How the User Experience Replaced Functionality in Mobile Development
There was a time, not that long ago, when we expected the devices we used on a daily basis to simply work. As long as they performed the simple (by today’s standards) task that they were built to do, we were generally satisfied. From a can opener to the landline phone to our cars—if they worked, everything was great.
When we think about innovation today, the expectation of users has exploded—perhaps in the realm of mobile devices and their respective apps more than anywhere else. The user experience (UX) has become a far greater challenge than it once was. The concept of the perfect UX will continue to evolve and perplex developers as the devices built for us continue to do more than we ever expected—or even asked them to do.
In the past, we users didn’t know that the electronic devices in our homes had the capabilities to do anything more than we’d ever seen them do in the past. But now that we’ve seen them do so much more, we’ll never expect them to be limited to doing the same things from one year to the next.
Coke Zero’s clever 2011 “And” commercial perfectly sums up today’s users and the experience they’ve grown to expect from everything and everyone in their lives.
If we’ve come to expect this much enjoyment out of a soft drink, or even a pair of pants, where does this leave mobile developers—the leaders of innovation today? Smashing Magazine shows that their challenge to keep us from asking “And?” after seeing their work is a monumental task.
Lyndon Cerejo drops a bomb on readers and developers when he points out that "The mobile user experience encompasses the user’s perceptions and feelings before, during, and after their interaction with your mobile presence."
Those developers and designers who are truly on the cutting edge of UX aren’t just looking at how product users feel while using their creations, but before and after they come into contact with them as well.
Mariya Yao at VentureBeat looks at the flip side of the coin by detailing what not to include when creating a rich UX, and her concise list begins with many users' pet peeve—“forcing registration before demonstrating value.” I cannot think of the last time I willingly created an account for something and did not understand why I was being required to do so. Many users like myself will simply abandon an app that requires this and find a competitor’s version that does not.
Yao’s reminder to “test your mobile designs with the people who use them” is arguably her best advice. You run a much greater risk of missing the UX mark by assuming what your users are looking for rather than simply asking them “Annnnd?” directly.
