Can an Amazing User Experience Be Designed?
The easy answer to the question posed in the title of this story would be "It depends" and let semantics take the blame for the somewhat tough to nail down definition of “user experience” or even just the word “design.”
Both terms are loaded with meaning, but interestingly enough, the less narrow you try to make their definitions, the easier it is to come to the conclusion that an amazing, engaging, and beautiful user experience can be designed—no matter what Smashing Magazine says.
I love Smashing Magazine, and perhaps writer Helge Fredheim is simply guilty of giving his article a sensationalistic title in hopes of luring readers. However, I must agree with his thesis that user experience cannot be defined. Fredheim points out:
User experience is a very blurry concept. Consequently, many people use the term incorrectly. Furthermore, many designers seem to have a firm (and often unrealistic) belief in how they can craft the user experience of their product.
To give up this early and decide that what is certainly a difficult task is altogether futile not only sells designers’ talents short but also discredits the entire role of design through the software development lifecycle.
In another article from Smashing Magazine and the article that actually linked to Fredheim’s piece, Robert Hoekman Jr. defines thirteen tenets of user experience, one for every year the author has been in the web industry.
Tenet one sets the stage with a fantastic summary of the monumental task of UX: "User experience is the net sum of every interaction a person has with a company, be it marketing collateral, a customer service call, or the product or service itself."
And then tenet three assigns design’s equally enormous responsibility: "Design extends into each and every detail, and each and every detail can indeed be designed."
Hoekman Jr. somewhat muddily agrees with Fredheim in tenet twelve when Hoekman Jr. states, “A user’s experience belongs to the user. An experience cannot be designed.” I find this somewhat confusing and incorrect, especially coming from a magazine that focuses exclusively on design and features these thirteen tenets in an almost Lutherian fashion.
Nobody would ever argue that there is anything easy about designing a memorable UX. To Fredheim’s credit, his point that “UX depends not only on the product itself, but on the user, and the situation in which they use the product” cannot be argued either. But neither Fredheim nor Hoekman Jr. nor any other naysayer that I can find online can prove to me that the task cannot be done.
There are simply far more designers and laymen like myself who will always believe that a UX can be designed, and we’ll continue to believe it until proven otherwise.
