Happy Path is a very common term in software development and UX design world.
Happy Path refers to the path of optimal user experience. It is a path users are expected to take to achieve a particular goal without any troubles. In other words, happy path is a series of a carefully designed steps that lead to a desired outcome.
A well defined happy path will make the designers work easier. It will also be easy to test, and of course it will lead to a better product.
Happy Path Example
An example of a happy path can be a product checkout process. A user adds desired product to the shopping cart and proceeds to checkout. A user is asked to enter in credit card and shipping information. Information is processed and verified. A user gets a chance to confirm and possibly change the order before submitting it. There are no errors and surprises on the way!
Designing Happy Path
Happy path is usually built around a specific feature that meet user’s needs and goals.
UX designers should spend sufficient time researching and understanding user needs, context of use, and then finding the best solution for this particular use case. Large part of design work will go into removing any obstacles along the way, and making the path as simple and smooth as possible.
Make sure to consider complete user journey. In many cases happy path will start with a blank slate. So keep that in mind.
Also take into consideration interaction that might take place on screen (see GUI) as well as off screen (see VUI).
Testing Happy Path
If the problem and user needs were well understood and defined, it should be fairly easy to test a happy path.
In a typical user testing setting a user can be given a particular task that test a particular happy path. For example, find this particular book and purchase it.
A test can be done with a prototype, a set of mocks, or real application.
Observing the user as they are walking through the application should reveal most of the problems with the design. Ideally a user will take the happy path and accomplish the task with ease.
But it might not go as well as planned. The user might lost and confused, or might hesitate to take the next step?
Run a series of tests like that with a number of users. Refine your design and test again.
Unhappy, Sad and Bad Paths
You can hear words like unhappy, sad or bad as opposites to happy path. These terms not very common, and are somewhat meaningless.
It is much more common to hear designers talk about edge cases and error states.