User Experience; Believe us…It matters!

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Sometimes the experience empowers you, but, other time it may frustrate you, through your relation with a service or a product which might get more complicated or simpler, that depends on how this service or product were designed.

User Matters… Every product has a user, and every time it is used, it delivers an experience. When designing a chair ­-for example- although it is a simple product, it really matters when it comes to the user. Does it fit a heavy weight person? Or would it be comfortable if a user sits for a long time? Those are some of the concerns that a manufacturer must think of when designing, if they want to deliver a usable and wanted product.

But now…What is User Experience?

Many studies attempted to figure out or to define this term “user experience”, although, through the last decade, ‘user experience’ (UX) turn into a catchword in the field of interaction design and human–computer interaction (HCI). User experience (UX) is a phenomenon, which is adopted by the human–computer interaction (HCI), although researchers and community–practitioners criticized repeatedly for being the term vague, indefinable, ephemeral.

As mentioned before, UX professionals have their own ideas and definitions about user experience, but what all agreed on that it has three characteristics: user, product or service and the experience the user had when using it.

User experience is part of the equation that makes a difference in the outcome, which will differentiate between a successful product and a failure one. Thus, “UX” is about the outside relation between the product and the person who contact with.

If someone asks you what it felt when benefiting from a service or using a product; is it simple to use? Or is it easy to figure it out? They are asking you about your experience or what it calls user experience “UX”. If that product was a coffee machine for example, does they should push a lot of buttons to achieve or to deliver a cup of coffee? At the end, every product -when it’s used by someone- has a user experience no matter it’s  a very simple product such as: ketchup bottle or a very big and complicated product like a car.

Moreover; to make everything clear, for any product everything counts from the big things to the small one. A good explanation about the importance of UX, that it’s the marginal line between winning a costumer or losing them; referring to the Coffee machine example one button maybe that marginal line!

Towards a User Experience Design

1. Thinking about a product design, leads some people to think of it from a narrow point of view, which is the aesthetic view (looks good and feels good to the touch). The aesthetic point of view that includes the five senses depends on the type of the service or product, which may include all the senses or some of them.
2. Another thing that must be taken into consideration is, the functional point of view. So a well-designed product is the product that meet the two criteria/aspects (function and aesthetic).
3. When designing products, even if they are well designed from both aspects (function and aesthetic); that’s not enough. But when designing them and taking user experience into consideration “as a specified outcome means looking beyond (functional and aesthetic) that is more than enough”.
4. Sometimes, when designing products, some designers are ordered by the function of the product -taking into consideration that one of the designing theories “forms ever follows functions” regardless different designer’s opinions about this theory- this refers on how it works but when it comes to the user-facing like colors and shape of the buttons, labels etc., it depends on the user’s behavior and psychology.
5. Questioning the context is the key while designing with user experience way; referring to coffee machine example, aesthetic design is making sure that the button of the machine is in good shape and texture, while in functional design the designers should make sure that it generates the appropriate function. Whereas user experience design is to make sure that the functional and aesthetic aspects of the coffee machine button works in the context of the rest of the product or of what the user is seeking to achieve.

“Focus on designing the action. Computers as Theatre.”  Brenda Laurel

The web user experience

User experience (UX) matters for all kind of products and services -even for websites; “websites are complicated pieces of technology!” When a user has a bad experience on a site… something bad happens, they get mad by start blaming themselves for being stupid or not paying attention while using it… they also feel frustrated; that is not their fault, it’s just the site doesn’t work well. At the end it’s the most effective way to drive them away from your website.

Although how much the user experience is important when designing a website, sometimes  it’s unfortunately being ignored in the development process. Sites with the added complexity and features are becoming difficult and hard to be used. Nowadays, many businesses are paying attention to the quality of user experience.

If you’ve systematized your website’s content in a meaningful, evocative and logical way, you’ve constructed a solid infrastructure to support and acquire active users. You’ve laid down roadways through your site. Having a successful navigation design, leads the web designer and developer to consider the interface, which is in-between the users and content, and it’s an interpreter to the complexities of a site. Besides what was mentioned before, the graphical environment of the Web, “interface design” gives the user impressions through the visual meaning it constructs.

“The happy marriage of architecture and interface -of logical structure and visual meaning -creates a cohesive user experience.”     Jennifer Fleming

If you want to know more about making a better user experience for your website, wait for our next blog “How to Design your website to achieve a Great User Experience (UX)”