You get a good feeling
That feeling when you first started using the iPhone — remember that?
You had a much bigger screen, a full keyboard and no more buttons to press. You were tapping, swiping, pinching — on glass!
That was pretty cool right? Made you feel good didn’t it?
UX (User Experience) is made up of those good feelings.
When you viewed, liked, commented on and shared that YouTube video your buddy just posted on Facebook — all that just through fiddling with your phone — that too goes under UX.
Same goes for your watch, especially if it’s Android Wear. For your glasses, just a little bit, unless they’re Google Glasses then a lot. Checking the time from your watch and seeing with your glasses on are also covered by UX.
Practically, anything that you can use has UX.
Yup. Actually, the…
- design quality
- ease of use
- capabilities
- effects
and everything else that you experience when engaging with something
…is part of user experience.
Says who?
Donald Norman — this guy who’s kinda like the George Lucas of product design and a pretty interesting guy if you check out his resume — he coined the term User Experience.
The Don basically states that, above everything else, the user should be the number one consideration when designing products or services.
That means designers from Apple were observing and thinking of you a lot when they were developing the iPhone.
Not a fan of the iPhone
You like Android phones better than the iPhone — that happens. Most likely it’s your preference or your just biased. Either way, it is what it is because UX is derived from a personal level. You are unique and so are your user experience preferences.
The good news is that a lot of user research effort is put into UX studies to come up with designs that combine and accommodate what different users like. Good user experiences are determined by no one else other than users like you.
Who knows, Apple might come up with new iPhone enhancements that can win you over.
Android for life
Honestly, it’s still possible that you might end up switching to the iPhone because just like you, your user experiences are adaptive and are always changing. UX progresses — you get into new technologies and trends and get tired of old ones, so your mentality and preferences change too.
The bottom line is, whether you get on the iPhone bandwagon or not, I’m pretty sure that you won’t be switching back to any kind of keypad phone.
Aside from that, Don emphasizes that UX involves not just your phone and other favorite things but also a lot of your regular, everyday experiences.
UX all day everyday
- that elevating smoothness in your car when you’re cruising on the freeway
- that welcoming beep every time you wave your keycard at the reader of your office front door
- the stimulating radiance of bright lights and shiny interior structures dilating your eyes while you’re shopping at the mall
- the exhilaration as you glide and bob with other fans to the music of your favorite bands performing at a majestic outdoor concert
Look around — from sophisticated systems to practical applications, UX is everywhere and is part of your everyday life!