What's in an experience?

Experiences can be truly wonderful things, they are the cloth from which some of our most intimate moments have been cut; the scent of mum's homemade pancakes on a Sunday morning, the zingy taste of sherbet dip from the local tuck shop after school, the warm summer evening breeze that takes you back to the night you met your partner.  In truth, the memories we each cherish, or in some cases despise, are forever entwined in sentiment driven by either positive or negative experiences.  In today's post, I aim to take a look into the world of user experience design and ask the poignant questions that every service provider should be asking themselves. Do we really need independent user experience service design management?  How does our user experience impact on the future of our services?

Why user experience matters

Understanding the experiences which our clients and users encounter whilst making use of our services is one of the most important elements of modern service provision and management.  Contrary to popular opinion, UX (user experience design management) is not an area that is focused on user interaction with technology solutions alone, but one that navigates and governs the endless stream of interactions that take place between our services and the individuals who use them, regardless of the medium we employ to carry those services .

Outdated management approaches tend to be less concerned with the more personal needs of service users and more attentive to what is perceived to be the bigger picture, not realising that the bigger picture starts with the individual.  Many a service user is lost to mistrust after the services they are offered leave them feeling disengaged and undervalued.  The need to employ effective user experience design is equally applicable in all types of interactions, whether for services of local and national government administration or in shaping the way in which the local green grocer engages his customers.

As service users in our own right, we can each understand how the experiences we encounter determine how engaged and reliant we are upon the services we use.  A user experience is therefore the lifeline of any initiative and the fundamental driver of user engagement.

The fact of the matter is that none of the above information is new to us.  We have all heard the saying, "the customer is always right", and yet oddly over the years, many providers have unwittingly turned a blind eye to traditional wisdoms, often in the hope that somewhere down the administrative food chain so to speak, someone will get it right.  What has changed in recent years is our understanding of the importance of independent design management, ensuring that services are designed and vetted by external dedicated professionals unconnected to the bureaucratic networks that govern and influence internal services and finance decisions.

Thankfully as the world has grown more and more connected through digital technology, knowledge about user-centred service design and standards of best practice in UX have dramatically improved.  Digital connectivity has led to an increase in the number of competitors able to extend the reach of their services into new territories.  As such, increasing competition has had an ever improving effect by driving up the quality of the services we use. 

The digital revolution has brought with it many changes to the way we buy services but more substantially to the way we offer them in the first place, the user experience we present our clients/users with plays a substantial role in our ultimate success or failure as service providers.  Understanding the relevance of UX to our future development is imperative and will by extension determine the future of service provision as a whole.

What is a user experience?

In order to identify the experiences that will successfully engage our clients or user groups we must first understand the nature of an experience itself in relation to the services that we offer.  Some questions we all should consider include:

• How does an experience take place?
• What is the medium used for interaction in creating that user experience?
• What are the expectations of your service users?
• How does that experience evolve and when?
• What are the factors that either positively or negatively influence any given experience that we offer?
• What are the external and more frequently the internal obstacles to offering a better experience to our users?

To present a universally accepted definition for user experience design management is difficult due to the differing views held amongst industry specialists.  Some definitions of UX are more general and cover the comprehensive experience design of any product/service or interaction whether for digital technologies or otherwise.  Other seem to suggest that the application of UX is specific to technology solutions.  In my view, there is no difference between designing an experience that is accessed via a digital platform or alternatively a non-digital platform.  In essence pure user experience design is, as the name suggests, centred around the user, unconnected to the mode by which it is carried to the user.  UX is a broader general field of which user interface design aka UI is a large part. 

UX is the discipline that specialises in understanding the motivations and expectations of users of any given product or service allowing them to follow the simplest and clearest route to fulfilling their personal expectations without hindrance, complications or confusion.  Users should always be left feeling assured that the products and services which they use have fulfilled their objectives and been simple to navigate and understand.

According to ISO 9241-210 (Ergonomics of human-system interaction) the definition of user experience is “a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service”.

