The experience of being human…

User Experience, Customer Experience, online, offline, digital, face-to-face , so many experiences, so many interpretations of what is a user and what is a customer experience — it’s no wonder organisations and their own customers get confused.

So, in amongst this world of confusion — let’s add another type of experience — how about those focused on humans?

Surely that’s a no-brainer for those brands that want to grow and build long-lasting relationships with people?

It’s worth defining our definitions of User and Customer experience.

UX = Providing easy to understand, access and use online services. i.e.

• Ensuring that people can find the relevant information they require quickly and easily .

• Providing seamless journeys across different platforms and online touchpoints.

• Focus on task completion.

• But ultimately, its not about the user its about profitability (which is absolutely fine)

CX = People are able to switch between channels (both online and offline) and receive a continuous, smooth and single view of their service(s). i.e.

· Ensuring the people can use a service online and it is reflected offline (and voice-versa).

· Providing information in the right form and context for people.

· The service levels are matched online and offline.

· Lead back into UX journeys to finalise task completion.

Hopefully these make sense. User Experience focuses on the online world, Customer across online and off. User experiences can be measured rationally — completing a task etc. Customer experiences can be measured in terms of feedback and customer retention.

But what about Human Experiences?

Humans are driven by emotion, sure they can be rational and considered, use data to make decisions, but they are also scared, nervous, confident, shy, outgoing all at the same time. They learn and are taught, they inspire and can be inspired, they laugh one minute and cry the next — in effect they are different people at different times, contexts and even ages.

Humans are not an algorithm, a line in a database, a trend, a workflow, a brand or a robot — they are complex, contradictory, emotionally-fed individuals. Therefore whilst they can be users to complete tasks, customers to access and use services, they are human when it comes to feeling, to really connecting and even to building a relationship with a business.

So Human Experience is where you have a much more creative, emotional led layer to building real relationships with people. Its about understanding people’s internal and inherent needs, want and desires, its about taking the learning you have — you know the reams of data, data, data and then listening to people and then listening again, developing services and truly creative solutions that make people stop, think, connect and want to build a relationship with you, your business or brand. It’s also what UX misses.

It’s about taking tech and creative skills and blending them together in a way that enhances a human’s life — sure, that may be an emotionally led ad campaign, but it should also be about developing services, tools, start-up business and maybe campaigns that address human and emotional challenges in peoples lives. Delivering brand advantage in an overflowing digital space.

Maybe doing things completely outside of your comfort zone — your business undoubtably has the data and has invested in trying to understand your customers better — so why not stop looking for trends all the time and looking for outliers that may signify a previously unseen need.

How about connecting and working with partners for the benefit of people, about creating the new, the future that isn’t focused on just the bottom line, its about throwing out a policy on CSR and making your focus on people core to your business.

It’s about putting yourself in human shoes and asking;

As a brand are you enhancing my life? Irrespective of the channel. Are you providing me with not only a product and experience but something that enhances and enriches my life — something that is sustainable and adds value to my own and the wider environment?

That is our definition of a human experience and If you cannot honestly say yes to the above questions — then you are not providing human experiences to your customers.

Sure, there is a need to get the User Experience and the Customer Experience as focused, flexible and beneficial as possible but then to deliver experiences that truly connect get creative, get emotional, take risks and treat people as humans. After all, people don’t really care if your product is built on blockchain or that you did fifty wireframes (for desktop, tablet and mobile). The care about the delight that they get from using a product or engaging with a brand.

Blend data, brand, tech, customer service, marketing together with a shared ethical and emotional connection. Don’t stop at customer experiences created human ones.

That’s what we do at Human.

We create human experiences

We build human-focused multichannel, evidence based interactive products, that are engaging and memorable.

We help you build trusted relationships between brands and people.