Whitney Hess’ excellent article 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design includes a quote from Bill DeRouchey, director of interaction design at Ziba Design, “User experience design is not limited to the confines of the computer. It doesn’t even need a screen”. Whitney herself then says, “Really, a user experience designer could help to improve a person’s experience with just about anything — a doorknob, a faucet, a shopping cart. We just don’t typically refer to the people using those things as “users,” but they are”.

Well, we could refer to someone using a light-switch or a doorknob as a “user”, but we don’t, and when was the last time someone designing a doorknob referred to themselves as a User Experience Designer?

Now if we drop “User” and just referred to “Experience Design” we could make a case for this being a discipline that transcends mediums – think Disney imagineers for example.

Thinking about the human experience is not the exclusive domain of UX, other design disciplines like Architecture, Landscape Design, and Industrial Design to name just a few, have been doing it for decades or centuries. UX is simply applying that thinking to experiences where there is a significant digital element.

P.S. I forgot to mention that it was this article in UX Magazine that prompted me to write this.

P.S. Adam, Alex and Abby are the names of my three kids and I now know an @AdamTheIA and an @Abby_the_IA (who is completely awesome, #justsayin). So i’m on the lookout for an @AlexTheIA to complete the set!

When I went to the Collegeville store yesterday though, I was actually a little disappointed. Oh the food is just as good i’m sure, but as I was shopping I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me, then it hit me as I was leaving … you see the new store feels much bigger, there’s more room in the aisles, its a big, square, modern building (steel with a brick face i’m sure) with a high roof, its layout is very straightforward – no little corners with specialty food hidden away – and I found that I was missing the crowded aisles, the pleasant surprise upon rounding a corner and finding an unexpected section of international food, the lower ceiling and more intimate decor. In fact, on reflection the new building felt a bit like an (albeit nice) warehouse, and I really don’t think that’s the image Wegmans is going for. Be careful Wegmans, think about your overall experience … a lot of people don’t go to your stores just to buy nice food, they go for the experience!

Lets say you have two sets of users – the “experts” who don’t want help and just want the data, and the “beginners” who need help, but might not realize it. You want to satisfy them both on the same page with (a) the data and (b) some help – which of the two – (a) or (b) do you put in the most prominent position on the page?

Of course there are no absolutes in UX design, but if the beginners are the dolphins and the data is the small net, putting the data in the most prominent position will satisfy your experts but will also catch your beginners who think they want it. However, if you put your big net (the help) first, it’ll catch the dolphins (beginners) and let the experts who know they don’t want it through to get to the data.