Practitioners-Guide-User-Experience-Design

do note if one flow is part of a larger flow. For example, if sign-up is part of
another task, indicate that it exists for first-time users but make a separate flow
for it.
» Create a key to indicate the different elements in a flow and record all that you
can. The most basic pieces are pages and user decisions, but animations, menus,
pop-ups, hover states, sub-flows, system processes, loading screens, and any
other inputs or outputs are elements that create the experience.
» Keep flows linear. This will mean creating multiple flows for all the different
ways a task begins or breaks off midstream.
» Don’t neglect endpoints that may come through other media. Follow-up
emails and mobile alerts are part of the experience, too.
» Once you have linearly mapped the possible task to completion, identify
points where the usability LEMErS come into play by comparing flows. These
include number of interactions, number of pages, power user interactions,
intelligent uses of data by the system, automated interactions, tips or hints,
changes to state based on number of times a task is attempted, and any other
heuristic of usability.
» Finally, come back to your flows throughout the design process and compare
them as needed based on what you are able to release in each version.
Once you’ve crafted the basic flows, you should look through them to identify
junctures that may cause confusion or irritation, perhaps due to too many steps. You
should also look for opportunities to add some storytelling flourishes. I heard a great story
about a redesign of the Dallas airport that helps me keep in mind that I should always be
on alert for spotting opportunities to tailor flows to the psychology of users and their
emotions.
Fliers were complaining that the time spent waiting for baggage was far too long. In
response, the powers that be decided the solution was to hire more workers to move the
baggage. The complaints dropped, but not nearly enough to indicate that the problem was
solved. A consultancy was hired to perform some systems analysis, doing a job similar to
that of a UX designer. The consultants went to work by recording the steps it took for a
typical customer to make her way through the airport, from when her plane touched down
on the tarmac to when she arrived at baggage claim. This is the equivalent of crafting a
user flow. They then measured the time required for taxiing to the gate and for each of the
following steps. They discovered that it took passengers on average two minutes to walk
from the jet bridge to the baggage claim and then eight minutes of waiting for the baggage
to arrive. They then took a look at everything about the process that could be changed and
that couldn’t; the equivalent of learning the constraints of the system. The time for taxiing
couldn’t be changed, and more workers had already been hired to move the baggage from
the plane to the terminal faster, so that wasn’t the place to look. What the consultants
homed in on was the time customers spent walking from the jet bridge to baggage claim.
Their recommendation was to move the jet bridge farther away, which resulted in eight
minutes spent walking and just two minutes spent waiting for bags, which led to a
significant reduction in customer complaints.
Why did a reversal of the time spent walking and waiting make a difference? The
answer lies in a discovery in cognitive psychology about differences in the perception of