Experience is everything.
Or, the dangers of designing products.
I spend a lot of time thinking about why I like or loathe certain products. In almost every case, the source of my emotion is the experience that product creates. Good products make completing tasks easy and fun. Bad ones make completing tasks difficult and annoying.
Products and services are nothing more than enablers of experiences.
Companies who truly understand this fact are few and far between. Most tend to focus on features and specs, building what they think will sell. They then spend millions of dollars marketing these features and specs alongside lifestyle shots of what they want customers to believe the experience of using their products will be. And it works. We buy the products, sales go up and everyone is happy. Or so they think.
The reality is that often those products and services fail to live up to the hype. The culprit is usually some little feature that seemed like a great idea in the boardroom but ultimately over-engineers the product in a way that doesn’t make customers’ lives easier. In some cases, it even prevents customers from completing a task all together. And the truth is, it’s usually something that could have been avoided had the company asked one simple question at the beginning of the project:
What is the experience we want to create?
In order to answer this question, or even know that it’s one worth asking, we need to understand one fact: We don’t create products or services — we create experiences.
When an experience is good, the product fades into the background. When an experience is bad, it usually means some aspect of the product is distracting its users from reaching their goal.
Take for instance, the MacBook I’m using to write this post. The features that designers and engineers spent time working on don’t really matter to me right now. All that matters is that I’m able to focus on my writing. I don’t have to think about the keys, or how close my hands are to the trackpad, I’m not worrying about the screen, or wondering if I have enough RAM. I’m purely focused on the experience of writing and crafting this post. All of that other stuff is working together in the background to ensure that I’m not distracted. Apple understands that it’s the experience of using their products that makes them great. That’s why they don’t lean on features or specs in their advertising. They just give you one simple message: you’re more powerful than you think. That’s the power that comes from starting with experiences.
Experiences = Products + People
Experiences happen when a product meets people. This is the most important moment businesses can design for. It’s where loyalty is either born or busted. It’s what determines whether you’re selling something that adds value to people’s lives, or just another forgettable commodity.
Nest (before the Google gobble-up) is the perfect example of a company that is doing it right. As soon as you slide open the box, it’s clear that the moment where their product and people intersect was considered. Everything is laid out exactly as you need it for easy DIY installation. The interface on the thermostat is clear and simple and gets the owner used to spinning and pressing the device — actions they’ll rely on for everyday use. Nest understands that they’re not in the business of making thermostats, they’re in the business of making experiences that empower people. And all their features and specs are designed to support this experience.
The challenge for most companies is that it’s so easy to make features and specs our priority that we forget about the experiences our products will create. Companies fall into this trap all the time.
Take the razor industry as an example. Three blades. Four blades. Moisture strips. Rubber hair-lifting fins. They’re so focused on features and specs that their products have become mockable (I hope you appreciate the self-control I exercised by not dropping a pun there).
What they don’t realize is that they’re not in the razor business, they’re in the shaving business. And shaving is an experience. It’s part of a confidence-building ritual that helps men and women prepare for that big presentation or interview or date. Any improvements those companies make to razors should be focused on ensuring that this confidence-building ritual isn’t interrupted. Better handles and sharper blades, for instance, keep us in the moment by ensuring we drop our razors less and experience fewer nicks and cuts. But features like hair-lifting fins don’t really add to the experience. They don’t really fall within the realm of the razor’s jobs-to-be-done. As a result, these features don’t create loyalty, they create commodities. Which means razor companies are forced to manufacture repeat business by creating a system where the cost of switching is high and useless.
Forget the product. Focus on the experience.
People want great experiences. They want to love the products they use. They want to tell their friends about them and be thanked for their recommendations. But the only way they can do that is if we create experiences they love. We need to spend less time worrying about what we’re building and more time thinking about the experience we want to create. And this burden shouldn’t fall solely on the shoulders of designers and engineers — it’s everyone’s responsibility.
This is a challenge for all of us. Whether you’re sitting in the boardroom of an insurance company discussing new policies, or a mobile carrier creating new data plans, or an airline company deciding what to do about carry-on luggage — wherever you are, think about experiences. Let’s get in the habit of understanding more about our customers, testing our assumptions, prototyping our products and starting every project off by asking one simple question: what is the experience we want to create?
