuable human resource - this is a much broader view of the methods of achieving the goal. Finding paths with the highest efficiency possible is what a strategy is in UX research.

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    From time immemorial, sources of data of any strategic intelligence are, I quote with small inserts for the best drawing of analogies:

    1. Available technologies - objective information about the achievements of science, health care, scientific personnel and their training, the ability of science to contribute to the development of industry and research to achieve this goal. This is essentially a study of ourselves: "What we have, what we can give, what tools we have in principle." Principle: "Start with yourself", despite the banality and beatenness, is still extremely effective, and (apparently for the same reason) is practically not used today.
    2. Uncontrolled factors that have a significant impact and are not manageable. In the army, this is above allgeographic information including terrain, weather, climate, hydrography, and oceanography data.
    3. Customer Journey map - information about communications; strategic logistics: information about communication lines, traffic flows, the condition of roads, bridges, tunnels, mountain passages, straits and other, departure and arrival points, focal points - places of thickening and intersection of transport routes, coordinating and distribution centers.
    4. Monetization. Where is the money or other other resources here? Military science refers to this as economic information, including information on industry, finances, employed and not employed labor, and more.
    5. Military intelligence information -that is, the same initial tactical and marketing research: interrogations, torture by an IT tracker, twisting of arms on the flat screens of smartphones.
    6. Sociological information, including information about the population, religion, education, national traditions and morale of the people.
    7. Political information, including information about the public administration system, political parties, foreign policy and more. The last two paragraphs do not need explanation and are quoted verbatim.

    And one of the most popular mistakes in today's Russian IT cluster is to confuse strategy with tactics, marketing with needs, and instead of living people see only money or fractions of a percent.

    Avito - open to people


    I’ll try to illustrate where one of the most popular Avito services and publicly available data about them begin, where the primitive tactical analysis ends and the real strategic examination begins.

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    So, here is the usual data from the SimilarWeb service, which smart tactics can easily turn into a colorful presentation of 20-30 slides that it would be nice to strengthen your presence on social networks, focusing on Facebook, in which more solvent users sit, than in Odnoklassniki; and indeed increase the heat precisely in the segment of housing and used cars, as the most popular among the population.

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    And yes, even on the Main page there are an excessive number of buttons of the same shape, the equivalent visual weight of which creates a problem known since ancient Greece as the “Buridan donkey”.

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    Well, yes, thanks, that’s all, of course, very useful.

    Another specialist, already of a mixed type, who is still slightly distinguishing UX from UI, and the strategy from plans for dinner, already at the bottom of my ear heard at regular courses that all marketing pieces should be tied to users. Alas, he is afraid of living people from school (they will start to beat and bite again), and therefore he invents them for himself:

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    These are nonexistent Masha and Vitya. Masha wants to rent a room, and Vitya wants to sell a car. I think that Masha could want this and that, act like this, and also (since I’m her Creator and a full-fledged Master), let her have 5 breasts. Oh yes, and still my Masha is not married and looking for a young smart guy who knows how to make beautiful slides - this is very important, be sure to mark this for yourself as a key feature of the personality of our Character.

    Yes, you have no doubt, I personally knew 5 years ago one Masha and she was not married. She really did not look for anything on Avito, and indeed ignored me, but we have a collective image, we have no time to feel the pain of everyone, therefore we generalize and summarize everything together.

    The real strategist will start by organizing a summer festival in Sokolniki with a food court and hugs on the pretext of collecting information from ordinary people “Avito is open to people.” About ten groups with cameras will go there and ask questions, and smile and give T-shirts and record everything on video.

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    Then, our experienced strategist, of course, will throw all this video into the bucket without even looking, because these are the same lines on the hand that do not mean anything.

    Well, because people always lie, especially in an unnatural environment for themselves, on camera and in front of a girlfriend - no one in the world has ever said the truth about themselves.

    But, from a strategic point of view, it is very important to show people that they have become interested in their opinion, that it is important, that they are examined, recorded and painstakingly analyzed every word, head rotation, pupil movement, pulse, blood sugar and stomach contents. People are just humanly pleased to feel such an interest in themselves from a large company (coupled with treats and free balls), because all this is still a rarity and almost a breakdown of templates.

    So an experienced strategic intelligence officer reveals his plans, but does not disclose the ways in which they will be achieved.

    Further, a good strategist hurries ( to open his macbook ) to his own team to find out as much information as possible about himself:

    • what technical capabilities we have and, for example, how much it will cost to screw video streams from selling users with an online auction,
    • what are the stable chains of behavioral scenarios. Perhaps a third of all people after searching for housing - begins to look for furniture there. Or children's toys. Or a car. Or another housing, but already in a higher price category, as we have suffered. Here, tactics with their percentage studies and slices are connected.
    • what is the general climate and atmosphere in RuNet - what do people crave, how do they joke, what trends are being watched. Memasics, rap battles, disappearing photos - everything can be put into business wisely. For example, the same Snapchat effect can be applied when renting a home. For example, you can calculate how much it will cost to convince all potential tenants that you can get a truly rare and unique offer in a good area and renovated only by advancing.

    You always would like to buy for money the opportunity to hide a very good announcement of the owner of the apartment on the site for 2 hours, while you are on your own inspection, so that a wave of other users would not interrupt the price and distract calls in the process of concluding your contract.

    And here the personal charisma of the strategist, his persuasiveness and faith in himself will have the maximum effect on the adoption of his hypotheses (in fact, of course, not personal - everything has been invented before us, and all 21st century creative has narrowed down to associative juxtaposition and mixing proven and proven techniques).

    For example, an actual high-quality strategist will get approximately the following prototype of a user's personal account, forming his new image according to all needs immediately using chat channels:


    Or maybe it will be a full-fledged role model, in which, on the basis of his dreams, wishes and hotel wishes, the system itself will offer a pumping tree for his apartment, work, smartphone model and a girl suitable for dating, using life experience points and available funds. Who knows who saw these really good strategists?



    or even so:
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    A good strategist is like a professional sports car racer, for whom the usual speed limits in the city in the form of “10 Nielsen commandments” or “5 required books from Sateen” seem ridiculous and ridiculous limiters in the battle for victory.

    All that a novice driver needs with trembling hands on the way from home to the bakery is a hindrance for an athlete and a real warrior. But knowing your own technique, its maximum, its stability on the most dangerous bend is the only chance to overtake all those who drive diligently and according to the rules, eagerly sticking out their tongue when compiling the next quantitative questionnaire.

    A strategist is the same palmist who never looks at the lines themselves in the palm of his hand, but reads and builds into a single picture all that surrounds the process of divination by hand, its causes and possible goals.

    And therefore, not specific lines, shadows and pixels are important in your interface - but the whole concept. An idea and a message that speaks a language that is understandable to a person is much more important than a set of buttons, tapes, swipe and checkboxes - never forget about it.

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