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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.