Diana Alayon

Writing is a therapy for my mind that helps me discover ideas I didn’t know I have.

Many may have published articles about user experience design and the design process, but my writing as every recipe has a special ingredient. Writing is a therapy for my mind that helps me discover ideas I didn’t now I have.

UX is NOT exclusive to digital design.

As an Industrial Designer who pivoted to UX Design I have to say that I feel a little discomfort when facing reservations about my capabilities of applying UX in the design process of a website or computer application. After giving it a lot of though, I realized that is not about me but the misconception of that user experience (UX) design is a term used only in Tech and is exclusive to digital design. It is not.

 

The term of UX design was coined by Don Norman from his interest in the design of everyday things. Talking about his time working at Apple, Don explains how his team aimed to shape the user experience of not just the software or interface, but also everything that framed that experience:

“I invented the term because I though human interface and usability were too narrow. I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with the system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual”.

 

There are many other definitions of UX. In the norm ISO 9241-210:2010 , in the document Ergonomics of human-system interaction — Part 210: Human-centred design for interactive systems I found a wider definition: “User Experience are the user’s perceptions and responses when using or anticipating to use a product, system, or service”.

 

The user experience is the set of factors and elements related to the interaction of the user with a specific environment or product (physical and digital) whose result is the generation of a positive or negative perception of said service, product or device.

 

This depends not only on the factors related to the design (hardware, software, usability, interaction design, accessibility, graphic and visual design, content quality, searchability or usability, etc.) but also aspects related to emotions, feelings, construction and transmission of the brand, product reliability, etc.

The user experience as a discipline is traditionally applied to computer systems and in particular to the design of web pages, but today it is extended to other fields, since taken as an "experience" almost any product or service, they begin to be designed looking for the maximum satisfaction of the consumer now seen as a "user" who travels such experiences.

 

For there to be User Experience, there must be at least the following elements:

• User: To whom we direct our efforts when designing a user experience.

• Experiencer: who creates the experience. It is a neologism invented by me from the Portuguese language definition of experimenter.

• Intention: The reason why we undertake the process.

• Design: The way in which the process we are going to develop is carried out, including the previous research and the measurement of results a posteriori.

 

I would like to conclude by saying that UX is NOT the user interface, is not the usability,  and definitely, is NOT exclusive to digital design. User experience encompasses all aspects of the interaction of end users with the company, its services and its products.

 

 

 

 

Diana Alayon