

Don’t Count Taps, Count Stresses - markmez
https://medium.com/@mark_mez/don-t-count-touches-count-stresses-83953c043ecb

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gooseus
I suppose the question is how do you rank each stress against each other?

If we use an arbitrary stress unit (maybe call it a "Dammit"), with a single
Tap being the base unit (1 Dammit), then could we use usability tests to try
and quantify a Swipe stress (2 Dammits?)

If a page takes 2 seconds to load, would that be 2 Dammits, or does the Stress
v Page Load graph follow a geometric curve where every half second doubles the
stress (so 2 seconds is then closer to 4 Dammits)

Seems like good research for anyone involved in the alchemy of trying to find
a formula for turning a pile of UX components into that "killer app"

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markmez
That's why I tried to break it down to component stresses as much as possible.
A tap, a swipe, a single second of page load, a single second spent looking
around for something that's hard to find each counting as a single "stress."

That said, there would have to be a ton of research done to see how equivalent
these things really are on the whole. And of course it's going to be context
dependent.

I meant this more as a framework for thinking about making user flows as
simple as possible, and the implications on your product.

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zck
"Stress" here sounds like a kind of inverse analogue to the economic concept
of utility.

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markmez
I think that's fair to say. And importantly, a "stress" is what keeps a user
from achieving the utility of a product.

