## Definition of User Experience Debt UX Debt is a type of product risk that refers to the accumulated design and usability issues that impede the user experience of a product. Just like developers like to boast about their technical debt, product and design teams also have reason to be "proud" of their own types of debt obligations :) The main cause of UX debt is similar to technical debt - teams working on a product use simplifications when designing the logic and details of interfaces. As a result, the users may experience difficulties in navigating, using, and understanding the product, which can lead to lower user satisfaction and engagement. ## Two types of UX Debt Such simplifications can be of two types: - intentional, when the team deliberately lets the situation go; - unintentional, when it happens accidentally. If left unattended, UX debts accumulate and become increasingly difficult to pay off. > [!NOTE] > Moreover, each new UX debt is issued to the product and its users at a "new rate", which is added to the previous debt, increasing overall inconvenience and lowering conversions. The final of any UX debt is logical - the product and its system degrade into an unfriendly, cluttered, unclear, and unusable user interface. ## The First Signs of UX Debt - The team says *"the main thing is that the code works, not a beautiful design*". This is usually said by developers who are not concerned about their tech debts :) - Your design team says *"we will think about it in detail in the next sprint"*. As usual, this is not done in the next sprint for the same reason. - The product/analytic team looks at the data and is satisfied with it. Classic: *"No one is complaining, so everything is okay.*" Regarding complaints, it is worth remembering three simple truths: 1) only loyal/paying users complain; 2) when such users complain, it means everything is already bad; 3) the next stage is silent refusal to use. ## How to get out of UX debt - No matter how banal it may sound, the best way to get rid of UX debt **is not to take it on** (your Cap Ob). > To do this, make it a cultural value to avoid simplifications in the process of designing logic, and encourage close collaboration between designers and product managers to conduct joint evaluations, in which CJM should become a key and defining document. - **Look for areas** where users experience difficulties and refuses the product/feature/CTA. This can be done through user testing, customer feedback, and, of course, [[product analytics]]. - **Prioritize the identified areas**. Determine their priority depending on their impact on the user, taking into account how they help (or rather, do not help) him perform the necessary actions. [[Product Frameworks/Double Diamond Framework]] can be taken as the basis of the process, and always remember CJM. - **Define [[Product Metric]] for each of the areas/stages of the funnel**. This should have been done earlier in the process of [[Customer Journey Map]] development and product creation, but if not, now is the best time for it. - **Develop optimization hypotheses**. I will not teach designers their work, but it is worth reminding them of the concept of "removing everything unnecessary", the essence of which is to remove EVERYTHING that distracts the user from the CTA in this area of the map. The purity of any experiments and A/B tests begins with the purity of UX/UI. - **Start experiments**. If the cost of error is high and there is money at stake, then roll out changes and A/B tests on a small segment of users. - **Monitoring**. After making changes, track metrics to see if problems have been solved and interaction with the user has improved. > Remember that 1 area = 1 hypothesis = 1 approach in changes = 1 A/B test. If you start dumping everything together and adding changes within 1 test, everything will get mixed up again and become incomprehensible. Defined the area, defined the changes, implemented them, conducted tests, measured, and stopped. > [!NOTE] > If you want to improve the improved, start the process from the very beginning within a new approach of "hypothesis-experiment." In cases of irreversible UX debt, the only way to get rid of it is bankruptcy or a complete reboot and development of the UX/UI system from scratch.