I was wondering about an interesting tradeoff that seems to
come up a lot in UX design, at least if you are doing it right. No matter how conscientious we are, there are
always going to be some flaws in the design.
They can emerge because we had to make a tradeoff to prioritize one
feature over another or it could be that our resources just don’t allow us to
perfect everything. But whatever the
cause, we often have to live with flaws in a design.
So here is the tradeoff.
There are two strategies to deal with the flaw when it comes to
communicating it to users. We can
explicitly call it to the user’s attention and take this opportunity to frame
it in the most positive (or the least negative) way. This can minimize the perceived severity of
the flaw, show the user that we take responsibility for it, and explain why it
exists.
On the other hand, we can keep mum, hope they don’t see it,
or at least don’t see it in full. This
can minimize the likelihood it is noticed, and if it is noticed perhaps not all
of it.
There are some cases where the answer is clear. If the flaw is so obvious that users can’t
miss it, the second strategy won’t work so we may as well go with the first
one. And if the flaw is so obscure that
most users will definitely miss it, the second one seems like a reasonable
choice. But I don’t think either of
these extremes is very common. Most design
contexts will fall somewhere in the middle and so we have to make a hard
decision.
Which way do you usually go?
Why? I am really interested in
hearing some justifications for one strategy over the other. They both seem to have merit.
