User Experience Design Does Not Exist by Bryan
December 03, 2008 in Interaction Design with 7 Comments
If you were to ask 100 people how their experience was on amazon.com, you'd probably get 50 different answers. And if we we're to believe that there is such a thing as user experience design, a team of designers would have been responsible for designing all those experiences.
And while it's nice to think that someone was thinking about the user, it's unlikely that the designers were truly influencing all the emotions, feelings and experiences of the user. Sure, you might say that somebody in the company needs to be focused on the user, but that's not designing something, that's observing, talking and learning from them- we call that 'customer service' and 'marketing'.
The designers that work on amazon.com don't create the experience— they're responsible for building the system, product and service that allowed those different experiences to happen. The designers work to understand how the user interacts with the website to create the most desirable and profitable experiences. We call that interaction design.
Designers need to stop thinking that they're creating experiences. They're allowing them to unfold with sound design decisions.
7 Comments
Dan Saffer says:
We came up with a similar idea:
http://www.kickerstudio.com/blog/2008/12/the-disciplines-of-user-experience/
Bryan (ZURB) says:
Dan- interesting graph. I'd say that companies need to be more 'cross-disciplined'- looking more at the intersection of different skills of engineering, marketing and customer service. Designers tend to think the world revolves around their own skill set!
Shrikant Ekbote says:
Thanks Bryan. Interesting read. I agree with statement that one can't really design experiences. Another objection I've with the term "User Experience design" is that currently it is used in the context of web or digital objects but that's a very small part of my experiences. So if at all we've to use this term, we should call it "web experience design" or "digital experience design" rather than calling it "User Experience design". If we extend the same logic, even "interaction design" does not exist. At the core it's just "User Interface design". Regards- Shrikant
William Bright says:
While I don't know if designers should necessarily be held accountable for the user experience, I think an ideal situation is that everyone involved in a web product be aware of not only the UI, but the also of the "User Experience" -- regardless of how we label it. Currently I'm part of the team developing a Facebook Application and each of us is very much focused on the experience from page to page, section to section and how each decision affects the whole experience.
Is it in my job description? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's more of the Creative or Art Director's responsibility than the individual designer's, but if anyone actually cares about the product they're working on I'd hope they would make an effort to think about such things, rather than just punch a timeclock and do the bare minimum that fits their job description.
I agree with what you say about "cross-discipline." The way things are, most designers are suddenly expected to be creative director, UI designer, and wear many other hats than what's expected. On the flip side, many "creative directors" also happen to be the only designer available on the job. The more flexible, or cross-disciplined, they are, the better for everyone involved (and more valuable they are on their jobs!)
madhu says:
Bryan,
IMO. Experiences are subjective, therefor each of those 50-100 experiences might be different.
However it is true that many of those experiences get attached to the product /service, especially the bad experiences. Consequently impacting the business (sales).
It is very difficult / impossible to influence the experiences, but influencing experiences is too value-able business aspect to ignore. One might not achieve 100% results, but 50% or more chance of a better experience (memorable one) is still worthwhile to plan / invest for. Especially avoiding all the possible negative experiences is very important for success.
It might not be 'design' in traditional sense, but some form of predicting, planning, action is required.
So User experience exists, just very difficult to influence.
Miek says:
There is a commonly-held assumption about experience design, which is that experience can be designed, or rather, engineered. The idea that each person's experience of a thing will be the same goes out the window as soon as you consider the rich and varied nature of all those people. Everyone brings baggage, or a lifetime of previous experiences to any new experience. Thus, what comes before shapes the experience they then have.
It is a commonly-held assumption that we can create experiences. We can create a situation where a person will have an experience that is more-or-less how we intend it, but we cannot engineer it. Experience design is about being sensitive to people and the experiences they may have, and understanding that these may all be different.
Miek says:
Oops, where's the edit button for my comment?! Sorry for repeating myself!
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