

Why I design for my mom - joshdotsmith
http://startupsforupstarts.com/why-i-design-for-my-mom

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joshdotsmith
Would love to know what others think about this. While I think I'm on the
right track with my mindset, I'm curious whether others have similarly put
themselves in their moms shoes. I'd also love to hear whether people are
seeing a shift in their user demographics to more older women, or if only the
big boys are seeing such growth.

~~~
frossie
You know, I was all riled up at the title, because usually this crops up as
"even my mum understand this" which is used to mean "even some computer
illiterate dinosaur" can understand it. Which, you know, is stereotyping and
fails to describe a lot of mums.

However on actually reading the post :-) I realised I was unfair, since in
this case your mum stands in for an active middle-aged internet user who is
not a geek, but reasonably sophisticated. So, uh, carry on.

To make amends, I'll throw in some advice:

People who think middle-aged women somehow can't handle complexity are
generally mistaken - look up some coupon sites, these women are explaining
strategies that make your head hurt. So don't think it is necessarily a
question of avoiding _complexity_ when dealing with that population. In my
opinion the big driver in that demographic is _utility_. You have to get to
the point where it is obvious what your product can do for them as quickly as
possible. They will take the complexity, if they believe it is necessary, but
they don't want to waste their time.

[Edit: Forgot to say, obviously never base all your feedback on one person, no
matter how typical you think they are.]

~~~
joshdotsmith
Absolutely true. If the utility isn't immediately obvious, your product will
flounder. What I think this means is that utility can sometimes be rendered
less obvious by complexity, if both aren't considered holistically. Goals is
most certainly complex: dreams are superordinate to goals, goals are
superordinate to tasks. But for her the presentation all flows and makes
sense. The complexity is not overwhelming, because it accords with her mental
models.

I also like to try to guide wherever possible. Even the most advanced users
will appreciate extra guidance, be it tooltips, choice of words, or just the
overall layout.

And yes, of course feedback shouldn't be based on a single person. That's my
fault for implying it should. My point was simply that most developers design
for themselves, and releasing yourself from that mindset is a good thing to
do. That said, agile and metrics-based development is really the way to go.
Get your MVP out there fast and iterate quickly.

------
paulsingh
Actually, I _have_ to design for my mom -- I built my latest niche product for
notary publics. :)

The funny thing is that I knew she was doing notary stuff on the side for a
long time now. I simply didn't realize she was using spreadsheets to manage it
all.

The UI is _really_ clunky still but most of that is a casualty of releasing
something "ghetto, but useful" ASAP. I'm in the process of rebuilding it right
now and it'll have a much prettier/useful interface rolled out in the next 3
weeks or so (though, mom's account is running the latest version of the UI).
:)

