Or, you could say "Don't make me think":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think
Unfortunately UX people seem to hate boring and/or simple stuff...
Unfortunately UX people seem to hate boring and/or simple stuff...
UX people tend to advocate for simple, boring stuff because they test. Like you pointed out, UX professionals like Krug, Nielsen, Norman constantly advocate for boring navigation:
"Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know."
- Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience
However, someone simply designing UI will often suggest new and complicated designs, because they don't test. If they don't test, they are not practicing UX. Even if their job title is UX designer, they are just doing UI design.
Disclaimer: Yes I am defending my UX job, which involves testing and face time with users :)
A number of others seem to have mistaken simple and boring for dumb and useless.
What happened to the familiar menu?
UX Designers decided it wasn't simple enough and replaced it with hamburger menus and ribbons because "dumb users".
I'm not saying you are one of these UX designers, but lets not pretend they aren't there cause they run the shop at most places it seems, including a number of places in FAANG land.
So that is not what I argue above. In my post above I argue against the dumbification of desktop apps and websites. Things that were working until UX designers came up with the idea that people are to dumb.
Edit: for those questioning my reply, I’m talking about the logical resolution (what you actually use for layout) not the physical pixel resolution
Resolution will only get you so far; people don't have infinitely acute eyesight and infinitely precise dexterity. Most people can't reliably hit a touch target of less than ~10mm in any dimension, which equates to ~180 real pixels on an iPhone X.
People hold phones much closer than you would sit from an Olden Days CRT, too. It's not just raw area that matters, but something like degrees, as observed by your eye.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/uxguide/gui...
Problem is, it was and is routinely ignored.
Anyway, as you say, it's the Electron era now, and it's the same everywhere. We had our golden age of desktop UX, but we couldn't keep it.
If the mockups are boring then you have done your job well. The problem is that mockups that stand out, are what gets steak-holders interested. Some of my design work involved selling concepts, and the ones that sold were those that broke the UI conventions in some way. Those features that broke the conventions were then set in stone! Instant regret.
Uniformity is bad! They want bright colors, low contrast text, and each page to be unique. If every page looks the same then they obviously are paying you too much. This is how lots of print designers get started in the web-industry, and wowing people is the main objective. UX doesn't come into it.
The other thing that I've found happen, is business requirements sometimes further complicate the UI. We had a simple app that was a report of damages as part of a return process.
This was mandated by the project manager to be displayed as a progress bar. Sofar as a vehicle that was 100% fucked would be 100% complete. I tried to push back with exclamation points for damaged areas, but progress bars were already sold to the customer.
Some of my best clients have never seen my portfolio. Even the ones who start off with "where can I see some of your work" forget all about my portfolio by the time we are done speaking. If you do a proper job of explaining what your job entails, what the client gets out of it and where to focus priorities, you'll likely never need to show your previous work.
Sadly, most junior UX wannabes don't understand this and continue to try and impress people with portfolios. They get the client they deserve. This does the industry no favors, but I could care less. Once that business is butt hurt by a previous designer and decides to commit to a real process, we can talk.
If you are part of the problem, you don't get to complain. Be the one designer who does 80% data and 20% design. Just say "no" to stupid ideas and squash them like a bug. If you are an entrepreneur running a business, you are in charge. Do you tell a plumber how to do his job? No. Then act like the plumber and do things the right way and tell them to thank you later. Results speak for themselves.
Source: am a UX designer
It’s literally the whole point of the job.
That's probably true of many professions. Our software architect got us stuck with microservices for example, which we don't need. He did it either because he's bored, or wanted to put something fancier on his resume.
If not managed well, many employees go off the deep end. I admit, I've over-engineered parts of software for the sheer fun of it. But I try to limit my "experiments".
Many years ago I was working on a project for a major UK high street bank, and on the team was a designer who genuinely believed "users like a challenge". No users do not like a challenge. Users like spending the absolute minimum time possible doing their online banking, then they like getting on with their lives.
I believe he later went on to win loads of awards... as judged by other designers. Anyway a large part of why the web sucks and runs like molasses is guys like that.