Zoltan Kollin, UX designer, co-organizer of the Amuse UX Conference and co-author of UX Myths (another highly recommendable collection of user experience tips and guidelines) recently wrote a post about misused mobile UX patterns.
We’ve seen it all on the mobile platform of our choice:
- icons whose meaning is hard to guess
- the dreaded hamburger menu and hidden screens
- inconsistent gestures and features that are hidden behind them
Zoltan mentions those and a few more bad practices, explains why they’re bad and gives examples of better alternatives. He urges us to build on best practices and design patterns learned by others but also to always be questioning those patterns and think for ourselves. Design patterns are very useful because they provide a common language that’s easily understood by both designers and users. However, design patterns – when applied without actually giving thought to whether they might be useful or appropriate in the given context – can also lead to cargo cult and bad, or at least worse than possible – UX.
So, go have a look at Misused Mobile UX Patterns (and UX Myths as well) and think about it when designing your next mobile user interface.