Whereas we used to think we were designing a product or an interface for a user, we now think of experience design. As a consequence we have to recognise that products affect the experiences of many more people than just the user.
Reflections on the quality of (user) experience design ...
... and resources for improving it
Reflections on the quality of user experience design ...
... and resources for improving it
This website is primarily intended for people already familiar with user experience design and the ideas of user-centred design (or design thinking, or human-centred design).
We start from various assumptions about basic knowledge and design processes and tools and we want to help practitioners of design move their work (and their products, or clients’ products) into a new, more confident world that has more impact on all those who are affected by the products and services.
There are 6-7 themes that help structure this website and these themes are briefly introduced below – following the link will bring you to more detail, coupled with examples and a variety of opinions (debates) on that theme
Experience is infinite
Where does experience start and stop? Few products exist in isolation of a broader context filled with (and interacting with) other people and other products and services.
Design is a very slippery word and so it is necessary to take some space to define what we mean by it.
This section will look at many varied facets of design and the experience of design across many different products and services.
What do we mean by design?
Commerce, business, technology – a key part of experience design.
Product design is a complex balancing of conflicting constraints and what works for a product idea in one company might be very different than would work for the same idea in a different company. Given that – does it really make sense to say the design is centred on anything?
Are we (UX, design and product management professionals) expending enough energy on reflecting on what works and what doesn't. Today it still seems to be the case that people argue for the financial (commercial) benefits of UX or of design, without addressing the question about the quality of that design that might be needed for those benefits to accrue.
Making better things, or making things better?
What is the role for data, analytics and AI?
Increasingly the experiences we are designing products for entail the collection and sharing of lots of data. As well as the broader questions about who owns the data, there is also the need for the presentation of data to be designed and it isn't obvious that traditional design methods address this very well.