Baby UX
Some of the best things in life are the least usable
I have an awesome job. I am UX designer and a Dad. At just over 4 months old I can honestly say that our son has put us through some of the most difficult times of our lives.
I have read far too many saccharine accounts of parenthood and heard too many gut curdling stories of how wonderful having a baby is and I hope that this short article will go some way to redress the balance.
As a UX designer it is my job to understand the user and to make a users experience of a product a frictionless, fruitful and enjoyable one. Jakob Nielson is widely known in web design circles and has had a direct influence on my career ever since I started out over 15 years ago. It has to be said that I don’t always agree with his ideas, but, his compiled ‘10 key heuristics for user interface design’ are a staple for us designers.
When we assess a product for usability we often use these 10 points to help analyse where a product succeeds and where it fails. If it fails, the product is deemed unusable and therefore requires significant redesign.
How do babies fare?
1/ Visibility of system status
During the first few days of life a baby gives you only 3 signs of its system status. Sleeping, waking and crying. Meaning its either recharging its batteries, pondering the world, or it needs urgent attention. Exactly what attention it needs is anyones guess but can normally be solved by checking for hunger or a dirty nappy, or perhaps you have accidentally caught their skin in a babygro zipper.
2/ Match between system and the real world
A baby has absolutely no match between itself and the real world. It has no concept of world or even itself. A baby in the early days is no more than an organism, a blob.
3/ User control and freedom
As ‘Parent’ or ‘User’, you have no control over the baby. Zero. Nadda. On the contrary, the baby has indeed exerted so much control over the ‘User’ that they have to sacrifice their old lives. Freedom changes as you know it. Freedom becomes your lunchbreak at work.
4/ Consistency and standards
Every day the baby changes. Just when you think you have cracked something, be it sleeping, feeding or nappy changing it all changes. There is no routine, no matter how hard you try, a baby has no consistency.
5/ Error prevention
How do you know when you are about to do something wrong? You don’t. If it cries stop doing it and try something else.
6/ Recognition rather than recall
Some people say that ‘Parent’ or ‘User’ gets a broad understanding of their baby and can tell from the type of cry whether a baby is hungry, tired or wet. Those people are liars.
7/ Flexibility and efficiency of use
Babies are quite flexible. Ours will quite happily chew his feet for hours on end without experiencing any discomfort.
8/ Aesthetic and minimalist design
Other peoples babies look ugly. Your baby looks beautiful. Period.
9/ Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
‘Parents’ or ‘Users’ do indeed learn to recognise, diagnose and recover from making errors with their child. We learnt that getting drunk and leaving your mother-in-law to do the night feeds is not a good idea, now we take it turns to drink. We learnt he won’t sleep when you want him to, and will sleep when you don’t want him to. We tried all the baby sleep books and none of them work as expected, now we cry with relief when he eventually sleeps. We learnt if you leave your baby on the floor at a baby group and walk out, hoping someone will kidnap him, someone will return him. We learnt that people want to know when number 2 is arriving as soon as number 1 arrives.
10/ Help and documentation
We read a lot. Before he arrived and since. No two articles are the same. There is limitless help and documentation about babies but it is all useless, apart from the physical help you get from friends and family. There is zero help and documentation about your own baby.
So in summary, a baby is not usable, it is not useful, you as a ‘Parent’ or ‘User’ have no control over it, it has no error prevention and has no consistency but we will never be able to redesign babies. So beware of the first 4 months of parenthood. Make sure you know what your getting yourself into. It’s like a rollercoaster ride through hell, without a seat belt.
Footnote: This morning I went out for run with him in his pram. When I came back he was sleeping. He woke slowly and we played. I left him smiling and laughing as I went to work and I can’t wait to see him again. Being a ‘Parent’ does have its moments.
