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Start with five, then another five, then another five, and then…
“User experience is becoming an increasingly popular feature of the digital landscape. But as digital marketers, we don’t always have a clear view of what it is, and how it impacts our work.(…) In this article, I’ll brief digital marketers on some of the fundamentals of user experience, and how it impacts their work.”
(Kristin Low ~ Mashable)
Experience as the design holism for humans.
Interview with Claire Rowland: “You can’t treat it as making a single device or making an app; if you do those things in isolation, you may do them individually very well, but you’re not necessarily going to come up with a great overall experience.”
(Mary Treseler a.k.a. @marytreseler ~ O’Reilly Radar)
See how IBM is revitalizing Design in its organization.
“In a 1966 memo to all IBM employees, then-Chairman and CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr. declared, Good design is good business. At that point in history, IBM used design to demystify technology when computing was new. Almost half a century later, IBM is using great design to create enterprise-class products that people love to use to get their work done. Scaling modern design across a portfolio of thousands of products that serve clients in more than 170 countries is much more than a two-pizza team challenge—and we like it that way.”
(Phil Gilbert a.k.a. @philgilbertsr ~ AIGA Gain conference 2014)
Tech pub company sees the design light.
“Design aligns humans and technology, it aligns business and engineering, it aligns digital and physical, and it aligns business needs and user needs. (…) Design is both the disruptor and being disrupted. It’s disrupting markets, organizations, and relationships, and forcing us to rethink how we live. The discipline of design is also experiencing tremendous growth and change, largely influenced by economic and technology factors. No longer an afterthought, design is now an essential part of a product, and it may even be the most important part of a product’s value.”
(Mary Treseler a.k.a. @marytreseler ~ O’Reilly Radar)
Deep thinking and expressing it is not a great characteristic of practitioners. Grosso modo.
“I have a hypothesis. It is that the best path to the simplest user experience is through understanding the whole experience and that we are addicted to surface thinking, a way of thinking that leads to bad, shallow and fragile results.”
A relevant item of our FAQ.
“(…) the lack of strategy and integration is creating a new problem that continues to go ignored by many: poor user experiences and inconsumable content that never quite strikes that balance between business goals and user needs.”
(Jessica Negri ~ ethology)
Let’s call it ‘inter- and intra-touchpoint experience design’ (i2TED).
“Design has become incredibly multifaceted in recent years, encompassing subfields such as interaction design, user experience design, customer experience design and service design, to name just a few. We discuss the skills gap that exists today, and open a conversation on how you could begin your career in this industry.”
Usability being a characteristic of a product in use. UX being a mental state of a person with a product in and after use.
“I’m a big fan of usability testing. It’s a useful tool, and one that all UX designers should have in their toolbox. But we need to see usability testing in a broader context and consider its strengths and limitations.”
Value is in the mind of the beholder.
“The value of credentialing in various occupations is well-known. We would never consider going to a physician who was not licensed. Similarly, we wouldn’t want our tax returns filed by an accountant who wasn’t certified. In addition, some everyday activities, such as voting, owning a car, or collecting money for charity, require proof of credentials by larger organizations before they can be legally performed. Yet there are fields, including user experience, that do not regulate the credentials of practitioners, even though bad practice could jeopardize human health and safety as well as individual, corporate, or organizational well-being. Bad practice also damages the reputation of the entire profession. Do we not regulate credentials because our profession is not perceived as that important, or because we lack professional definition and integrity sufficient to differentiate a competent UX professional from one who is not? And what is the value to hiring managers of the human factors, ergonomics, and UX certification programs that exist today?”
Selling UX leads to the CX of UX.
“Do you ever feel like you’re banging your head against a wall when it comes to selling UX to your clients or colleagues? User-centred processes are slowly gaining traction in the mainstream, but there is still some evangelising to be done! We asked 20 UX professionals to share their tips on how to convince clients that a UX process is the best way to design (or redesign) a product or service.”
(Kimberley Magain a.k.a. @MelbourneMum1 ~ UXmastery)
UX morphing into Enterprise UX.
“This column is the first in a series that will offer insights on how to help companies progress from delivering mediocre user experiences, as is all too common, to producing truly great experiences that differentiate their products and services in the marketplace. Doing so requires a radical transformation in the way business executives and UX teams engage in creating user experiences.”
(Jim Nieters and Pabini Gabriel-Petit ~ UXmatters)
How can you make practice better without any reading from research? Only partially.
