5. user experience
User experience is the sum total of your customer's interactions with you.
It's more than 'user interface', the design of a page of information. Interface
is how your user gets things done; experience is how he feels
while doing it. It's the structuring of information into a coherent and unified
customer journey.
While graphics,
colour, text and typeface are its tools, user experience design on the
web is about a lot more than smart art - it's goal-driven.
The shaping of a product into a design that answers
user goals.
Everything from information architecture
to content strategy affects it - which is why it's hard to create from
a blank sheet of paper. But it's much easier to learn from - and change -
a user experience that's already being used by real people. That's why
user experience is a review-and-revise process, not something you dream up
in the meeting room.
So four-fifths of experience design is deciding what the user's
goals are. (Note: not the user's tasks. A simple
form-based HTML page will answer the task of getting 3,000 names
into a database; an application that extracts and inserts those names
from emailed responses answers the user's goals far better.)
That's where most user experience designs fail: not understanding that
user goals are different to business purposes. Getting 3,000 names into a database
isn't a goal; getting home on time is. So are not looking stupid, demonstrating
how great you are to your boss, and having fun. A UI that answers tasks alone
will fail; a UI that answers goals will succeed - and answer tasks at the same
time.
(Of course, the really fun part comes in trying to guess what else
the user may do with your interface. You can build sizeable databases in Excel,
hold virtual meetings in Quake. Interfaces that let the user do more than the
designer planned for are among the best. The street finds its own uses for things.)
Many user interface experts aren't famous for their web work; they're
famous because they understand user goals. Bruce
Tognazzini created the wonderful first Mac UI, while Alan Cooper's Visual
Basic rewrote the book on software development. Richard Seymour of Seymour
Powell designs products as far apart as underwear and vacuum cleaners, simply
by thinking of them as goal-driven interfaces first and foremost.
One of the greatest user experiences is Amazon.
Without a single kitschy graphic, you feel you're browsing a bookstore.
So is eBay, with
customers spending over three hours per visit. (Note that eBay's user interface
is surprisingly bad - many of the links aren't in proper context with the
user's workflow, there are too many islands of content that aren't crosslinked,
and the site often forgets where you've just been. But the overall experience
is warm, friendly, and distinctly eBay's.)
That's why Redpump can do user interface and user experience design
without being expert in graphics or art direction: it's all about defining user
goals. By looking at user experience, you can increase reach and frequency of
customer visits (by giving them an easier time, and persuading them to stay longer)
which lifts conversion rates (because more people are completing the customer
journey ending in a sale.)
A customer experience project takes time and money. But Redpump's
methods for executing one are the same as for IA, CS, or AD: it does it
by talking to people and detailing their hopes and dreams. Next: database
marketing.