Experience design, whether such an experience is designed for users, customers, or someone else entirely, is often confused with user interface design, sometimes by novice practitioners, and other times by project managers or senior stakeholders.
“Doing user experience”, or designing wireframes, prototypes and a sitemap (sans user research) will leave some people thinking they’ve completed what they see as the UX family of deliverables. Some assume with a heuristic analysis in hand, they can finally check off UX from their punch list and move on.
Whitney Hess‘s recent article 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design addresses how UI design is often thought to be interchangeable with user experience design. Her summary rightly states that the interface design is but one piece of a puzzle that has many different corners, edges, and pieces.
If experience design was in fact user interface design, then it would be perfectly logical to assume that if a company’s web presence featured a bad user interface, or poorly designed interaction patterns, then likewise the user experience would also be poor. Likewise, any company with a good user interface would therefore have a good user experience. Right?
Wrong.
Since a user or customer experience is a holistic engagement between a person and the company offering a product or service, and not simply tied exclusively to the interface that acts as a medium or messenger, we cannot assume that if one element fails that the entire experience is a failure.
Forrester’s 2008 Customer Experience rankings reveal enlightening affirmations that a good or bad web site interface is no guarantee of a happy customer.
Southwest Airlines, the list’s highest rated airline, has surprisingly basic user interface troubles in trying to pay for a flight, yet their customers overlook such design flaws either by repetition or because they and their bags arrive where and when they want to for a fair, clear price. In such a case, the ultimate goal of the site, and the company, trumps a faulty design pattern.
Conversely, Comcast’s cable and internet customer experience ratings are at the bottom of the list, despite a fleet of knowledgeable, competent user experience staff and industry experts who have worked with a number of their divisions. But even though Comcast’s various web presences are easy to use and generally a success, a good web site is useless if your cable modem isn’t working and the Comcast repair technician is catching a few winks on your couch.
None of us who try to define and design a user experience should simply assume that if the user interface is good enough that business will come and customers will be happy. But the UX practitioner who fails to review all customer touchpoints–mailings, newsletters, call center activity, event the front desk–and solely focuses on what color gradients to apply on the web site does so at his or her own folly.
