Sprezzatura – plain and simple
William
In Advertising, Fashion, User Experience Posted March 07, 2010
Sprezzatura is an old Italian word defined as “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them.” In other words, making it look effortless. This is an important trait for user-centered design: the workflow, actions, and methods a user takes through the design should make the experience pleasant and as simple as possible.
I like the idea of old words to describe concepts which have become so full to bursting with just a certain type of meaning, that they exist as themselves – untranslatable. Words like panache or schadenfreude or (to quote Kim Loop) tacos. There should be a certain amount of the untranslatable in design, too; something that helps users navigate the difficult and deep concepts that we ask them to follow. Think about how many interactions a user must go through to purchase goods and services for an e-commerce site or how many fields must be filled out to sign up for a new service from a provider. These interactions can happen because UX designers and developers have paved the way – made it seem simple and clean.
The best way to make the hard stuff look easy is through research: find out what your users get caught up on, find out what they want most in your interface, and find out what makes your users trust you. Keep testing, through A/B testing, constant design tweaks and polling your users. I’ve always liked programs like Silverback and doing task-based polls with simple click-based tasks. By taking stock of what your users find difficult, you can make that difficult time seem easy. Capiche?
