{"id":666,"date":"2025-04-18T11:57:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T11:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/?p=666"},"modified":"2025-04-10T12:05:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T12:05:58","slug":"why-ux-design-is-basically-just-sailing-but-with-fewer-barnacles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/?p=666","title":{"rendered":"Why UX Design Is Basically Just Sailing\u2014But With Fewer Barnacles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Spotify<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever designed a tangled user flow that needed its own<\/em> sitemap? That’s sailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you ever watched a user struggle with your navigation, yelling, “Where the hell am I supposed to click?” That’s basically yelling, “Where the hell is the wind coming from?” on a boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UX and sailing are\u2026 the same thing. Stay with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. You start with a map. Then ignore it.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Every UX project kicks off with a beautiful sitemap. Logical. Linear. Clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then reality happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone says, “Can we just add a quick feature here?” Suddenly, your lovely journey map is a spaghetti chart that loops back on itself. You’ve officially tacked into the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s the same with sailing. You plan a straight course. But oh no\u2014wind shifts. Tide changes. Now you’re zig-zagging across the bay like a confused duck. The map is a suggestion. Not a promise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Your users are basically crew.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

They think<\/em> they know what they’re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You say “click here,” they click somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You say “pull the main sheet,” they grab a beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You say “we’re almost there,” and you’re still 40 minutes from the dock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it’s onboarding a new app or hoisting a sail, users need guidance, feedback, and sometimes a gentle nudge (or a loud “DON’T TOUCH THAT!”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Poor affordance = someone falls overboard.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That flat button with no label? That’s the digital version of a deck with no lifelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone’s going overboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good UX is like good rigging \u2014 clearly visible, easy to grab, and ideally not something that smacks you in the head during a gybe. If your user hits the wrong button and ends up in Settings instead of Submit, you designed a rogue wave.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Edge cases are like sudden storms.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You didn’t think someone would try using your app in dark mode on an iPhone 7 with airplane Wi-Fi while upside down?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like sailing: you will<\/em> hit rain. You will<\/em> lose GPS. And someone will<\/em> try to dock using only hand signals and pure vibes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Design for the chaos. Or at least have a backup plan (and a bailer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Nobody notices when it’s going well.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you did your UX job right, no one says a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything flows. Tasks complete. No one throws a laptop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same on the water. If the sails are trimmed and the boat’s gliding, the crew is relaxed and sipping drinks. No drama. No panic. Just good vibes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you forget one little thing\u2014like anchoring the Help icon or tying off a dock line\u2014suddenly it’s chaos, and you’re in a full-on UX post-mortem\u2026 or literally trying to recover your boat from drifting into a stranger’s mooring ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UX is sailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sailing is UX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both require planning, constant adjustments, knowing your users, and occasionally yelling “WHO DESIGNED THIS?!” into the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when it all works? Smooth sailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or as we call it in UX: low bounce rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spotify Have you ever designed a tangled user flow that needed its own sitemap? That’s sailing. Have you ever watched a user struggle with your navigation, yelling, “Where the hell am I supposed to click?” That’s basically yelling, “Where the hell is the wind coming from?” on a boat. UX and sailing are\u2026 the same<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,6,7,4],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ux","tag-uxresearch","tag-uxstrategy","tag-uxui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhdux.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}