Why Your Preferences Don’t Matter When It Comes To User Experience (And Neither Do Mine)

Few phrases in the English language are as all-encompassing — or as fluid — as “user experience.” With billions of devices on the planet and billions of people using them, reportedly checking their (OK — ‘our’) phones as many 150 times a day …multiply that by x number of years since the advent of smart phones… hey, I’m no mathematician, but let’s agree that’s a staggering number of user experiences, including the one you just had to arrive at this post. (How was it? As expected?)

To paraphrase a crude saying, the thing about user experiences is that everybody has one. Or, more accurately, we have untold numbers of them, each and every day. Each of us is comprised of every one of the user experiences we have ever had. We are the aggregate and ever-accruing sum total of all our digital experiences, and, together, these shape our attitudes and expectations when it comes to interacting with screens and — yes — the world. Like a child who flees a war-torn country or one born into an affluent Connecticut suburb, what we see and what we do and what happens next becomes part of who we are. User experience has become a personality trait.

With these experiences so deeply ingrained, it’s easy to see how and why one’s proclivities become elevated from ‘personal preference’ to ‘the right way’ in one’s mind, but, dear reader, I ask you to take a moment to ponder something I call ‘the greater-good’ user experience.

The greater-good user experience allows you to do what you want to do in the manner you are accustomed. It also allows others to do what they want to do in the manner they are accustomed. It can show you a better way to do things, even shape new habits when you aren’t looking. The greater good user experience makes sense — so much so, you don’t even notice it when it happens.

The greater good user experience is deceptively simple. It’s the sound of horses’ hoofbeats rather than zebras’. So next time you are looking at wireframes or discussing product requirements or mulling over a new idea for a feature, before weighing in with your opinion, put your preferences aside, and let the magic happen.