The problem with good design

Last week I ran a Form Design Mastery live call with the UX team at Multiverse.

Various members of the team shared their designs for me to review. Here I’ll show you Jamie’s redesign because it shows how good design leads to more problems.

For context, the form allows users to log “off the job” learning.

Here’s the original design:

The category drop down has a bunch of downsides such as:

1. Some users try to type into them
2. Some users think the focused option is the selected option
3. You can’t pinch-zoom on mobile
4. You can’t add hint text to the options
5. Users will have to click to reveal the options

But here’s Jamie’s redesign (having killed the drop down):

It’s so much better:

• One question → easier to focus
• Clearer content → easier to understand
• No drop down → easier to interact

But notice the hint text (the non-bold text next to each radio).

The problem with hint text is that users often don’t spot it. And those who do spot it, sometimes don’t read it.

I’ve seen this loads in usability tests.

So what can you do?

I asked Jamie why he added the hint text in the first place because without understanding the problem, it’s hard to create a solution.

Here’s what he said:

Some of the options cover multiple sub categories. For example, “Multiverse community” covers “engaging with the community” and “going to networking opportunities”

Makes sense.

So here’s 4 ideas that avoid hint text while retaining all the goodness of Jamie’s redesign:

Idea #1: Kill the hint text and see if users struggle without it

It’s so much harder to add content and prove it’s not needed than it is to start without content and prove that it is.

But here’s what you do if you find that users don’t understand the options without hint text:

Idea #2: Make the labels longer and kill the hint text

Why give users a short label if they still have to read hint text to understand it?

Exactly.

Long and clear labels beat short and confusing labels.

Idea #3: Split out the categories

Remember, Jamie said:

“Multiverse community” covers “engaging with the community” and “going to networking opportunities”

So consider replacing “Multiverse community” with separate options for “Engaging with the community” and “Going to networking opportunities”.

This way the labels can be short and specific.

Idea #4: Use checkboxes

This allows users to log time across multiple categories easily.

But here’s what’s more interesting than all of this:

Good design gives you more problems.

Here Jamie replaced the drop down with radio buttons.

But that exposed problems with the options.

Which led to the ideas above.

And those ideas actually led to further design explorations (that I may one day write about in a separate email).

If you’d like to improve your forms and expose more problems that lead to even better design:

https://formdesignmastery.com