There’s a lot of noise around UX these days.  It seems everyone and their dog is suddenly a qualified UX guru and is claiming twenty years of experience in designing user experiences of every flavour. The reality is different. I would suggest that many of the people who are claiming that status are unlikely to have a good understanding of what UX actually is. The term User Experience was coined by Don Norman at Apple in 1993 and he recently said a few interesting things about it:

Now we don’t need to get too purist about this – we are allowed to let a term evolve from its first usage – the English language is in fact a well-practiced expert at doing so. But the key point that Dan Norman makes (and one this author agrees with) is that the user experience is so much more than a user interface and even wider than how you interact with a given UI. 

A Daily User Experience 

Sometimes, to appreciate the good, you need to have experienced the bad. Luckily for this article, there are literally thousands of examples out there on the web. I don’t like to pick on the afflicted, so I won’t. Instead, let’s take a look at what designers (or the lack thereof) are doing to users as they try to get on with their daily tasks around the internet. 

Things that hurt everyday: 

1. Being sold to: experiences that seem to spend all their time telling us how wonderful they are instead of actually giving us something that suggests that might be true 
2. Being taken round and round in pointless circles: experiences that guide us down a path, don’t provide the information or interaction we’re looking for, then just take us back to where we started 
3. Being asked for things before they give us anything: experiences that demand our information before they explain what we might get in return
4. Being asked for feedback before we’ve had a chance to do anything: how can we give you feedback if you won’t let us experience your site? 
5. Being asked for information twice, thrice, more:  if we’re kind enough to share of our personal information with you, don’t ask us for it again 
6. Being taken down dead ends:  we’re merrily navigating the experience (perhaps even enjoying it) and then you take us to a dead end.  As a user, guess where we will go next? 
7. Being given interaction options that take us offline: Ask us to contact you and then leave us hanging… waiting for someone to wake up? 

Note:  The above all apply to all experiences, whether app-based, site-based, email-based, physical etc. 

I’m sure you can spot some common threads in the list above. The one thing that stands out is that the experiences always seem to be asking things of the user. This doesn’t make a user feel loved, it makes them feel used, taken advantage of. I’d suggest that’s not how you want your users to feel. 

What does a poor UX do to your users?

1. It makes them feel unloved and unappreciated 
2. It makes them feel like they’re in the wrong place – like the experience you’ve designed is for someone else 
3. It makes them feel used, taken advantage of, like they’re only there for your benefit  
4. It leaves them wondering if you’ve thought about them at all… 
5. It makes them go elsewhere – go where they are loved 
6. It makes them not want to come back 

What makes for a poor UX? 

• Difficult – when it feels like you’re fighting the organisation as opposed to the organisation being there to help you 
• Arrogant – feeling like the organisation knows better than you, like you’re not good enough to be there 
• Belittling – making the user feel small, foolish, or (even worse!) that they’re in the wrong place 
• Boring – same old same ol’ – nothing new here 
• Demanding – keeps asking us to do things 
• When it feels like the organisation doesn’t value your time 
• When it feels like you’re doing the work for the organisation, not the other way around 

What makes for a good UX? 

• Personal – the user feels like this is their experience (not yours) 
• When it feels like the organisation is there to help you (not take advantage of you) 
• When it feels like the organisation has made an effort to make this easy for you 
• Leaving the user feel loved & appreciated 

So back to our question – who cares if your UX is bad? Your users do. And if your UX is bad, then they’re not likely to be your users for long. So you don’t need to worry about it right?  Just let them wander off to some other site. You can continue to peddle your wares as if the quality of your products and services is all that matters. You don’t need anyone to be able to see that do you? You can safely assume that your users will be so keen to get hold of your products, so desperate to use your services, that they will put in the hard work to battle through your digital interfaces to find a way to get you to listen to them. 

Or…. 

You could show your users that you appreciate them. Show them that you place such a value on their time that you want to make it easy for them to talk to you, make them feel like you want to listen to what they need. Maybe make them feel like they’re the ones that keep your business alive. Because that’s what they do. 

Who else cares if your UX is bad? We do. Here at Maverick Technology Solutions we’re obsessive about UX. We choose to represent your users. We spend time understanding their needs, discovering their frustrations, finding the things they love, and then designing beautiful experiences your users will want to come back to again and again. We have a motto we live and work by: “If you forget about the users, you’ve forgotten why you’re doing this.” The best products on the planet are pointless without users.  It’s a good idea to treat your users as if you know that. And we’re passionate about helping you achieve that. So why not get in touch.