Designing Customer Experience
Some tragic yet funny instances of UX gone wrong and the lessons we can learn from it
Last year I read Eric Reiss’ book, ‘Usable Usability’ and it changed my perception on design.
Not just the design that I practice for Mobile and the Web interfaces but also the objects, experiences, the services I receive — all are a result of the design decisions being taken by someone in a position to do so. And yet, so many objects that we use, pass unnoticed.
Last week I went to a famous cafe in Connaught Place, Delhi, India. My friends had quite a grand opinion on it and so, I though about trying it too. My friend ordered a dish of pasta, one chocolate shake and a hot brownie dessert. Let me tell you why I left the place so disillusioned.
- The sofas — The one that we got was dirty. I wonder the last time they checked while the drink that got spilled on it dried and left that ‘victory’ mark. There’s no excuse for having an untidy seating for your guest now, is there?
- The ambience — My friends who recommended me this place might kill me on this but let me explain what’s wrong with the musical ambience they so boast about. First, there was an artist performing good old Bollywood songs and she was really good. What I felt sad about was the kind of stage that was set up for her. There were pixelated videos of latest Bollywood movie songs running on MUTE behind her, on an awfully low resolution screen. It was so distracting to look at. The entire time I tried making out some logic that might be behind showing music videos on mute! Secondly, when she finished her performance, there was this DJ who was okay in terms of the songs he chose to play with, except that the mood was not in sync with the ambience. It was such a mess you can imagine. So many things going up all at once.
“The goal of the design is not to distract; it is to direct the attention towards the most significant thing/feature of a place/product.”
- That said, I particularly didn’t like the service. My hot pasta dish was served along with the hot dessert that I ordered so that I can’t decide which to eat first. Ideally the deserts are served after your main dish. So much for an over-hyped place!
It is extremely important to design the service for your customers. That’s the main difference between a good and great restaurant. Unless you have ‘Self-service’ in place, I have no complains on the service design.
Let us visit some examples of bad UX design:
