UX Design Patterns And Anti-Patterns

If your UX process starts in Figma, you’ve already failed. You can do it. But it won’t work right. That’s where most designers go wrong. They: - Jump straight into Figma. - Design what looks good. Not what feels right. UX is not just about visuals. It’s about: - Flow. - Emotion. - Consistency. - And problem-solving. Top designers don’t rely on inspiration. They rely on frameworks. Because frameworks make design smarter. Not slower. Here are 6 frameworks every pro uses. 1. User Journey Map It’s the big picture of your user’s path. Awareness to retention. You see their: - Goals. - Pain. - Emotions. 2. The Double Diamond ↳ Discover.  ↳ Define.  ↳ Develop.  ↳ Deliver. You explore first. Then execute. It keeps your team solving the right problem. 3. Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) Forget the feature list. Focus on what users really want. Ask what job they’re trying to get done. Then design around that. 4. UX Pyramid It’s not just about: - Function. - Feeling. From functional to pleasurable. It reminds you what truly makes experiences great. 5. The Hooked Model Trigger.  Action.  Reward.  Investment. It’s why users stay. But use it with purpose. Not manipulation. 6. Story-Driven UX Framework Every great product tells a story. ↳ User struggles. ↳ Product helps. ↳ Journey transforms. That’s real experience design. Great UX is not random. It’s built on structure. Every touchpoint has a reason. Every moment has a purpose. Stop designing features. Start designing experiences. Your turn: Which framework do you swear by? Or which one do you want to try next? Comment below.

💡Combining Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile A combination of Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile methodologies offers a powerful approach to product development—it helps balance user-centered design with efficient concept validation and iterative product development. 1️⃣ User-centered foundation (Design Thinking): Begin by understanding the needs, emotions, and problems of the end-users. ✔ Start by conducting user research to identify and understand user needs. ✔ Gather insights through direct interaction with users (e.g., through interviews, surveys, etc.). Spend time understanding users' behavior, focusing on "why" rather than "what" they do. ✔ After gathering research, prioritize the most critical user insights to guide your design focus. Create a 2x2 matrix to prioritize insights based on impact (high vs low business impact) and feasibility (easy vs hard to implement) ✔ Begin brainstorming potential solutions based on these prioritized insights and formulate a hypothesis. Encourage cross-functional collaboration during brainstorming sessions to generate diverse ideas. 2️⃣ Hypothesis-driven testing (Lean UX): Lean UX helps quickly validate key assumptions. It fits perfectly between Design Thinking's ideation and Agile's development processes, ensuring that critical hypothesis are validated with users before actual development started. ✔ Formulate a testable hypothesis around a potential solution that addresses the user needs uncovered in the Design Thinking phase. ✔ Conduct experiment—develop a Minimum Viable Product (https://lnkd.in/dQg_siZG) to test the hypothesis. Build just enough functionality to test your hypothesis—focus on speed and simplicity. ✔ Based on the experiment's outcome, refine or revise the hypothesis and repeat the cycle. 3️⃣ Iterative product development (Agile): Once the Lean UX process produces validated concepts, Agile takes over for incremental development. Agile's iterative sprints will help you continuously build, test, and refine the concept. Agile complements Lean UX by providing the structure for frequent releases, allowing teams to adapt and deliver value consistently. ✔ Break down work into small, manageable chunks that can be delivered iteratively. ✔ Embrace iterative development—continue refining your product through iterative build-measure-learn sprints. Keep the user feedback loop tight by involving users in sprint reviews or testing sessions. ✔ Gather user feedback after each sprint and adapt the product according to the findings. Measure user satisfaction and track usability metrics to ensure improvements align with user needs. 🖼️ Design thinking, Lean UX and Agile better together by Dave Landis #UX #agile #designthinking #productdesign #leanux #lean  

A lot of what we call “friction” or “drop-off” in UX is really just a mismatch between what people need to learn and what the product assumes they already know. That’s why I often turn to educational and behavioral science models in my work. They help me ask better questions, design smarter flows, and build experiences that match how people actually learn, change, and grow. Here’s a quick cheat sheet I use to connect theory to UX practice: • Want to understand why users don’t do something? Try COM-B, Theory of Planned Behavior, or the Fogg Behavior Model. These help uncover capability, opportunity, and motivation blockers. • Want to design for behavior change? Lean on Tiny Habits or Fogg’s model to design better triggers and reduce friction. • Trying to avoid overload? Cognitive Load Theory helps you spot where mental strain derails your design. • Working on onboarding or progressive learning? Bloom’s Taxonomy, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, and Kolb’s Learning Cycle can guide how you scaffold and support new users. • Want to build empowering, engaging experiences? Self-Determination Theory reminds us that autonomy, competence, and connection are key. These models weren’t made for UX—but they work beautifully when we connect the dots. Because at its core, UX is about how people learn, adapt, and behave. Curious—do you use learning or behavioral theories in your design or research work? Which models have shaped your thinking the most? UXR Study

