The Seven Deadly Sins of UX – Envy
Recently, I listened to an album that led me to look at the Seven Deadly Sins within UX. The Deadly Sins I will discuss are: Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride. In a previous post, I already talked about Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Sloth, and Wrath. This time we’ll look at Envy. The other Deadly Sins will be discussed in future posts.
Just to be clear: everyone is guilty of these, it’s human. Probably not to the extreme degree I describe here. It’s not meant to bring down specific people or companies. It’s more of a reminder, for when it’s needed.
Envy
With Envy, we look at other comparable products. Nowadays, we can view the entire world with a few clicks and it’s easy to get inspiration from these different perspectives. It can also go too far. Thinking: why does it work there but not here? Can I achieve the same success if we copy this one-to-one? And in the last question lies exactly what I want to talk about. This goes beyond drawing inspiration.
It’s easy and human to look at successful products and copy them. I probably make myself most guilty of this sin. The problem with copying one-to-one: it might not fit your product.
Take Easter and Christmas, for example. Both are holidays, both prioritize treats. Now, I dare say that Christmas is more popular than Easter. Easter could look at Christmas with a jealous eye, trying to adopt what makes Christmas so successful. Yet we don’t see lights in the gardens, no candy canes on crocuses. What Easter has done is adopt an idea. An idea that there is a main character who has some helpers (Santa Claus with his elves versus the Easter Bunny with his chicks).
Directly copying one-to-one wouldn’t have worked here. Someone in a thick winter coat in early spring is quite a strange sight. Not to mention that you don’t need a glowing red nose to see where you’re flying around that time.
This is also what you should do with your product:
- Look around. What makes the competition successful?
- Once you’ve figured this out, try to uncover the skeleton of it. What is the idea behind it? Why does it work?
- Consider if it fits your product/image. Not everything that works for one fits another. For example, I wouldn’t expect Greenpeace to use Shell’s ideas.
- Shape it to your image. Does it fit after all? Build a skin of your image around the skeleton.
By Jasper Blikman, Consultant and UX specialist