Experience Design Takes Time and Money

Last November, UX Magazine posted an insightful article (Experience Design in the Agency Setting) on how to properly follow an experience design process inside of an agency setting. This is something many firms have struggled with, and some continue to do, as the role and important of user experience grows in the industry. Properly planning and designing for a good experience isn’t done by focusing on a comp or the newest flashiest technology. It is looking at the entire ecosystem that a product, service, and application has to live in. This is why we are seeing a rise in products that are coupled with services which also have an additional cost associated with them. A prime example of this is a Fitbit, which costs between $49.00 – $99.00 depending on the model. Along with your purchase of this neat little device you get an in-depth dashboard that reports on the data it collects as you move around in a day. If you would like to see additional information about your behavior and how it stacks up to other Fitbit users, you can purchase a premium account for $49.99 a year. Out of the box you get a product that is coupled with a service that is a product all in its own.


How do you manage an experience that cross channels, both technical and business? Start off by looking at the 10,000 foot view of the overall ecosystem. To create this view though, you will need to be prepared to invest both time and money into gaining a deep enough understanding that when it comes time to actually plan, design, build, and launch your product it naturally fits into the world of its intended users. The first step of this is good old research – marketing, user, and technical.
These research sources will expand your view past a single channel, platform, or even customer interaction and expose you to the overall goal your customers are attempting to accomplish and your business is trying to achieve. You are able to achieve the necessary 10,000 foot view so you can begin to plan for future project, products, or services that will open up new revenue sources and deepen the relationship you have with your customers or users.
Several work products exist that are mentioned in the UX Magazine article which help document and communicate this high level view.

Experience Maps

Infographics

Process Flows

Personas

This is just a sampling of the types of documentation that can be used to gain additional funding and to drive the design and development of true cross channel experience design. One challenge of experience design that sometimes limits the value these documents bring are the time that is required to produce them. The effort to properly understand a user population well enough to create a data backed Personas takes weeks if not months depending on the complexity of the overall ecosystem. This level of investment is new not only in the agency world, but for many organizations that are hoping to delivery cross channel experience to their users.
To overcome this challenge, the value of not only the effort and but also the work products needs to be communicated. For example, and Experience Map not only helps to drive the design and development of a single product or service, but it can help inform the overall marketing strategy of an organization as it pertains to other products and services that are being offered. Since the Experience Map can be used by multiple teams or departments, the funding for the effort to create is easier to justify.

I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it. – Frank Lloyd Wright

Good design is never easy, regardless if it is for a web application, web site, architectural building, or even an ergonomic office chair. As the technology we use continues to grow more pervasive and mobile, getting to a good design becomes an even bigger challenge and one that requires us to take a look at the ecosystem of a product or service rather than just how the product will be used. In closing, let us revisit the Fitbit again. The physical product that is a Fitbit does not really do anything new compared to other pedometers. You can get a pedometer which will provide the same core data for a fraction of the cost (as low as $5.95). I am guessing that the creator of Fitbit did not set up to create a better pedometer, but to create a better experience using a pedometer and raise people’s awareness on their overall physical activity. This took the creation of not only the physical product, but all the apps and services that go along with it.