Delivered at Uxify http://uxify.net/ on 19 June 2015, the talk explores the current understanding of habits, gives examples of how software helps users maintain habits or prevent them from doing it. Finally the presentation argues that it is the job of the designer to take into consideration user habits and design around or towards them.

1. Out of Habit

3. Take a pen/pencil + a piece of paper
Put down your signature
Now do it with the other hand

4. About
Talk
 Current understanding of habits: concepts + examples
 It is the job of the designer to consider user habits
Focus
 User experiences, interactions, ease of use
 Not addictions, nor conversion

5. Me
Jimmy
 UX practitioner
 Product Experience for SAP HANA Cloud Platform @ SAP
Goal
 Make you think about habits when designing

6. Log in to Windows 8.1

7. Habit
…a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and
tends to occur unconsciously
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habit

8. 40-50% habits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habit

9. Can you ride a bike?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0

10. Energy management – Automation saves energy
No need to make decisions
> lower cognitive load
> reduced exertion of willpower
> less stress
> better self-control
> more happiness
? better user experience
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/23/better-than-before-gretchen-rubin/

11. Can you not click?
http://www.dontclick.it/

12. Habits live in the basal ganglia
image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_ganglia

13. Search vs. Index
(why I suspect early Google succeeded)
http://www.aliexpress.com/

14. Habit formation
cue > action > result
 Cue = something that triggers the behavior
 Action = the routine we perform
 Result = reward or lack of punishment
 Investment = work that users need to perform with the
product to get attached to it (Nir Eyal’s Hook Model)
Nir Eyal’s Hook Model video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDtycnZgCfY&feature=youtu.be&a

15. Ribbon vs. Toolbars

16. Office 2003Office 2007
http://www.lucrat.net/blog/advice/office2007_kordela/

17. too many

18. Mastery
image source: http://arsspiritus.com/how-to-master-anything/

19. Existing mastery
knowledge lost
No flexibility – cannot
rearrange things
Preserved old shortcuts:
Alt+V+D or Alt+E+S
Preserved visual
appearance and names

20. How to support user habits

21. Consistency: within a product
 The same things
appear and behave
the same way
 Guidelines can help

22. Consistency: Within product families
Example: Format Painter shortcut
 In Word
 In OneNote
 In Excel

23. Consistency: Across products
 CTRL+C means copy in virtually all windows products
 Search
 Where is the search box?
 Every search that does not work the way that Google
search works is breaking habits

24. Stick to patterns

25. Gradual change: evolution rather than big bang
http://www.uie.com/articles/radical_redesign/ | image source: https://twitter.com/search?q=jarred%20spool&src=typd
Take The Glacial-Speed Approach
like Amazon do
Jarred Spool

26. Usable

27. In summary
 Habits:
 powerful automation tool;
 help us stay sane and happy
 People:
 excellent habit-building machines;
 form habits in any situation
 Redesign:
 can easily break existing user habits
 We, the designers, must consider user habits

28. Development process: do you have the right habits?

29. Now, it is habitual for the audience to ask questions

30. Dimiter Simov
@dsimov
about.me/dsimov