Figuring out what a user experience design is

What is the user experience? Discuss the organization's user experience system configuration at a large meeting with the client for a consulting project, arguing over many links. After several rounds of discussion, only to find that there is a little difference in the understanding of this basic concept, the results in the discussion of the implementation of the process magnified into a larger problem.

8, 9 years ago called Art, 6, 7 years ago called interaction, 4, 5 years ago called usability, now called user experience. This is a kind of evolution, the driving force of evolution is the competition of market products, the direction of evolution is the systematization of user experience work. At present, many organizations, although the user experience is commensurate, but most of them do not fully return to their due meaning.

What is the user experience

It may seem like a new cliché, and for many of those who have worked for many years of UX, it might seem that the basic concept has become a consensus, and there is nothing left to say. But in a large meeting with the client of the consulting project to explore the organization's user experience system configuration, there is no dispute about many links. After several rounds of discussion, only to find that there is a little difference in the understanding of this basic concept, the results in the discussion of the implementation of the process magnified into a larger problem.

The introduction of the Word user experience and promotion, the starting point is because the industry has slowly realized that users of the product preferences and the scope of the experience can not be limited to the GUI design or interactive design and should be wider, such as content design, architecture design and even service design. But the term "user experience" covers two fundamental and correct understandings: One is a series of methods and activities that we use to verify whether a product is UCD, that is, by allowing "users" to "experience" products directly or indirectly as input to product design and development, and the other is to ensure that the final product "user experience" The quality and level of the various people, capabilities, mechanisms and specific activities required. To sum up, this is a small one big two different understanding, the small refers to the work has the user participation the work sum, even the design should not include; The big one is all work that contributes to the user experience of the target product (not just the experience).

In communicating with peers, it is understood that most of the understanding of the word should be between these two understandings. The user experience includes user research (e.g., trial, interview, etc.) and some design. The source of this understanding, on the one hand, because of the beginning of the development process; On the other hand, I think it is also from the feasibility of the work, where is only a small concept, the scope of work is too small, if the concept is too large to carry out difficulties, so slowly produced to a small concept + specific controllable (see see Touch) of the relevant design.

But again, the tradeoff is that the user experience arrangement is often a small number of user experience staff plus some designers who may be grouped under the user experience, perhaps even outside. In particular, this arrangement is the user experience of the infiltration of inadequate, and this does not fully lead to the user staff in the enterprise "personality split", symptoms and UX work with management, developers and even product personnel differences, UX work difficult to push, user experience staff have no position, It even led to a miscarriage of the newly-created UX-the UX department that was not dissolved or was in the middle of a long time ago.

Why is that? Some peers do not give a fundamental analysis, but give the explanation: UX should be universal, not just a department. This interpretation of the corresponding approach is only a matter of interest, or only at the level of designers to see the problem. Personally think this approach is bad because it brings the side effects of the company's user experience backwards-breaking up everyone in the company to UX means that no one is doing UX.

This is not the fault of the user experience staff, but the inevitable state of evolution to the present stage. But the initiative in the direction of evolution at a higher level to examine this stage, can better let us understand the problems encountered in the work, and even improve the effectiveness of practical work and efficiency.

Orange-born Huainan is Orange, was born in Huaibei, and orange--(culture)

The user experiences the thought and the work way is the good thing, but not each enterprise all suits. If the introduction of this mechanism in order to keep up with the fashion, it may bring a lot of pain, can not get the results of it, but also may be the enterprise to make smoke, nothing but also may be ripe for the future to accept this "good things" door blocked.

The user experience work can be regarded as the transfer of some decision-making power in the enterprise culture level. The original boss to make a lot of things, become the user data, whether directly or indirectly. When the organizational culture is centralized, especially when the bosses at all levels do their duty to the detail style, UX intervention is bound to provoke this conflict, so UX is the new thing most likely to be aborted in the conflict.

Therefore, when you see the user experience work in other companies bring value, do not rush to introduce, also do not listen to what the availability of enterprise maturity measurement results. First assess whether your soil is suitable for this new thing.

The user is a short-sighted God--(mechanism)

UCD is the basic idea of user experience work, on the macroscopic level, it can be said that the user is our God. Knowing God, and designing for it, is a very fundamental way of working. But if the user experience is only fur, it will often be the user of the "God" to take you to the ditch. Because the user of the product vision and other aspects of the view is short-sighted, example: The user said a lot of the feeling is a momentary, and other examples, practitioners have more discussion.

The designers who serve God must be close to him and know the skills. Looking at a product from the creative to the online process, in fact, is the balance of n many forces: the power of user needs, business considerations for business development, as well as the process of the various role of the idea. If you want to avoid the short-sighted nature of the user as much as possible, give play to the advantage of user data, on the one hand to have excellent scientific user researcher to do user characteristics and demand analysis, on the other hand, it is necessary to consider the power of user demand and enterprise (product) development has a higher vision of enterprise decision-making or leadership of the power to have the opportunity to collide, To examine the characteristics and needs of users at a higher level as much as possible, and the fact that such collisions can often produce unexpected "fission effects" that create a pure designer's unexpected "creative" opportunity.

Based on user, higher than user. This should be a pragmatic implication of what the user experience should contain. But the collision opportunities mentioned above are not guaranteed in organizations that have not elevated user experience to management levels, as management with a higher vision does not have an established opportunity to look at the data of those users.

Should not be a person in the fight-(team)

In the popular product behind often have excellent designers, and product success, he will become the focus of attention. Thus giving the impression that a good product experience comes from the giant of a good designer. But what I want to say is that every good experience design is not a single individual, but a solid support. This support is the most fundamental of the company's culture, the specific point is the management of incentives and the corresponding workflow methods to ensure that the designer conceived the excellent design of pregnancy can be in many designs to stand out and into the real product, until the real target user living experience.

Team--It should be the root of an enterprise's commitment to the end product user experience, not one or two of people fighting. Of course, the team can only solve the people problem, want to let the team in the organization to play a real role. The team should have a set of ways of doing things to ensure that everyone in the team has enough design space to be able to add up and maximize the ingenuity of each team member. The matching way of doing things is divided into two aspects, one aspect is the surrounding environment of the team-----------------------------enterprise culture (especially product decision-making) Required capacity and shared expertise reserves (especially UX methods and UX method updates).

There are more ways to have a state--(method)

The user experience should be something concrete that should be on the ground rather than floating in the air for people to pay their respects. Therefore, the company with the soil, if you want to plant this seed, if only to shape a user-centric thinking realm, it is light to say not practice, mouth Kung Fu.

From the specific way of working (method) to the manifested team, then from various management methods to shape a UCD enterprise culture, these need is to take the UX up to the management level, but also to establish a matching at all levels of "work routines" to ensure that "ideological realm" landed into formal results. “

"Routines" include many levels: small to a product user research methods, interactive design, in the N product specification, large to the product life cycle how to carry out product quality control, decision makers how to participate in the experience of decision-making, brand modeling. These "routines" are composed of a management system, including personnel composition, ability matching, workflow; At the same time, user experience is a kind of knowledge work, its management system inside also need to have update way to ensure the whole system cycle, forward evolution.

The above observations come from the exchange of many industry peers and the reflection of a number of consulting projects designed to provide a different perspective on the day-to-day issues of user experience work. This thinking is not just a concept, it's a way of working with actual work, and it's been piloted in the process of working with a lot of customers in terms of gradual infiltration from specific UX and driving team building, management building, and even cultural practices, but because UX is not a long time in the country, There are many problems that need to be constantly explored in practice.