WTF is User Experince Design?
Read about user experience can be a very frustrating experience. Lacks of consistence begin by its label and acronyms – User Experience Design, UX, UxD, Experience Design. After by it’s definition, there are so many different – and inconsistent – ones that the core means fades away.
To find the right way to the answer, a good strategy is to point the wrong ones. And that is what Whitney Hess does in her article, “10 most common misconceptions about user experience design”. Quickly:
User experience is NOT:
- user interface design
- a step in the process
- about technology
- just about usability
- just about the user
- expensive
- easy
- the role of one person or department
- a single discipline
- a choice
And the best quote among great ones in the article:
Louis Rosenfeld, publisher at Rosenfeld Media, publishing books on user experience design, and co-author of the seminal 2002 book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web argues that user experience may not yet even be a discipline. “It may not even be a community just yet,” he asserts. “At best, it’s a common awareness, a thread that ties together people from different disciplines who care about good design, and who realize that today’s increasingly complex design challenges require the synthesis of different varieties of design expertise.”
So, the best definition I could reach is that User Experience still is just an awareness. Many people are trying to find out the main path, but the main scenario and elements are too blured to create a solid definition. Everybody knows that their products and services need it, but no one realizes what is exactly this need.
Let’s keep looking for it.
