Shanivi Gupta’s Post

📅 Day 15 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Ever tried to delete something but got stuck because the icon looked confusing instead of just showing a simple 'delete' button? Let’s Talk About Match between system and real world So, what exactly is Match between the system and the real world? The way a system (like an app or website) works should feel natural and familiar to the user. It should use words, symbols, and actions that people already know from their everyday life. ✅ Why It Matters When a user sees a trash bin icon on their computer, they instantly know it's for deleting files because it looks like the trash bins used in real life. This principle helps users understand and interact with a system more easily because it behaves in a way that makes sense based on their real-world experiences. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers Product managers who prioritize this principle are more likely to create products that resonate with their audience. When the product uses familiar language, symbols, and concepts, it reduces the learning curve for users, leading to a better user experience. This, in turn, can increase user satisfaction, reduce the need for customer support, and improve the overall success of the product. When engineers create systems that mimic real-world interactions, they reduce the risk of confusion or errors during user interactions. This leads to more efficient and effective coding practices, as engineers can anticipate user expectations and design accordingly. Happy Tuesday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #MatchBetweenSystemAndRealWorld PS - I am Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer who loves to share insights on UX, studying abroad, personal branding, and navigating life. Follow and join me on this journey of continuous learning! 😊

📅 Day 28 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Have you ever found yourself constantly thinking about a task you left unfinished, even when you’ve moved on to something else? Let’s Talk About the Zeigarnik Effect in UX So, what exactly is the Zeigarnik Effect? It’s a psychological principle where people remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. In UX design, this can be a powerful tool to keep users engaged and encourage them to finish their tasks. Of course, MOTIVATION plays an important role in this! ✅ Why It Matters Incorporating the Zeigarnik Effect into your design process is crucial because it motivates users to return and complete what they’ve started. Progress bars, reminders, or even breaking larger tasks into smaller steps are ways to tap into this effect. The goal? Drive user engagement and increase task completion rates. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers Product managers can leverage the Zeigarnik Effect by creating user flows that emphasize progress and encourage users to complete actions. Whether it’s filling out a form or completing a profile, highlighting unfinished tasks can boost retention and conversion. Engineers can apply this principle by building seamless systems that track and save user progress. Auto-save features or well-timed prompts to remind users about unfinished tasks can be key to ensuring they return to complete them. Happy Saturday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #ZeigarnikEffect PS - I’m Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer passionate about sharing insights on UX, studying abroad, and navigating life. Follow me to join this journey of continuous learning! 😊

📅 Day 6 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Have you ever looked up at the clouds and noticed how your mind naturally forms familiar shapes out of random patterns? That's Gestalt in action, where your brain connects the dots to create a complete picture. Let’s Talk About Gestalt So, what exactly is Gestalt? In simple words, it’s how the mind processes the information received from the eyes to make sense of what is being seen. Our brains are wired to organize information and find patterns. ✅ Why It Matters: Gestalt principles help us understand how people naturally perceive and organize visual information. By using these principles, designers can guide the user’s perception, get them to focus on important things and help them achieve their goals faster. This leads to better user experiences, as it makes content easier to navigate, understand and interact with, ultimately improving usability and satisfaction. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers: For product managers, this understanding allows them to define product requirements that not only focus on functionality but also on how users perceive and interact with the product. For engineers, understanding Gestalt principles can help them make decisions about element spacing, alignment, and hierarchy during development cycles. They will have an awareness of how users will mentally group and interpret these elements. In short, Gestalt helps create order out of chaos, making complex designs feel intuitive and connected. Share this with someone who might find it useful. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to reach out—I'm happy to help point you to more resources. Happy Thursday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #Gestalt PS- I am Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer who loves to share insights on UX, studying abroad, personal branding and navigating life. Follow and join me on this journey of continuous learning! 😊