Additional notes in the ISO definition go on to explain that UX includes all the users’ emotions, beliefs, preferences, perceptions, physical and psychological responses, behaviours and accomplishments that occur before, during and after use.  For a more extensive list of definitions for UX please visit this link.

 Who needs UX?

For many organisations developing such an intimate relationship with their clients or service users may seem extremely testing, and in many cases near impossible.   However in these times when more and more scrutiny is being placed on the products, services and initiatives that we engage with, the success or failure of a service is highly dependent on how well it is designed and made adaptable around the needs of the individuals for whom it was intended to serve.

Across many sectors, technology is creating a new generation of users, quickly able to see through the façade of fancy marketing and fluffy terminology.  Users have become far more savvy in identifying which services are user-focused and offer a positive user experience over those which don't.

Management regulations across all sectors of service provision are also becoming increasingly stringent in demanding that the user experience of service users is placed at the forefront of the agenda.  Even corporate giants such as IBM and Google have implemented dedicated divisions within their infrastructures to place user experience service design at the heart of their development and ongoing management process.  Although I question the ability of internal departments to offer challenging impartial design solutions, the demand is nonetheless still there.  All one needs to do to prove the point is search for "UX" or "user experience" under the jobs page on LinkedIn to see the long list of organisations currently seeking out the best talent in the field.  Today's search for "UX" in Britain and the US reveals the likes of BT, HSBC, Samsung, Cisco, Sky, IBM, Ford Motors, Hutchison 3G UK, BBC, Amazon.co.uk, Fujitsu, British Gas, Starbucks, AON, American Express, Booz Allen, National Geographic, Visa, HP, Verizone, Playstation, Google, Ricoh...and the list goes on.

The influence of UX service design management has not only been recognised and taken up by technology giants but has crossed every sector and industry whether commercial, industrial or civil.  Gov.uk, the digital face of national government here in the UK is currently working with British design management firms to develop clear guidelines and standards for public sector service providers to employ user experience service design as a means for increasing user engagement and offering more value on investment.  I recommend all readers to visit https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/user-centred-design and https://www.gov.uk/service-manual to get a better understanding of the efforts being made to place user-centred design at the heart of service design and management.

Design is simplicity

More often than not the larger the services we depend upon get, the more disconnected they can become from the reality of the needs of their different user groups.  It is often said that good design is powerful but great design is invisible, but what does that mean in a UX sense?  From the perspective of a conceptual designer, the ideal outcome of my contribution is that my work goes unnoticed by the users but as a result of its effectiveness the levels of user engagement and satisfaction increase dramatically.  The aim of user centric service design is to remove all obstacles and inconveniences standing in the way of users wishing to access the services they require in line with their expectations of that service.  As such when a user experience is fast, simple and functional to suit user expectations of that service then users will not stop to ponder over the nature of the experience.  How many people sending money to a family member through PayPal want to stop and think about the guy who designed the user experience?  I never have and yet the fact that it is so simple to use invites me to return again and again, after all it beats 99% of mobile banking apps out on the market at the moment.  The UX team behind the PayPal app are unsung heros but nonetheless their value cannot be stressed more in engaging customers such as myself with the services offered by PayPal. 

Great design can be summarised in one word, simplicity.  Given the often complicated series of interactions and expectations from the many different stakeholders and user groups involved in any particular scenario, it is easy for users to be lost in the translation.  That is where the role of the conceptual designer comes into play to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of users from simple meaningful engagement with the services being offered.

Our Services - Häsen Global Concept Development

As a designer whose role revolves around understanding the human existence and any associated needs and expectations, my role as with any design management consultant is to get under the skin of our client's users by employing empathy as a tool to experience the feelings of any given cohort of users.  Subsequently we are equally expected to understand the requirements and capabilities of the clients we serve, who more often than not have limited resources and capabilities.

Whereas many providers may ask, should we hire a specialist to inspect and develop our user experience? The real question I'd be asking is, can you really afford not to?

​For more information on the services and support we can extend to your organisation visit our website, alternatively for a more personal response feel free to send me an email to schedule an appointment to discuss your organisation's requirements. (jon.h@hasen.org.uk)