"Dear Optimal Workshop
How do you make a small link attractive to people (icon vs. text)?"
— Cassie
Dear Cassie,
I'm going to dive straight into this interesting question with a good old game of Pros and Cons, and then offer a resolution of sorts, with a meandering thought or two along the way. Let's kick things off with Team Icon.
When shopping online, the number above the little shopping trolley icon tells me how badly behaved I’ve been, and if I click on it, I know I’ll get to gleefully review all the shoes I've selected so far. There’s a whole heap of icons out there like this that people have absorbed and can use without thinking twice. Marli Mesibov wrote a fantastic article on the use of icons for UX Booth on the use of icons that is well worth a look. Marli discusses how they work well on small screens, which is a definite bonus when you’re on the go! Young children who aren’t yet literate can easily figure out how to open and play Angry Birds on their parent’s smartphones thanks to icons. And icons also have a great capacity for bridging language barriers.
On the flipside, there are some issues that may huff and puff and blow that cute little home icon down. Starting with there being no consistent standard for them. Sure, there are a handful that are universal like home and print, but beyond that it seems to be a free-for-all. Icons are very much in the hands of the designer and this leaves a lot of room for confusion to grow like bacteria in a badly maintained office refrigerator. Difficult to understand icons can also seriously hinder a user’s ability to learn how to use your website or application. When icons don't communicate what they intend, well, you can guess what happens. In a great piece advocating for text over icons, Joshua Porter writes about an experience he had:
"I have used this UI now for a week and I still have do a double-take each time I want to navigate. I’m not learning what the icons mean. The folder icon represents 'Projects', which I can usually remember (but I think I remember it because it’s simply the first and default option). The second icon, a factory, is actually a link to the 'Manage' screen, where you manage people and projects. This trips me up every time."
If people can't pick up the meaning of your icons quickly and intuitively, they may just stop trying altogether. And now, over to Team Label.
Sometimes language really is the fastest vehicle you've got for delivering a message. If you choose the right words to label your links, you'll leave the user with very little doubt as to what lies beneath. It’s that simple. Carefully-considered and well-written labels can cut through the noise and leave minimal ambiguity in their wake. Quoting Joshua Porter again: "Nothing says 'manage' like 'manage'. In other words, in the battle of clarity between icons and labels, labels always win."
Text labels can get messy and be just as confusing as unfamiliar icons! Words and phrases sometimes don’t mean the same thing to different people. One person’s flat enclosed shoe may be another person’s ballet pump, and the next person may be left scratching their head because they thought pumps were heels and all they wanted was a ballet flat! Text only labels can also become problematic if there isn’t a clear hierarchy of information, and if you have multiple links on one page or screen. Bombarding people with a page of short text links may make it difficult for them to find a starting point. And text may also hold back people who speak other languages.
Because things are always better when we work together! Capitalise on the combined force of text and icons to solve the dilemma. And I don’t mean you should rely on hovers — make both text and icon visible at all times. Two great examples are Google Apps (because nothing says storage like a weird geometric shape...) and the iPhone App store (because the compass and magnifying glass would pose an interesting challenge without text...):
Whatever you decide to run with, test it. Use whatever techniques you have on hand to test all three possibilities — icons only, text only, and icons and text — on real people. No Pros and Cons list, however wonderful, can beat that. And you know, the results will probably surprise you. I ran a quick study recently using Chalkmark to find out where people on the ASOS women's shoes page would click to get to the homepage (and yes, I can alway find ways to make shoe shopping an integral part of my job). 28 people responded, and...
...a whopping 89% of them clicked the logo, just 7% clicked the home icon, and just one person (the remaining 4%) clicked the label 'Home'. Enough said. Thanks for your question Cassie. To finish, here's some on-topic (and well-earned) comic relief (via @TechnicallyRon)
In our latest live training session product experts, Pete and Caitlin, take us on a deep dive into the new and improved qualitative analysis tool Reframer.