📅 Day 30 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to find new features on a product? Let’s Talk About Discoverability in UX So, what exactly is Discoverability? It is how easily users can find features, actions, or tools within an interface (that they are unaware of). If a feature is hidden or difficult to locate, users might not even know it exists, leading to under utilization, frustration and a poor user experience. ✅ Why It Matters Discoverability is essential because no matter how well-designed a feature is, if users can’t find it, they won’t use it. Clear navigation, intuitive icons, and predictable user journeys help guide users effortlessly, enhancing their experience and increasing engagement with the product. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers Product managers should prioritize discoverability by ensuring that essential features are clearly visible and easy to access. This can lead to higher user satisfaction and reduced friction during onboarding. Engineers can enhance discoverability by integrating user-friendly search functions, using familiar design patterns, and ensuring that key features are accessible without overwhelming the interface. #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #Discoverability PS - I’m Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer passionate about sharing insights on UX, studying abroad, and navigating life. Follow me to join this journey of continuous learning! 😊

📅 Day 4 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Would you feel more confident trusting someone who tells the same story consistently, or someone who changes the details every time you talk to them? Let’s Talk About Consistency So, what exactly is Consistency? It is when a product gives the same type of experience or message to the user, no matter where or how they are using it. Whether you're using an app on your phone, a website on your computer, or even talking to the customer service, the product should feel consistent and familiar. This way, users don't get confused and can easily understand and use the product across different platforms. ✅ Why It Matters: Consistency creates a predictable and reliable experience for users. When a product is consistent, users don't have to relearn how to interact with it each time they use it, whether it's on different pages, devices, or platforms. It also helps build a brand's identity because using the same colors, fonts, and design patterns gives the product a unified look that users can easily recognize. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers: Understanding consistency helps PMs prioritize and make decisions that keep the product user-friendly and aligned with the overall product vision. It also makes it easier to communicate requirements to designers and developers. For engineers, knowing this principle means they can implement designs more effectively, ensuring that interactions and features behave consistently across the entire product. In short, a consistent product will provide users with a similar experience, no matter where or how the product is used. Share this with someone who might find it useful. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to reach out—I'm happy to help point you to more resources. Don’t forget to read the Google example below. Let me know if you have come across such examples? ⬇️ Happy Tuesday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #Consistency PS- I am Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer who loves to share insights on UX, studying abroad, personal branding and navigating life. Follow and join me on this journey of continuous learning! 😊

📅 Day 25 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Have you ever jumped into using a new product without reading the manual first? You're definitely not alone! Let’s Talk About the Paradox of the Active User in UX So, what exactly is the Paradox of the Active User? It refers to a common tendency where users prefer to start using a new tool or software immediately instead of taking time to learn it thoroughly. Even though they might know that reading a guide would make them more efficient in the long run, users often skip it because they want to "get things done" quickly. This paradox poses a unique challenge for UX designers in creating intuitive, self-explanatory interfaces. ✅ Why It Matters Incorporating the Paradox of the Active User into your design process is essential because users rarely spend time learning a system in depth. They prioritize immediate productivity over long-term efficiency. By acknowledging this paradox, designers can create interfaces that guide users through complex workflows with minimal training or friction. This improves usability and helps users become productive faster, making for a seamless user experience. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers Product managers can leverage the Paradox of the Active User by ensuring that key functionalities are easy to discover and use without needing extensive onboarding. Prioritize intuitive design, self-explanatory features, and help prompts that don’t overwhelm users but still provide value when needed. Engineers can apply this principle by focusing on making systems resilient to common user behaviors, such as skipping tutorials. This involves building in error recovery options, providing real-time feedback, and ensuring that users can easily undo actions if they encounter problems. Happy Wednesday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #ParadoxOfTheActiveUser PS – I’m Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer passionate about sharing insights on UX, studying abroad, and navigating life. Follow me to join this journey of continuous learning! 😊

I was there at pretty much the start my undergraduate project which was published was about the use of maps in a hypertext environment and whether gender was an influencing factor (it was not). Interestingly using the map version of the helper text stack took longer. It was pointed out to me later that that was because there were more links. Must check but I think the qualitative experience was better. I was on a human psychology course and took Human Computer Interaction (HCI) as a final year option. I think at the beginning it was a heady mix of techy psycholgists and touchy feely computer scientists ( meant in the nicest way). I had actually come from product design but because I was not great at 3D…. So I switched majors as you might put it in the US. My PhD was at Imperial college, London in HCI in an electronic and electrical engineering department. My lab was full of analog circuit designers. They did some of the early work on cochlear implants all around me. I remember Design arriving on the scene in about 1993/1994 - lots of designers came to to CHi and they were super cool. There was also a smattering of sociologists. CSCW was full of them… I understood not a word they said but they were fun to debate with. In about 1995/1996 I remember the story tellers arriving on the scene. I wondered what other disciplines would claim HCI as there own. I left my postdoc at Imperial in 1999 and had three kids. By the time I came back to it in 2007 UX had been born and I learnt to wireframe in Balsamiq and then Axure. I had my own remote consultancy with startups in Silicon Valley (from my kitchen in the UK). I was never out of work. It was a great time. I think the early influences of UX are much richer than you conceive. But certainly psychology, Computer Science, Design, Engineering, Art, storytelling and sociology are all in there.

