When I tell my brother about what I do, he just laughs and says in a derisive manner “so you make sites pleasant for the user?” and follows with “why don’t you just give them a comfy chair?”
I have no comeback for this.
I can’t deny that user experience is, at its heart, about making a visit to a web site a pleasant enough experience to encourage repeat visits, sharing with friends or, in the case of ecommerce sites, making a purchase. Making the experience enjoyable is one of the core tenets of user experience design, but user experience as a discipline is so much more than that.
“User experience” is the umbrella term for incorporating the best practices of information architecture (how people find things), interaction design (how people interact with your product), and usability (making the site easy to use). All three of these facets rely on their own set of best practices and if those best practices are in place, a user is bound to have an experience that is seamless and, yes, pleasant. Our job as User Experience Designers is to try to remove any road blocks or annoyances that a user might encounter while they are using a web site or web application.
If we do that, then we have done our job.
In the “Real” World
Of course, user experience isn’t solely a discipline relegated to the design of a web site, application or product. The elements of user experience can be found in little ways in everything we encounter and interact with on a day-to-day basis. What follows are some common user experience patterns and illustrations of where we encounter them in our daily lives.
Navigation Patterns
We engage in “wayfinding” activities throughout our day:
- Driving to an unfamiliar place
- Searching your inbox for an email from a colleague
- Figuring out which door to use when exiting a building
- Finding the wine list on a menu
These activities correlate with discovering information online. Think of looking up a recipe for all of the rutabagas in your garden or trying to decipher what the next step is when opening an online checking account. You are looking for “scent” or cues that you are heading in the right direction as you evaluate the information that is presented to you.
Information Patterns
An example of an information pattern that we encounter in daily life is the convention of using up and down arrows in an elevator to signify direction. Another is using the color and position of stop light (red, top) to signify stop. These patterns are so ingrained and expected that we don’t even think about them except when they violate our mental model of how something should behave.
A web example of an information pattern could be the consistent use of bold red and icon to designate an error or high priority item. Another is to use directional arrows for back and next pagination. Many of the patterns on the web are based on concrete real-world encounters.
Conversion Patterns
As much as I dislike being viewed as a “consumer”, it is an efficient term for what humans do—we consume information as we move about our day. We are continually processing that information to create meaning to every input be it the physical sensation of sitting in a chair too long, seeing a deer walk across a parking lot or hearing a familiar song on the radio.
We also consume food, clothes, energy as we go about our daily lives. Consuming comes naturally to us, which is why we are prone to acts of self-gratification such as impulsively buying that candy bar while paying for gas or buying that shiny new watch because we deserve it. We encounter “conversion” opportunities to empty of wallets and feed our body and ego at practically every turn- from being pitched a new watch while visiting the New York Times web site, the scent of fresh baked cookies from your local bakery, to a vending machine on every floor of your office. Conversion opportunities on the web often lead to putting a book into a shopping cart or filling out a form to register for a newsletter or webcast.
Homework
With these examples in mind, see what other use experience examples you find as you move throughout your day. On the web, in your car or at the store decisions were made, both good and bad, about the way things are presented and the way they work. It’s an insightful exercise and one that occasionally offers up surprises.
If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll find a positive user experience example in the design of a comfy chair.
Tags: User Experience
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