Outcome Driven Design is the essence of Amazon’s working backwards process. Outcome-driven design (ODD) is a user-centric approach that prioritizes the desired results and impact of a product or service over its features and specifications. By focusing on the outcomes that users aim to achieve, ODD ensures that design decisions are guided by real user needs and expectations. Ultimately, ODD aims to create solutions that deliver tangible business benefits, improve user satisfaction, and drive overall long term success by aligning the product’s objectives with the end user’s desired outcomes. To maintain our focus on customers problems and desired business outcomes, we ask ourselves different set of questions. What problems are we solving for customers? This question keeps us focused on understanding customer problems and working backwards from them to drive design decisions. We call them controllable inputs. By clearly defining the problems, designers can prioritize efforts on the most critical issues that impact user satisfaction and performance. This helps in aligning design goals with the actual pain points and challenges experienced by users, leading to solutions that are more relevant and valuable. Why these problems? This question clarifies how much we know about customers and their problems. It ensures that the problems being addressed are not only significant but also strategically important. It validates the relevance of the design focus and ensures that resources are allocated to issues that will have the most substantial impact on user outcomes. It also helps in uncovering the underlying causes of the problems, which can inform more effective and innovative solutions. What are our metrics? Metrics provide a way to quantify the benefits and improvements resulting from the design. They help in tracking progress, evaluating effectiveness, and making data-driven decisions. By setting specific, measurable goals, designers can ensure that their efforts lead to tangible results that enhance user satisfaction and achieve the intended outcomes. How high is the bar? This question encourages designers to strive for excellence and push the boundaries of what is possible. It ensures that the design not only meets basic user needs but also exceeds expectations, delivering exceptional value and experience. High standards drive innovation and continuous improvement, leading to solutions that stand out in the market and provide significant advantages to users. Setting the bar high establishes ambitious goals and standards for the design process. So next time when someone asks: “What are you working on?”, try using these questions to frame your response. Amazon Design Amazon Web Services (AWS) #design #usercentereddesign #workingbackwards PC: Adobe Stock

4 Steps to Designing a Great User Experience If you want to design a great user experience for your product you have to first create a great conceptual model design that either blends well with the users' current mental models and/or helps them create a brand new mental model. Instead of jumping into detailed user interface design, I challenge you to do high level design: 1. Create Jobs to Be Done (JTBD): What’s the real outcome users need? Not just “use our product” but “solve a problem in their world.” 2. Develop Quick Scenarios & Storyboards: How does the experience unfold in context? What defines success? 3. Map out a Task Analysis: Detail the steps the user should be able to take to accomplish the JTBD within those scenarios and storyboards. What are the branches? What is the common path and what are the exceptions? 4. Develop an Object Model: What’s the model of the system? What are the things (objects) that people will be interacting with? What are the different ways (views) to present those objects? What are the most important actions users will take on each object? Once you combine the object model with the task analysis you have a beautiful interaction flow diagram. Now you are ready to design screens, pages, voice interactions, or whatever is in your user interface. You will know exactly what to design, and the detailed design you come up with will provide a great user experience. I can teach you how to do this in 2 hours. Let me know if you and/or your team want to learn how.

AI Interaction Design Patterns Design AI products people understand, use, and trust At Seative Digital, we believe great AI isn’t just about the model It's about the interface Most AI tools feel powerful… but confusing in real use Users hesitate, guess, or drop off not because AI is weak, but because the experience isn’t clear The Framework Strong AI UX is built on 4 layers: • Identifiers • Wayfinders • Tuners • Trust Indicators Each solves a key user gap Identifiers Make AI visible • Distinct colors • Clear icons & labels • Consistent naming → Visibility increases usage Wayfinders Guide user action • Smart suggestions • Prompt ideas • Pre-built templates → Guidance removes friction Tuners Give control • Adjustable settings • Tone/style controls • Output refinement → Control boosts satisfaction Trust Indicators Build transparency • Clear limitations • Edit/retry options • Feedback loops → Trust drives retention Core Insight AI UX isn’t about complexity— it’s about: • Clarity • Control • Trust That’s how features become products. Designing AI products? Focus on interaction  not just capability 📌Save this Apply it Build a better UI 🔄 Repost to share this with your team and network! For next, Join my journey, Subash Chandra for digital footprints with growth focused user centric digital solutions by UI and UX