Designing Beyond Screens
Few years back, when people are being asked about UX, the definition that pops up is usually along the line of “design” and “user friendly”. People only associate UX with nice designs, websites, and screens, but is this still true today?
Don Norman explains how the term “UX” is often defined too narrowly, or limited to device UI design:
“Today that term [user experience] has been horribly misused. It’s been used by people who say, ‘I’m a user experience designer, I design websites,’ or, ‘I design apps,’ and they have no clue what they’re doing, and they think the ‘experience’ is that simple device — the website or the app or who knows what — no, it’s everything — it’s the way you experience the world, it’s the way you experience your life, it’s the way you experience a service, or, yeah, an app, or a computer system, but it’s a system that’s everything. Got it?” — Don Norman
Now we see new technologies emerge, the variation varies from voice-enabled interfaces to visual reality. According to Gartner, by 2020, 30% of all web browsing sessions will be carried out without a screen. As technology continues to evolve, it becomes so embedded in our lives that our job as designers can not just stop at designing the on screen experience. Visual interface is no longer the only focus. UX becomes not only what the customers see but encompasses the whole experience of using the product and at times, without a screen. What can we do to accommodate the change?
Diversity and collaboration is key
As the scope of UX broaden, it’s challenging for a single person to work on everything and become jack of all trades. It’s a good idea to have diversity and different specialization in the team. By having specialized talents in the team, each person can focus on what they do best. Besides designers, now most UX teams also include researchers, copywriters, front end engineers, interaction designers, and so on depending on the scale of the company. Some companies even rename the role to “Product Designer”. Creating diversity in the UX team doesn’t only help with tackling specific aspect on the customer’s journey, it also makes it easier for the team to scale bigger but at the same time maintain focus.
In order for this to work, collaboration in the team needs to be maintained closely to avoid miscommunication, build good relationship with others, and scale faster together as a team. UX team will also need to collaborate with other departments to look into the other aspects of the “off-screen” experience to ensure the overall journey of the customer is smooth.
Practice the Product Thinking mindset
As the UX role and responsibilities grow in the the company, understanding more about business and design strategy becomes inevitable. In order to go to the next level we need to upgrade our mindset from thinking only about design to product thinking. While lots of time design is associated with aesthetic, product thinking is looking at the whole picture.
The first step of product thinking is to identify the problem that the user is trying to solve. Product thinking allows UX designers to ask the right questions.
“One of the things I’ve always found is that you’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try to sell it. I’ve made this mistake probably more than anybody in this room and I’ve got the scar tissue to prove it, and I know that it’s the case. As we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with ‘What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?’ [It’s] not starting with ‘Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and how are we going to market that?” — Steve Jobs
To create a human-centered design, we start with understanding the customers first. UX is about people, not about screens or interfaces. Our job is to understand the everyday problems of people and use technology to solve them in the most elegant ways.
Design an experience, not a tool
In the older days, people understand that computer has limitations and it’s meant to be a “system”. Nowadays, people don’t see technology and gadgets as tools anymore, it becomes part of the everyday life.
US adults spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes per day on mobile devices in 2018, you can check the whole report about this here.
As technology becomes more intertwined in people’s life, we need to add human touch to create a more immersive experience. Technology should adapt more and more to the human characteristic instead of the other way around. This could be as simple as using the right wording in our products, voice and tone that exemplifies human instead of machine.
Next time you’re using your gadget, think of how you can enhance the end-to-end experience and not just focusing on what you see on the screen.
Ready for the exciting future of UX?
If you’re interested in applying for a full-time position or intern as an UX Designer or UX Researcher, Blibli.com is currently hiring! Send your resume to recruitment@blibli.com and get the chance to work with other UX Designers & Researchers with their own unique stories.
