The UX team at Charity Dynamics is always fighting the good fight in the name of our clients and a great user experience. We are constantly questioning, “is that a best practice in UX?” when we are auditing platforms, wireframing a new landing page, or designing an email campaign. Even though we live in this every day, we battle with what truly is a good user experience and work hard to keep ourselves educated and aware. We meet weekly to discuss UX. We share cool trends, testing ideas, and ongoing projects with each other. So it got us thinking. Why not share our UX journey weekly…with you? We’re pretty darn passionate about it…actually, we’re kinda mad about it! So we welcome you to our weekly “Mad About UX” blog series: our way to get the word out on what we are thinking and learning about in the great world of UX.
(Queue the “Mad About You” theme song. Ugh. I just aged myself completely.)
To kick off our blog series, I thought I’d give my answer to the question I get asked the most: “what is user experience all about?” To me, and most of the gurus I follow, user experience encompasses so much more than just the website my team designs or the call to action we place in an email. It starts with the very first interaction someone has with you. Or your website. Or your product. Think about the first time you used a remote control to your cable box that had so many buttons on it, you had no idea what you were supposed to click on to even turn on the TV. Ahh! I just want to watch TV! And you probably are cursing the cable company more than anything. Bad user experience. You don’t like the company because of a remote. No interaction with anyone there. Not even a bad customer service phone call. Just a remote.
Now, think about that same remote, but for Apple TV. Wait. Just three buttons? I just press this? Amazing! I’m in love. How many of you went out and bought an Apple tv for your mom? Or another tv in the house? Yah, you just fell in love with Apple. And now own a computer, phone, and possibly that new mini-tablet from them. That’s a great user experience. You want more from that one company.
That’s what it’s all about. Wanting more because you had a great experience the first time. Remember when your mom said make a good first impression? She was right and was talking about user experience all the way back then. Let’s figure out how we keep those positive impressions for your organization so we keep your supporters coming back for more!
And that’s it, in a crazy nutshell, why we are here: to educate and help build one great user experience at a time for our amazing clients. That and, well, to also remind you that your mom is always right. ♥