🌟 Rediscovering the Art of Writing—Digitally! 🌟 Amid endless typing and scrolling, I’ve embraced digitally handwritten notes to blend creativity with productivity. Recently, while exploring product management and UX design, I captured insights from a talk by Dan Olsen on iterating and improving products with rapid user testing. Here are some key takeaways: 1️⃣ Lean Product Process: A step-by-step approach to refine product ideas. 2️⃣ Prototyping with UX Design: Build, test, and learn with tangible mockups. 3️⃣ User Testing & Data Analysis: Turn feedback into meaningful iterations. Why digital handwriting? ✔ It’s personal yet shareable. ✔ Makes organizing and retaining complex ideas a breeze. Sharing this feels a bit outside my comfort zone, but I believe learning grows when shared. Here’s a glimpse of my notes—what do you think? How do you prefer to capture your learning journey? Let’s exchange ideas! #LearningJourney #DigitalNotes #ProductManagement #UXDesign #UserTesting

📅 Day 9 of 30 Days, 30 Design Principles Have you ever tried to buy something but found yourself jumping between different websites—one for ratings, another for product details, and yet another for the price? This breaks your visual momentum. Let’s Talk About Visual Momentum So, what exactly is visual momentum? It is the concept of creating a smooth and continuous flow of visual elements that guide users through an interface. It is the amount of effort required to integrate information across multiple channels. Good visual momentum means lower effort required. ✅ Why It Matters: Visual momentum ensures that users stay focused and engaged, making the interface feel intuitive and easy to use. It reduces the chances of users getting lost or frustrated, leading to better user experiences and higher satisfaction. ✅ For Product Managers and Engineers: By ensuring that interfaces maintain a smooth visual flow, product managers can increase the likelihood of users completing desired actions, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. Engineers need to ensure that the interface performs seamlessly, with elements loading in a way that maintains the visual flow. This might involve optimizing for fast loading times, implementing smooth transitions, and avoiding disruptions like sudden pop-ups or content shifts. In short, visual momentum guides users smoothly through an interface, creating an effortless and intuitive experience. Share this with someone who might find it useful. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to reach out—I'm happy to help point you to more resources. Don’t forget to read the Netflix example below. Let me know if you have come across such examples? ⬇️ Happy Tuesday! #UXDesign #ProductStrategy #DesignPrinciples #VisualMomentum PS- I am Shanivi Gupta, a UX Designer who loves to share insights on UX, studying abroad, personal branding and navigating life. Follow and join me on this journey of continuous learning! 😊

Learning Business, Embracing Adaptation. One key lesson I've learned in my career is that you can't approach every job the same way. Working on a variety of projects and with diverse clients has taught me this. It’s not always a matter of overthinking, sometimes, it’s about recognizing the constraints and adapting. The classical UX process, defining User Personas, creating Information Architecture, outlining customer journey maps. Doesn’t always fit every project. Budget constraints, tight deadlines, or unique project scopes often demand a more flexible approach. For instance, I’ve had projects where a client needed a deliverable in under a week. In those cases, there wasn’t time for the usual routine, I had to jump straight into high-fidelity designs. But that’s where experience comes in. Even under tight timelines, I could subconsciously apply UX principles, ensuring the product was both functional and user-friendly. On the flip side, I’ve worked on projects that spanned months, gathering and analyzing user feedback extensively before even beginning the Information Architecture. The takeaway? There’s no one-size-fits-all in UX design. It’s essential to master and adapt to various processes, applying them as needed based on each project’s requirements. Whether it's a project that requires meticulous planning over several months or a quick turnaround, It is important to be equipped to handle both with professionalism and empathy. #DesignThinking #UserExperience #AgileDesign #DesignProcess ##UserCentric #UXDesign