“Let’s face it: UX is difficult for many of us who study it, teach it, and do it for a living to define. We owe it to the next generation of UX professionals to introduce them to UX as soon as possible in their professional development, to be the frontline of UX education, so-to-speak. That’s the only way to make certain that students who are dedicated to becoming UX professionals have the opportunities they need to make that possibility a reality.”
(Guiseppe Getto a.k.a. @guiseppegetto ~ Boxes and Arrows)
Another item to the acro soup: LUX. Great initiative this peer-reviewed journal.
“This paper demonstrates how user interactions can be measured and evaluated with A/B testing, a user experience research methodology. A/B testing entails a process of controlled experimentation whereby different variations of a product or service are served randomly to users in order to determine the highest performing variation. This paper describes the principles of A/B testing and details a practical web-based application in an academic library. Data collected and analyzed through this A/B testing process allowed the library to initiate user-centered website changes that resulted in increased website engagement and improved user experience. A/B testing is presented as an integral component of a library user experience research program for its ability to provide quantitative user insights into known UX problems.”
(Scott W. H. Young a.k.a. @hei_scott ~ Weave: Journal of Library User Experience 1.1)
UX getting confronted with higher order concepts.
“If you listen closely to the stories, you can hear the underlying user experience interactions. You can hear where those interactions went well and where they failed. The promises can be the key to how you deliver better products and services.”
(Jared Spool a.k.a. @jmspool)
CX, the sum of design for UX and BX a.k.a. XD.
“Reflecting on my earlier work on brands as media companies, I realize that the word media was really a placeholder for experience. It’s not that every company should be a media company per se – but rather, that every company must become an experience company. Media is one kind of experience – but for many companies, the right kind of experience is not media, at least if we understand “media” to mean content. (…) I believe that every brand needs to get good at experience design and delivery. Those that are great at it tend to grow by exponential word of mouth – think of Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, or Earnest (a new lending company). When marketing becomes experience design, brands win.”
(John Batelle’s a.k.a. @johnbattelle ~ Search Blog)
Everything with a structure has an architecture, human experiences not excluded.
“The built environment is the ultimate platform for human experience. No matter which social network we frequent or which software we use, we are all logging on from real, physical space – our house, our office, our favorite café or pub, or local park. In a world where up to 70% of the global population will soon live in cities, one might say that architects operate on the front lines of experiential design. Learn how architects are using design tools and back-to-basics observation to better understand the mechanics of human behavior and the qualitative value people ascribe to the experience of daily life. Discover how quick access to information and interdisciplinary collaboration is affecting the shape of building design and the patterns of city planning. See how people use and occupy space – and hear why they come back. View the world from the perspective of one profession that is designing it.”
(David Cutler a.k.a. @davidcutler_sea ~ Adaptive Path UX Week 2014)
Every designer their own model (a.k.a. perception) of what they’re doing.
“We all want to be a part of compelling creative projects—projects that solve business problems and engage users through meaningful and valuable experiences. However, given tight budgets and timelines it’s challenging to create genuinely innovative design, identify gaps in the process, and consider the variety of factors for effective user experience. To solve these common challenges, I researched existing user experience models or frameworks and found that most UX diagrams are confusing, unorganized, complex, or antiquated, making them useless for designers and clients. That’s why I decided to create my own model.”
(Corey Stern a.k.a. @CoreyAStern ~ UX Magazine)
So much to learn from established experience design fields, like music, cinematography and gastronomy.
“Just as Escoffier took Ritz customers on a kitchen tour, Guillaume recommends explaining to your clients how their site or app has been cooked. The more open and understood our design processes are, the more their value will be recognized. Have you ever been running late and prepared dinner in a rush? I have and it was, unsurprisingly, a disaster. So tell your clients their website is nothing but a good meal; it takes time to make it a memorable experience.”
(Antoine Lefeuvre a.k.a. @jiraisurfer ~ A List Apart)
UX culture eats…
“The concept of strategy can be fuzzy at best. And the word strategy tends to hold a different meaning depending on who you’re talking to. Jim Kalbach says that strategy needs to show causality. He defines it as a hypothesis of a desired position, and a belief about how you’re going to succeed and overcome challenges.”
(Jim Kalbach a.k.a. @jimkalbach ~ Brainsparks)
Checklist for the UX designer litmus test?
“With the flood of ill-trained people claiming to be user experience designers, how do you know if you are hiring a UX snake oil salesman or a true UX expert? UX design was largely unappreciated for many years, but the rash of recent successes attributed to good UX design has helped UX become a desirable part of any website design effort. Unfortunately, opportunists quick to add UX to their repertoire of services are hoping that you won’t know how to differentiate their offerings from real UX expertise.”