1. USER EXPERIENCE
I S E V E R Y O N E ’ S
RESPONSIBILITY
Simon Norris
Hi, I’m Simon from Nomensa.
This is my presentation User experience is everyone’s
responsibility from Interact London 2014.
More and more organisations are realising the importance
of user experience (UX) and the value it can leverage in
delivering more engaging, personalised and meaningful
interactions.
However, many of the most successful companies do not
place enough importance on UX and much more needs to
be done. UX is not the responsibility of the online team or
marketing department alone - it should be considered an
organisational effort.
The presentation will explore the thinking, governance and
tools that can be used to culturally embed UX into an
organisation. In a nutshell, learn how to create a 'Digital
First' strategy and philosophy.
2. It’s not just the digital department, the whole world is
becoming increasingly digital and organisations need to
adopt a digital first philosophy.
The products we use are part of our lives. We use them to
find our way, to talk with our friends and family and to
share our thoughts. Separating the product from the
experience can be very difficult when the user experience
has been well crafted.
Simon Norris
3. The digital world can hard to separate from the physical
world. If I ask the question “where is the store”?, is it out
there on the high street or on my phone or is it in my
head?
It’s in all of these places and devices…and more yet to be
designed and therefore realised. Experience is literally
everything…and everywhere!
Simon Norris
4. User experience can be deceivingly complex! If we take
Google and type in ‘User Experience’ we get 110 million
results - now that result is not simple, not by any measure.
Yes the search is simple but the result well, I question the
value of presenting such an unfathomable number as a
good user experience!
5. The Iceberg Model of Meaning.
At one end of the meaning continuum you have surface
meaning and the other end the deeper meaning. As
designer we are shaping the surface meaning, the code,
visual patterns and composition.
If we get that right we can influence the deeper meaning
we experience. The surface meaning is the path to create
more engaging and meaningful experiences.
Simon Norris
6. The experiences we are designing or shaping to be more
specific are becoming incredibly more sophisticated. How
far can we take it? Let’s take a glimpse at a possible near
future from Microsoft.
Simon Norris
7. Experience, our actual day to day, moment to moment
experience is composed of many moments of average, we
could even say mundane.
9. Sometimes the sublime moments are obvious, however sometimes they can just strike - that’s what
makes experience and trying to shape (design) it so very interesting. Doing email can be mundane yet
it can also be sublime if the email is to learn you have a new job at Nomensa for example.
10. A heavyweight German philosopher with some interesting ideas we can apply to frame how we shape
(design) user experience. We can often think or talk about user experience in very broad and almost
vague ways. We need to be able to deconstruct user experience.
11. Two of Heidegger’s ideas are ‘Ready to
hand’ and ‘Present at hand’. We can
deconstruct experience even further by
representing ‘Ready to hand’ and
‘Present at hand’ as poles on a
continuum.
12. • Crossing thresholds
• Testing the boundaries
• Managing crises
Moments of truth: require us to make an
active choice, e.g. paying for something
online which we may want the user to
consider.
13. SIGNATURE
MOMENTS
Personality Difference
Signature moments: the moments that
allow you to show off your brand or a
little interaction magic that allows you to
stand out!
14. SIGNATURE
MOMENTS
DELIGHTFUL
MOMENTS
• Anticipating needs
• Unexpected extras
• Cool Factor
Delightful moments: unexpected
moments that add a little cool factor to
your user experience.
15. SIGNATURE
MOMENTS
DELIGHTFUL
MOMENTS
INVISIBLE
MOMENTS
1000’s of micro
interactions
Invisible moments: the flow of invisible
(micro) interactions that happen when
we use a product.
16. EXPERIENTIAL
GESTALT
Simon Norris
All the moments described create the user experience. Yet, they are more than the sum
of their parts and we should think of them as an Experiential Gestalt.
17. To understand user experience we have to think in terms
of ‘the micro-macro’. Many individual Lego pieces are just
a collection of Lego pieces.
Simon Norris
18. However, the Lego pieces can be made into something
more than the sum of their pieces. In this case a Lego
model of the Sydney Opera House. Understanding the
relationship between the micro-macro is understanding the
importance of Experiential Gestalts.
19. MOUNTAIN
Simon Norris
User experience is not just that amazing moment or ‘view
from the top of the mountain’. I call this the fallacy of the
immediate - we are not just designing moments of the
sublime - we also design average and mundane moments.
The moments of the sublime have to punctuate and
compliment the mundane moments so that we can craft a
user experience that is meaningful and reflects our
cognitive and emotional capabilities.
