Three reflections on the user Experience

"A product is useless, the experience is good users will not use." Do you think it's right or wrong? "I have launched such a discussion in micro-Borrie.

I was surprised to see the comments "a product is 60% in need of a user experience": is the user experience just icing on the cake? Do not understand the user, do not know what aspects of the user experience what happened, your product is how to do 60%?

The first reflection: the concept of user experience and landing situation

Generally speaking, user experience (username experience, UX or UE), it refers to the user in the use of a product, system or service to establish the pure subjective feelings.

There are two key points in this. One is the user, the other is the pure subjective feeling. User refers to the product, system or service target users, not yourself. Being affected by personal experience, treat the same thing but everyone's feelings may be different. But when we understand the feelings of a group, such as Taobao's buyers score. A buyer's subjective evaluation, may be a special case, but a number of buyers to the evaluation, it has been able to objectively reflect some of the facts. Therefore, although the experience is subjective, it does not affect the degree to which we attach importance to it.

In the work related to the user experience, we often hear similar comments:

Whether you admit it or not, most people confuse usability with the user experience when it comes to implementing the user experience, thinking usability is the user experience.

This reality needs to be changed.

Although the usability of the UI is important, it is not equal to the user experience. There is a fascinating relationship between user experience and usability. In most cases, high availability means that the user experiences better during use. But there are exceptions. Highway is an example, it is wide and straight, very high availability, but for motorists, its experience is far less than bending the narrow winding road.

It is a holistic concept for the user experience. From our users to see product advertising, media coverage, to know our products and make choices, and then to his use of products after the problem of consulting customer service. At different stages, different channels, every possible and your products, services, and even the enterprise itself to reach the place, can produce a user experience.

More and more user experience designers begin to use "User experience map" to guide design work. The user experience map is a visual representation of the emotional state of a user's needs and a series of interactive behaviors that satisfy these needs. Through this map, we can easily access the user's world, feel their experience, understand the pain point and opportunity. This approach can also better convey user stories to each associated role in order to optimize products and services.
"Figure: Re-use path Company's user experience map for the European Railroad Company"

Second reflection: User experience and product value

When you limit the user experience to the usability of the user's exposure to the UI, or the limited understanding that the user experience only occurs when the user is using the product, you say: There are more important things, such as user value, product value.

Yes. If the product is not useful, that is, it has no value to the user, UI availability is definitely not the most important and urgent thing.

But we still have to remind ourselves that usability is not the same as the user experience, and availability is just a part of the user experience (in use). User experience design beyond product design. User experience design includes a number of skills such as conducting user research, usability research, creating personas, designing information architectures, designing and using processes, and designing low/high fidelity prototypes. Its essence is user-centric product design, system design and service design, it is not only focus on the usability of the UI, but also focus on users before use, in use, after the use of various stages, different channels of all feelings. The user experience design includes both the tangible product, the system design and the intangible service design.

A product to the user has no use, that is, whether to meet the needs of users, determines whether the product has user value. Solving the problem of user value is equal to solving the problem of product usability. Making products useful is the basis of user experience design. In addition, the user experience design also needs to address the issue of product availability and attractiveness.

In a business environment, a valuable product, in addition to helping the user solve the problem, also needs to be able to help the enterprise achieve business goals, that is, both user value and business value. User Experience designers conduct detailed research and analysis on each point of contact between users and products, systems or services, and then design useful, usable, attractive products in conjunction with business goals and ultimately achieve valuable products. In this process, product managers and designers sometimes need to strike a balance between the user and the business. After all, pursuing a better user experience also means higher costs.

As we continue to enhance usability on the UI, and optimize the experience of users, we also need to focus on the user before and after the use of the experience, as much as possible to cover each of the user's key points of contact, to understand their needs, behavior and ideas. Usability is the foundation for the goal of user experience design, availability is demand, and attraction is expectation.

You can say that the experience of using http://12306.cn is bad, that is, the usability of the UI is poor. But the specificity of this area determines the particular usefulness and attractiveness of the product, so it is still a valuable product. As with this example, the availability of 51job.com,ui is a poor one, leading to poor experience in use. However, its usefulness is beyond doubt that tens of millions of netizens are still using it to do job hunting and recruiting, and its stock performance [JOBS] also shows its product value.

Don't forget, though, that a bad user experience leaves an opportunity for a competitor, and every opportunity is invaluable in a fiercely torn entrepreneurial environment. You won't underestimate that.

Back to the discussion at the beginning of the article, I think that "a product is useless, experience a good user will not be used", "a product to achieve 60% to need user experience" Such a conclusion is wrong, but if described as "a product is useless, usability is good users will not use" this conclusion is correct. The user experience needs to be considered when deciding to do this product, not icing on the cake.

The third reflection: User experience and Product Department, design department

As the user experience design continues to deepen, you will find that a lot of problems will come back to users and requirements. Only a comprehensive study and analysis of the various stages, channels and contact points of the user experience to understand the needs, behaviors and ideas of the target users can provide the most suitable solution. The quality of the user experience design depends largely on how much we know about the target user, not how well the interface is interacting or visually designed.

"Product design (PD) + User Experience Design (UXD)" The division of roles is wrong, because the user experience design work itself already contains the product, the system and the service design. The "Product design" and "User experience design" separate, user experience design work can not be from the policy layer, the so-called user experience design can only be limited to solve the usability problem and how to meet the target user's aesthetic problems. At the same time, "product design + Experience Design" The role of division of labor led to a very serious overlap of functions, the result is inefficient, the phenomenon of redundancy often occurs. I am particularly impressed with this, product Designer/Product planner and user experience designers such a mix is really bad: two of characters gather solutions, but never spend more time thinking clearly about the purpose (the cause and the meaning of the event), the goal (what level of expectation, how to measure), and the function makes a lot of , but in vain.

More appropriate is "product management (PM) + User Experience Design (UXD)" Such a division of roles, and they best belong to a department, do not need to set up a separate user experience department. Two roles serve for the same product, let this product succeed is their common goal.

This division of labor defines the responsibilities of both clearly and clearly. Product managers, the product managers, are primarily responsible for evaluating product opportunities and defining the products to be developed. Specifically including the formulation of product strategy and product objectives, to determine product requirements, planning the development of the product line and supervision of the implementation of requirements, and always follow the market feedback to make timely adjustments. In addition to business, technology and user experience, project management capability is also a key requirement for product managers. The user Experience Designer is primarily responsible for the research and analysis of users and provides solutions. This includes working with product managers, user researchers to understand target users, refining user needs and user experience goals, and then designing information architectures, usage processes, and user interfaces in conjunction with business requirements.

For startups, set product management roles as appropriate. But most of the time, the job of product management is the founder. In any case, the division of roles is a means not an end. Of course, the merit of a dedicated person is also very obvious, everyone has no excuse.

One of the topics that I am very interested in is how product managers and user experience designers collaborate effectively. During the Ixdc China Interactive design Experience Week in 2013, I held a workshop devoted to this topic.

"Figure: a way to work from the goal to the solution"

Now, I still think that many problems are caused by organizational structure, such as the product department and the user experience design departments are independent, the design work is not tied to the business, and the team's understanding of the goal objectives are inconsistent. Objective inconsistency is extremely lethal, leading to a team's direction and methodological errors that fail to help the product succeed.

Source: http://azero.tsang.blog.163.com/blog/static/47005201393143336534