Like any business that charges on an hourly basis, we have a time-tracking system. The system is slow, prone to crashing and chock-full of icons that give little indication of what their purpose in life is. It is, quite simply, the epitome of bad user experience.
I, like all my colleagues, hate the system. But since my bosses like having tidy records, and I like continuing to have a job, I make my effort to fill in the boxes and click the ambiguous icons. End of story, right?
Except I know other systems are out there. I’ve used them. Now, granted, none of those systems will interface directly with my brain and enter my time for me, but some of them were actually created with humans in mind. One I used was web-based, so I could use it from anywhere without connecting to a VPN; it used the full resolution of the screen it was on, so I didn’t have to constantly scroll to see what I was doing; and it didn’t lock numbers down every night, so I could go back the next day and add that extra hour that I spent at the end of the day to Project X.
Here’s why you should care: I’m a captive of that system. I have to use it regardless of its user experience. As a marketer, your audiences are not captive. They don’t need you, and they don’t much care that you added an extra, confusing step so you could sell a few more widgets.
Keep the users’ experience front of mind at all times.
And don’t think this rule doesn’t apply to you, or that you sluff off the responsibility on your graphic designer. Everyone needs to consider user experience, and it most certainly applies to whatever you’re doing. That includes, but is by no means limited to, designing a website, building a Facebook application, planning a mobile interaction, writing a press release, deciding the rules of a contest, organizing an event and pitching a reporter.
So, cut out the extra clicks; use simple, direct language; make the important links visible and easy to find; consider what you would think if you had never seen this before; realize not everyone has your goal in mind.
And please, please, please help your users before you help yourself. If you don’t, even your best ideas will be bound for failure.
How will you improve your users’ experience today?