Almost every web development company like ours is concerned with this. Clients, designers, information architects, developers, front-end developers, and even marketing officers, everyone has this on his/her agenda and everyone looks at it differently, hence, the confusion.
First, you’ll spend hours trying to come to a common agreement to what is user experience to begin with, each focusing on the aspects that are relevant to their work, and once that happens, employees will assign differently the importance of one factor or the other, with a lot of Yes-But, and What-If’s being thrown around the room. And if by a miracle all of this was dealt with, you’ll end up with a user experience that satisfies some and disappoints many. All of this sounds familiar? Why do you think this happens?
Back to the language, there isn’t really a clear definition of the phrase; the dictionary provides the following meaning “The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use”.
Notice how “easy” and “pleasing” are the main keywords here? Shouldn’t this make it easier to define? No, not really! Because a lot of times, the users of the system are not the employees discussing user experience.
When you already have users of a product or service, you can ask them about their experience or monitor them using it, you’ll find feedbacks ranging from a deep emotional reaction such as loving it or hating it, to more rational feedback about their experience using the product or system. Feedback that may change after reusing a product a few times or might just adapt to a worse user experience if they use the product long enough and find value in it, or if they’re simply, used to it.
As an iPhone 6+ user, I personally liked the big screen, it almost made me abandon my iPad, on the other hand, I’m still not comfortable with the size, especially when I can’t use my other hand to interact with it. What I’m trying to say is that, often, users find themselves appreciating and wanting two conflicting features in a product, and until you, the user experience specialist, give them what they want, they sometimes wouldn’t know what it is. They’ll look at it sometimes, hate it, use it for a few days, and fall in love with it.
So, what do we do? We can’t design for all due to different preferences, and we can’t assume! The only way to go is hard data, heavy research of the audiences, their preferences, and even, their thought process. And this is the only way the above mentioned confusion between different employees can be settled, when I tell you that 90% of our audience prefer it to be in this color or size, that’s when we’ll finally agree.
Finally, that’s why the most important question you should be asking yourself as a user experience specialist, is Why! Why did I choose this color? Why is the content written this way? Why am I doing anything I’m doing? Otherwise, be prepared to have your choices challenged and changed.
More on the topic soon in part two of this article. In the meantime, do share with us your experience in building a user experiences in the comment section below.