UX Debt Can Come From Good Design
UX debt can be part of natural product evolution. Often UX debt has a negative connotation. In fact when I Google 'UX Debt", Gemini gives me this:
UX debt refers to the accumulation of shortcuts and compromises in user experience (UX) design, made to meet immediate deadlines or resource constraints, that ultimately lead to a negative user experience and increased long-term costs
And this is true it's not wrong.
UX Debt From Product Evolution
But UX Debt can happen just from your product going through changes. I was on X (formely Twitter) not too long ago. I'm a sports guy so sports is what's in my feed.
Up comes a video of Stephen A Smith from First Take. It looked like this:
It's a video (sorry for the catching you in a bad pose Stephen A!). And if I remember it was several minutes long.
After less than a minute, the screen looks like this:
I get this big blue notification / button letting me know there are new posts.
This design worked well back when it was Twitter. and the majority of the content was easily scrollable tweets made up of texts. Maybe even images.
I'm sure that button worked well.
As time has gone on, Twitter/X, focused more and more on longer form content. Specifically video. They even added a video tab.
Naturally this content is longer and you'll stop at a tweet for much longer - since you're watching a video and not reading.
That button doesn't quite work anymore. I'm maybe 10% into a video and I'm being pushed to refresh / scroll up. It's bugging me to move off the content I'm enjoying.
That good design is now annoying.
But at the same time X wants you to engage with the content and watch as much video as possible I presume. But also pushing you off of a video.
Good Design Can Turn Into UX Debt
I'm not saying this was bad design. I thought it was good. That button worked well for quite some time. It was good design within the context it was designed.
Context changed as the product changes. In that sense, your UX strategy has changed.
And as the product evolved, what we're seeing it a somewhat different product using older solutions. That "solution" is no longer solving the same problem since how the content is presented is different.
It needs to be re-thought. What was helpful - when applied to a different context - is now more intrusive and disruptive than helpful.
The current version of X is essentially a different product to a certain degree and the UX for the new product needs to match.
And this is a case where good design can turn into UX Debt if the product changes.
Design Is Never Done
First off, Stephen A., if you're watching this, of you here or here, but it's kind of what I grabbed. Also, this is a video. I didn't a good job of showing that. minutes long or so. But it's interesting one where the design is never done. You feature. But if your product, your product's never it. Adding new features, you're And when you're doing that, when have that that that that sentiment, that means your design always has to evolve. And that's we see was useful is no longer as useful because the product evolved. And think about and take into consideration. Often in my experience, there's always this phrase of: “is the design done? done if your product's to evolve, like was just mentioning. so when your product evolves, you have to evolve the design as next feature, what's next milestone, a part of system in place, really good design already, you're going to have to rethink the design. Sometimes it'll naturally work out we have to kind rethink this a bit. For Twitter historically, not so much in past couple of years, but how it started and how it grew, now in these features where you could comment, retweet, like, and see well, you almost have to start to think about, well, form video? So when add comment, in there? want comment three minutes in, four minutes in? Is that where you want people to see your comment? If you're a clip? Are you retweeting and quote tweeting liking it? Do want maybe like parts of it or say, like, it's not really the first analytics, you know, on Twitter, there's this whole idea of, or X, I should, saying what's, what's like the numbers of comments versus a lot of information in analytics that might help Do people start watching the first minute and then completely drop off? Do watch the whole thing? And what does that mean So there's lot that goes into it you add new product features and you shift your business into new Design is never done.