At UX Australia earlier today I was speaking with Ben Winter-Giles and Tom Voirol. The conversation started off about design language and how certain distinct design elements have been preserved across generations of makes of cars, some elements lost and some then reinstalled.
Anyway, we got to talking about driving experience and I mentioned about my 2002 MINI Cooper S, which I love to drive. If you’ve ever been grass-carting in the Blue Mountains then you’ll have some idea of the fun it is to drive a MINI. The rock-solid suspension, the tight handling, the size, responsiveness. For me it’s a very enjoyable experience. I feel like I’m actually driving the car, not making suggestions to it.
But some people don’t like this experience. When my girlfriend and I drive interstate we take her car because mine is too bumpy and uncomfortable for her.
We also talked about the Toyota Supra with it’s fighter plane-like “cockpit” with then segued to hydraulically-controlled Boeing commercial airliners and fly-by-wire Airbuses.
But essentially, you cannot design one, single experience for all users because each one will have their own idea of what a good and bad experience is, and it’s entirely possible that two users’ notions of good and bad experience are at complete odds.
This is why we develop user personas, identifying these behaviours and attitudes, building in flexibility (without ambiguity) to allow for these variances.
I remember someone once saying they didn’t like the term “user experience design” because an experience was not something that could be designed and to some extent they are right – there’s only so far us designers can prepare the interface for that interaction, but the actual experience had when a person comes in contact with the interface? No, we cannot design that. It’s a product of (hopefully good) interface design and the interaction that takes place. But we can certainly set up the environment, the touch points and interfaces so that as many people as possible have a great experience … and those that don’t have a great experience? Well – perhaps they haven’t had their morning coffee!
// purecaffeine.com, UX, design, social media and Gov 2.0 blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Nat,
I believe you can ‘design an experience’. That is what the purpose of branding is, isn’t it?
Even with food and soft drinks. These are tested to fulfill a ‘parte’, the original idea and initiate the manipulated experience of the ‘user’.
To be philosophical, I’ll that that we personally design our lives everyday for experiences, and sometimes hope for the best ones as well.
Hi Will,
It’s a pedantic point and something that we as designers obviously understand; as Will Evans said we design “for” the experience, not the experience itself. We seed the experience, try and define the parameters of what we have determined will lead to the optimal experience … but the experience itself is out of our control as it happens in another place and time.