User Experience isn’t Everything
24, Oct, 2012
2 comments
Tags: app store, apple, business, clear, facebook, linguistic change, pinterest, product, product management, rapid ascent, technology, user experience, UX, visual aspect
It seems the whole world has gone crazy for design lately. Engineers fancy themselves UXperts, Ad Sales is requesting PSDs to tweak, and Upper Management just doesn’t like that shade of blue.
Personally, I blame Pinterest.
Pinterest’s rapid ascent into mainstream lexicon* is enforcing the concept that the visual aspect is the only important piece of a product. Well, I’m here to tell you that that ain’t true.
Take the ‘To Do’ app Clear for example — it offers one of the most beautiful experiences available in the App Store. However, it’s also missing major features! It limits characters to an unusable minimum, there’s no indication of navigational hierarchy, the ‘down’ swipe intended to change screens constantly pulls down the iOS drop screen instead, and once you remove your completed tasks there’s no way to recover them (which is really annoying if you do it with an experimental swipe!!).
Path is another gorgeous app with insufficient use cases. The idea behind Path is that it’s the social network that limits your number of connections, thereby keeping your friend list to only your nearest and dearest. Well, that’s all well and good, but good luck trying to figure out how to post on another person’s Path! Instead of encouraging users to interact with one another, the featureset encourages them to fixate on their own Path. It quickly devolved into what Facebook began as — the pool into which Narcissus tumbled (complete with self-indulgent duckface photos to boot).
It’s been touted in the industry that 2013 is the ‘Year of Visual Web’ based on Pinterest’s continued success, redesigns by eBay that put imagery first, Facebook’s purchase of Instagram, and more. With the growing focus on aesthetics, let’s just hope people don’t forget about the features.
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*A bit of an aside, but according to the New York Times, young women are driving linguistic change more than any other demographic. And ~80% of Pinterest users in the US are female. Hmm…coincidence?
I think you have valid point Stephanie and product development is not just about user experience. Equally, it is not just as simple as the result of using something through functionality and features.
In the traditional Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Human Interface (HI) principals there are four key disciplines, 1) ergonomics – the science behind human interaction that focuses on how well a human interacts with a product, 2) affordance – quality of the interface and tools provided to the user, 3) usability – how easy the interface is to use and learn, and 4) user experience – basically how a user feels about using an interface albeit software or hardware. In summary, ergonomics is about fit, affordance is the what, usability is the how and user experience is the result or response of use.
In essence user experience or UX is nothing really new. It is just product designers or developers are now very focus on the result of interaction. In an ideal world, there should be a balance, but equally we are going through a process of simplification of products – there is a trend of product use democratisation and making products simpler to use – the iPod, iPhone are classic examples. The interesting thing about iPod and iPhone is there is an almost perfect balance between form and function.
I found an interesting piece from MIT on the subject of democratized innovation and how this relates to users having the ability to develop new products and services, which an ever expanding area of interest.
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books/DI/Chapter9.pdf
I would like to expand further with an example. Imagine two products with exactly the same features, but different user interfaces. Although, they have exactly the same set of functions/features supplemented by a superior or lacklustre interface. Which one do you think will be most preferable? The answer is obvious.
Now look at another example, Product A has superior user interface/experience but has less features, Product B has a lacklustre user interface/experience but has more features, is the answer obvious now? I am simplifying a common dilemma and it doesn’t take into account a whole host of other purchase factors etc
At the end of the day, we want a good to great user experience that leverages what we know and expect from a device or piece of software, but is unique enough to surprise and push the user experience envelop even further.
Most interfaces of today are based on the basic known principals, learning and use. The challenge is not to break these expectations, but supplement with something new. Once such product and technology on the horizon is free-air gesture based interface coupled with voice recognition and direct manipulation (keyboard, mouse and other hardware device) – that’s when the fun will really start 😉
Two companies to watch out for are Oblong and LeapMotion.
Thanks for the comment, Ben; this is really insightful. You’ve definitely picked up on what I meant by this post.
It seems to me more and more lately that product developers are choosing to build the “Product A” over the “Product B,” while older products stand as almost relic-like Product Bs (think About.com or Meetup.com). Obviously this does not apply across the board, but it does seem like MVPs nowadays are increasingly focused around the UX/design aspect.
PS – I’m mostly excited for the advent of functional holograms. 😉