It would seem that thinking about preserving the view of a Parisian street in a picture before the invention of the camera was pure abstraction. Meanwhile, when Louise Daguerre snapped the first photograph in 1839 (the exposure time of which was several long minutes), the invention - despite the fact that nothing was the same after it - was smoothly accepted by society and the French government, which declared, moreover, that it belonged to the whole world. And kick the soul! And family portraits, and bathroom selfies. It doesn't matter. The important thing is that people were prepared for this type of solution - although spectacularly innovative, it is nevertheless inscribed in some context - because we have already heard about the fact that you can write an image on paper.
An idea too innovative
The older we get, the more barriers we build around us — barriers that, as a rule, are noticed only by the “glass and the eye”. And then begins to complain that everything was already there. Fortunately, neither the creators of the Internet nor the caramel flavored ice cream with salt came out of such an assumption. In the first case, they perfectly met the needs of a modern person (an individualist who lives in a group), and in the second they went against the grain with something well-known.
Have you heard of the Maya Principle? Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable. It was led by one of the most famous car designers, Raymond Loewy. Maybe this thought was a truism, but sometimes it is forgotten that the innovativeness of our design ceases to make sense if no one wants to use it. While most of us are curious about new things, we like more what we already know — for example, songs we've already heard.
The interface, no matter how much its design sweeps out of slippers, will be useless if it is not useful. No, it's not butter butter. It is not about stopping your ideas halfway, just that the idea itself is simply a curiosity and only the positive experiences of its users measure its value.
Let's examine ourselves!
And here comes the big word “usability” that rumbles in the back of every UX designer's head. But it doesn't have to mean the same thing to everyone. The generally accepted standard is to create user personas to whom we direct our offer. This way we know who we are talking to — how we are speaking. It is like preparing dinner for guests from different countries and different culinary regions — we will serve something different on each plate, but since we know that Italians, French and Germans will come, we also know what will be on these plates and what our dishes should look like.
Unless we are Apple
And at that moment we hear the sound of a bitten apple — all eyes on Apple! One of the most powerful brands in the world, which sets the direction for the development of the entire industry and is a master of design, usability testing has a deep respect. He never asks his lovers about what they lack in the latest iPhone. Apple has a knack for not shedding product secrecy before launch to the point that even the design teams don't know much about each other's work. Why are Apple products so perfect in terms of design and usability? Everything, every little thing starts with thinking about design and usability. However, Apple is not a brand — it is a state of mind that its users want to fall into. They want to be like Apple — unique, stylish, confident — and not the other way around.
However, it should be remembered that Apple is a specific case - by the way, for a separate article. If we launch an untested service or app, it's a bit like throwing a fishing rod and throwing it into the river in the hope that it will come ashore with our raw dinner. Apple, on the other hand, is worth focusing on seeing through the eyes of the user — because the idea is worth as much as the customer pays for it.