The session is loaded with tips and demo’s on how to save time and streamline your qualitative research all within one tool. They also discuss best practices for setting up and conducting user interviews, and how to get the most out of your analysis.
The only tool you need to power your entire qualitative research workflow is here. We’re excited to announce the new and improved Reframer is now live for all customers!
It’s an integral part of any research journey. Think: customer or stakeholder interviews, prototype testing, A/B testing, moderated interviews, and open-ended questions. In a nutshell, it’s anything that isn’t a closed question.
It’s also the most popular research method – 85% of people who do research conduct interviews and usability tests as part of their projects or workflows.
It’s no secret that anyone conducting research is time-poor. Qualitative research is especially time-consuming and messy, as it’s almost always conducted across multiple tools or mediums.
Reframer gives you your time back, and enables you to manage your entire qualitative research workflow within one single tool.
From setting up and conducting interviews, through to analyzing your data – you can uncover those juicy insights in days, not weeks (or months) without ever having to leave the Optimal Workshop app.
Analyzing and making sense of your interview or usability testing data with Reframer is easy and flexible (not to mention very aesthetically pleasing!)
Affinity mapping is a flexible and visual way to quickly group, organize and make sense of qualitative data (i.e. post-its and whiteboards).
With Reframer, affinity mapping is more powerful than ever. Your observations, tags and themes are all connected and stored in one place. It’s easy to search and filter your data, group like observations by proximity, then review and sort them in table format.
The Themes tab offers tag-based analysis with powerful filters. It enables you to explore the relationships between your observations and then create themes based on these relationships. This gives you more quantifiable results to support the qualitative, observation-based analysis that you’ve done in the affinity map.
The chord diagram is a beautifully visual way to easily explore the relationships between your tagged observations and spot key themes.
If you’ve got a lot of tags, it may look a little overwhelming to start with. But don’t let that fool you – it’s easy to get the hang of, and once you do, you’ll wonder how you ever analyzed data without it!
We recommend that you conduct qualitative research as a team, whenever you can. Reframer makes this easy – it was built with collaboration in mind.
On an Optimal Workshop team plan, you can work together from start to finish. Team members can take notes and create or use tags during interview sessions. In the affinity map, you can work collaboratively to group and edit observations in real-time.
If you just need an extra helping hand with taking notes during your interviews or usability tests, you can invite guest notetakers to your sessions. Guest notetakers can take notes in the sessions you invite them to, but can’t see notes taken by others or analyze data.
The guest notetakers feature is a great way to involve your wider team or stakeholders in your user research activities.
Need the raw data from your interviews? Want to share your affinity map visuals with other team members? Both are easily downloadable with the click of a button!
When it comes to conducting qualitative research, Reframer is faster, easier and tidier than using other digital (or manual) tools. It houses all your data and insights in one place and supports the collaborative nature of qualitative research.
It’s not just for seasoned researchers either. We’ve put special focus on ensuring that the analysis is easy to learn for anyone doing qualitative research, regardless of skill level. And our in-app guidance will have you up to speed in no time.
So what are you waiting for? Login now and get started on your Reframer journey!
According to Abby Covert, author, teacher and community leader in the field of information architecture (IA) : ‘IA is the way we arrange pieces of content to make sense when experienced as a whole. By this definition: there is information architecture in everything. Mindblown?’
😮 (That’s a resounding yes from an IA rookie like me.)
In this issue of CRUX we go in search of information architecture and have some surprising encounters in the worlds of emoji, elevators, walking tracks, games and more. We meet UX designers, developers, researchers and even a Senior Park Ranger. It seems you can have your ‘IA hat’ on without even realising it. That’s the power of information architecture.
The stories and people in this issue of CRUX certainly captured our imagination and attention - we hope they inspire and even surprise you too.
Get comfortable and settle in for a great read. Welcome to CRUX #6.
Do you have a burning idea to share or a conversation you’re dying to kickstart that’s of interest to the world of UX? Now’s your chance. We’re already on the lookout for contributors for our next edition of CRUX for 2022. To find out more please drop us a line.