If most users say that a flow is good, we should make it so; if most say that the contrast is good, we should not take their word for it.
Testing isn’t as straightforward as that, but the point is that there are two approaches to making the web: The majority and the minority – the general and the specific – and we need to take both.
I have had several discussions on the difference between buttons and links. They have typically been “people need to know what the pieces of the interface can do” versus “it doesn’t matter, as long as they click”. And when we do tests, people click and interact without caring about what anything is. We have seemingly met our goal of finding the least confusing way to meet given needs and prerequisites.
Can we do whatever we want as long as the majority of use cases are covered? No. People in such tests are picked as general representatives of a group. The results don’t confirm the success of conventions broken but tell us about the number of people who don’t rely on recognising what something is. That’s pretty useless; we know there will always be people who need a link to be like a link, no matter how many who don’t react negatively to the opposite. We must be more specific and thorough when working with interface elements, affordances, conventions and even code quality and how things look.
We have specifications, rules, laws and general pride in what we do. Aspects that need to be in order; that some users depend on, that some use actively in interface comprehension and that some just expect to be in order. Things that make it better for everyone, even the majority who don’t notice or care.
I don’t want this to be about accessibility, but it is largely found among these aspects. It’s more a way of measuring what we make and how we do our daily work than something to implement separately. The same goes for responsiveness. And it’s all connected.
Testing must be very intentional in order to measure several of these qualities of the interface. We have to know what we have made, it has to be on a level where we believe it’s correct, and we must be ready to adjust it to actually be so. We are not making specific things for specific people; we are making something more universal. Yet, we must test with people who have specific requirements and expectations. If it works for them, it will likely work for all. That’s the minority approach – pinpoint testing to confirm or adjust what we already have pretty good control of.
I’m hesitant to say that majority is flows and minority is elements. I’m reluctant to name them in the first place because clean splits create gaps. Making the web means taking multiple user-centred perspectives. Thinking of the many and the few, working both the general and specific needs, and recognising the cases where one takes precedence.
That way, we can avoid inventing our own interface flavours, we can lead the users instead of pestering them with brand-coloured call-to-actions, we can use more of what the browser gives us and write fewer lines of code. We can spend time discussing, testing and figuring out issues with the relevant people. This builds our experience.