20. Every experience we feel is connected in the past.
Experience is a journey.
Simon Norris
21. The journey to the top of the mountain can be long and
composed of many different journeys.
Simon Norris
22. Simon Norris
The journey to the top of the mountain may even start
looking at the mountain range on a laptop.
23. To understand user experience we need to fly at the right
height. If we fly too high we’ll miss all the detail and if we
fly too low we’ll lose perspective.
FLYING AT THE
RIGHT HEIGHT
Simon Norris
25. Experience can also be macro. To understand user
experience we have to understand the elements and how
those elements are composed.
26. Part of the Amazon river looks curvy from a certain
perspective.
Simon Norris
27. However, when we zoom out even further the
river can look an arcing line even though it
has many curves. Different perspectives can
change what we think.
Shaping (designing) user experience is no
different. We need to fly at the right height to
understand the relationship between the
micro-macro elements.
Simon Norris
28. OPS SALES MARKETING I.T. HR
DIGITAL
In the very beginning of the digital era ‘digital’ typically sat underneath IT
or marketing.
29. As digital became more significant it became a ‘silo’ in its own right.
DIGITAL OPS SALES MARKETING I.T. HR
30. DIGITAL
In a digital first organisation digital runs through the whole organisation
with every department having a say in how they apply digital.
OPS SALES MARKETING I.T. HR
31. Simon Norris
Buying a car is more than merely looking on a
website. We may look on a website and we
may visit a showroom as well. Yet the whole
experience from website to factory and the
finishing product (driving experience) is more
than one type of experience.
They are many experiences - we don’t even
have language for this design-stuff yet it’s real -
it’s why digital, UX and IA are hard or as I like to
say complex, interesting and fun.
32. We have to understand all the moments and find
meaningful patterns that links them together.
33. From user journeys (services) we need to join
the dots to understand the journeys we want our
customers to experience.
34. However, it is not enough to think in terms of
user journeys or service design. We have to
develop Ecological Thinking. Organisations are
providing ecosystems. Here’s Apple’s.
36. Ecological design recognises many journeys
criss-crossing, so the idea of a start or a finish
becomes less important and the user
experience becomes The Thing and not just the
journey or the service.
37. My colleague, Jon Fisher developed Meaning
maps to helps us understand the interactions
between channels within an ecology.
38. User experience is a journey that everyone takes
whether they are users or employees.
Everyone, has a part to play in
the shaping of experience.
In fact, in a digital first organisation
everyone has a part to play.
Simon Norris
User experience is a journey that everyone
takes whether they are users or employees.
Everyone, has a part to play in the shaping of
experience.
In fact, in a digital first organisation everyone
has a part to play.
39. EXPERIENTIAL GESTALT
To recap we have to:
- Think in terms of gestalts
(see the bigger picture / be strategic)
Join the dots (understand the many journeys
customers/people can take)
- Appreciate the micro-macro nature of
experience/ behaviour /nature
- Map meaning and interactions across
channels, services, and devices
These are the tools we need to use to become
digital-first. To appreciate the role and importance
of experience as a company activity. The
designing of user experience requires everyone,
and it more than just understanding the customer.
That was stage 1. Digital First is the next stage,
stage 2.
40. One of my hero’s Sir Henry Royce.
“Strive for perfection in everything we do. Take
the best that exists and make it better. When it
doesn’t exist design it”.
It’s not just the digital department, the world is becoming increasingly digital and organisations need to adopt a digital first philosophy.
It’s not just the digital department, the world is becoming increasingly digital and organisations need to adopt a digital first philosophy.
The products we use are part of our lives. We use they to find our way, to talk with our friends and family and to share our thoughts. Separating the product from the experience can be very difficult when the user experience has been well crafted.
The digital world can hard to separate from the physical world. If I ask the question “where is the store”? Is it out there on the high street or on my phone or is it in my head? It’s in all of these places and devices…and more yet to be designed and therefore realised. Experience is literally everything…and everywhere!
User experience can be deceivingly complex! If we take Google and type in ‘User Experience’ we get 110 million results - now that result is not simple, not by any measure. Yes the search is simple but the result well, I question the value of presenting such an unfathomable number as a good user experience!
The Iceberg Model of Meaning. At one end of the meaning continuum you have surface meaning and the other end the deeper meaning. As designer we are shaping the surface meaning the code, visual patterns and composition. If we get that right we can influence the deeper meaning we experience. The surface meaning is the path to create more engaging and meaningful experiences.
