Welcome to my blog! So it happens, the very first post…. I thought of what would be the best introduction into the User Experience, and then it hit me that I’ll research into different definitions of it and provide you with relevant quotes, and then reveal what UX means for me.
Wikipedia says:
User experience (UX) involves a person’s emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership. Additionally, it includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system. User experience is subjective in nature because it is about individual perception and thought with respect to the system. User experience is dynamic as it is constantly modified over time due to changing circumstances and new innovations.
Jakob Nielsen says:
“User experience” encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.
My guru, Don Norman says:
Everything has a personality: everything sends an emotional signal. Even where this was not the intention of the designer, the people who view the website infer personalities and experience emotions. Bad websites have horrible personalities and instill horrid emotional states in their users, usually unwittingly. We need to design things–products, websites, services–to convey whatever personality and emotions are desired.
I used to love biology lessons at my middle school not because I was particularly brilliant in it but because I used to enjoy the way my teacher was “selling” the subject of biology. His personality was a key for his students’ attention. Result: I liked it a lot. There was also Polish Literature class, I used to love it in my previous school but this time it just didn’t add up, the teacher seemed confused all the time and had “whatever” tone of voice when introducing the material. Result: I no longer liked it.
The power of the way things are presented is much stronger than the actual content. It’s important to put your heart and effort in the things you do. It’s important to think of your viewers/users/customers before introducing them to your content. I gave examples of 2 different teachers and my reaction to what they were contributing, each teacher represented different design. The biology teacher has certainly mastered his UX design techniques, while Polish Literature teacher stayed way way behind.
For me good user experience is what it take to make a user satisfied (and gives a user a little spark of excitement 🙂 ).
Experience Economy and Why it Matters. 