The experiences we are designing or shaping to be more specific are becoming incredibly more sophisticated. How far can we take it? Let’s take a glimpse at a possible near future from Microsoft.
Experience, our actual day to day, moment to moment experience is composed of many moments of average, we could even say mundane.
Yet our experience can also be punctuated by the sublime.
Sometimes the sublime moments are obvious, however sometimes they can just strike - that’s what make experience and trying to shape (design) it so very interesting. Doing email can be mundane yet it can also be sublime if the email is to learn you have a new job at Nomensa for example.
A heavyweight German philosopher with some interesting ideas we can apply to frame how we shape (design) user experience. We can often think or talk about user experience in very broad and almost vague ways. We need to be able to deconstruct user experience.
Two of Heidegger’s ideas are ‘Ready to hand’ and ‘Present at hand’. We can deconstruct experience even further by representing ‘Ready to hand’ and ‘Present at hand’ as poles on a continuum.
Moments of truth require us to make an active choice, e.g. paying for something online which we may want the user to consider.
Signature moments: the moments that allow you to show off your brand or a little interaction magic that allow to stand out!
Delightful moments: unexpected moments that add a little cool factor to your user experience.
Invisible moments: the flow of invisible (micro) interactions that happen when we use a product.
All the moments described create the user experience. Yet, they are more than the sum of their parts and we should think of them as an Experiential Gestalt.
To understand user experience we have to think in terms of ‘the micro-macro’. Many individual Lego pieces are just a collection of Lego pieces.
However, the lego pieces can be made into something more than the sum of their pieces. In this case a lego model of the Sydney Opera House. Understanding the relationship between the micro-macro is understanding the importance of Experiential Gestalts.
User experience is not just that amazing moment or ‘view from the top of the mountain’. I call this the fallacy of the immediate - we are not just designing moments of the sublime - we are also design average and mundane moments. The moments of the sublime have to punctuate and compliment the mundane moments so we can craft a user experience that is meaningful and reflects our cognitive and emotional capabilities.
Every experience we feel is connected in the past. Experience is a journey.
The journey to the top of the mountain can long and composed of many different journeys.
The journey to the top of the mountain may even start looking at the mountain range on a laptop.
To understand user experience we need to fly at the right height. If we fly too high we’ll miss all the detail and if we fly too low we’ll lose perspective.
Experiences can be micro.
Experience can also be macro. To understand user experience we have to understand the elements and how those elements are composed.
Part of the Amazon river looks curvy from a certain perspective.
However, when we zoom out even further the river can look an arcing line even though it has many curves. Different perspectives can change what we think. Shaping (designing) user experience is no different. We need to fly at the right height to understand the relationship between the micro-macro elements.
In the very beginning of the digital era ‘digital’ typically sat underneath IT or marketing.
As digital became more significant it became a ‘silo’ in its own right.
In a digital first organisation digital runs through the whole organisation with every department having a say in how they apply digital.
Buying a car is more than merely looking on a website. We may look on a website and we may visit a showroom as well. Yet the whole experience from website to factory and the finishing product (driving experience) is more than one type of experience. They are many experiences - we don’t even have language for this design-stuff yet it’s real - it’s why digital, UX and IA are hard or as I like to say complex, interesting and fun.
We have to understand all the moments and find meaningful patterns that links them together.
From user journeys (services) we need to join the dots to understand the journeys we want our customers to experience.
However, it is not enough to think in terms of user journeys or service design. We have to develop Ecological Thinking. Organisations are providing ecosystems. Here’s Apple’s.
Here’s Netflix. Ecological thinking is where we need to be headed as designers.
Ecological design recognises many journeys criss-crossing, so the idea of a start or a finish becomes less important and the user experience becomes The Thing and not just the journey or the service.
My colleague, Jon Fisher developed Meaning maps to helps us understand the interactions between channels within an ecology.
User experience is a journey that everyone takes whether they are users or employees. Everyone, has a part to play in the shaping of experience. In fact, in a digital first organisation everyone has a part to play.
To recap we have to:
Think in terms of gestalts (see the bigger picture / be strategic)
Join the dots (understand the many journeys customers/people can take)
Appreciate the micro-macro nature of experience/behaviour/nature)
Map meaning and interactions across channels, services, and devices
These are the tools we need to use to become digital-first. To appreciate the role and importance of experience as a company activity. The designing of user experience requires everyone, and it more than just understanding the customer. That was stage 1. Digital First is the next stage, stage 2.
One of my hero’s Sir Henry Royce.
Strive for perfection in everything we do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it doesn’t exist make it better.