UX Design is being sold as usability — but experience design is something else entirely. The gaming industry has always known this. Flow theory, intrinsic motivation, and why the best UX should make you feel something.
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User Experience Design (UX)
"User Experience Design"
There is a lot of talk about UX Design these days.
What is user experience design, and does it even have anything to do with experience?
If you Google what a UX Designer does, you quickly find that the majority of what is expected of a UX Designer is to ensure that the end user has the easiest and most seamless path to their goal possible. As it is used in practice in the digital world, one might tend to see it as "Usability" sold as a new concept.
This description is clearly very tied to the design of user interface-driven digital productions such as websites and apps. The justification for a UX designer is therefore closely related to the optimization of UI design and user flow – as described above.
One of the most important concepts in UX Design is the user-centered design process, which briefly involves designing an interaction flow based on how the user will navigate your application. This includes a wealth of different scientific theoretical approaches and tools, which have increasingly been regarded as a must for any UX Designer's understanding to design a good user flow.
As UX Design is marketed today, it seems as if there is more focus on usability rather than the experience throughout the usage flow.
Here I have set up some different associations for what lies in the word – it is not my intention to separate the user and the experience, but I think it provides some clear lines if one looks at it separately.
I would like to emphasize that I am not trying to separate the user and the experience. Because everything we talk about in UX is about the user. But we probably cannot avoid the fact that if we look at usability versus experience design, there is more focus on the evidence-based and on the user's behavior in usability than when designing an exciting experience that motivates.
However, there are many reservations about the user and the psychological aspect in "motivational design" as it is used in the gaming industry, and when designing experiences that excite. But a very large part of the "experience" design process is also driven by creative initiatives, which can be considered innovative and exciting. The user is more likely to share things that are innovative than things that are seen on social media every day.
Two to three years ago, the balance was more on the "Experience" side with fewer theoretical approaches. And the trend, where there has been more focus on the "User" – that is, the user, is a positive trend. As we increasingly ensure that the things we design are driven by some form of evidence. Although there is not always time for extensive studies, we at least try to point in that direction.
But the balance should ideally be able to stand even, and as the trends look at the moment, there is so much focus on User Experience being usability. And it does not necessarily have anything to do with a good experience. But where there is a clear focus on reducing negative experiences rather than managing positive experiences.
The visible and the invisible.
Usability is increasingly a matter of reducing the visible errors and pitfalls that exist in an interface. Things that cause the user to have a negative experience. These things are often very "visible" and tangible for a "UX" designer. There are many checklists for what good user-friendly design is. And since usability often leans on what the user is used to, this automatically sets some standards that a interface designer can navigate by.
Experience design, as I know it, moves more into the unknown, and perhaps for some "invisible". What do you do to give the user an enriched total experience of a service, a purchasing flow, or a game? Here, there is a need for completely different methods that are based on motivational design. How do you create customer loyalty? There are many well-known methods. Here we talk about, for example, gamification, which unfortunately has faced some backlash due to questionable methods in the form of either "external motivation" (external motivational methods in the form of rewards) or "internal motivation" (internal motivation in the form of one's desire to "cultivate" the product). And if methods like gamification are designed incorrectly and are not subtle enough, they can lead to a negative experience.
The UX Design process may seem more scientific than creative as it appears today. Since there is so much focus on using the right models rather than coming up with new and exciting ways to provide a good experience that is worth sharing.
UX Design is a term that is mostly used in digital media. Especially in the web industry, but strangely enough, it is a term that should belong in places where one actually has an experience, such as films and games. It is all about designing out of an otherwise boring digital media product, so the consumer has an experience of using the product, and ideally leaves with a sense of exit.
It is one of the most buzzword-laden parts of the web and media industry, which is thoroughly colored by ROI and the burden of proof for functional and value-creating "experience design".
But what is a good experience in digital media? Is it when you order a new hedge trimmer in a webshop with the fewest possible buttons, without waiting too many milliseconds between pages? Is it when you win a difficult level in Candy Crush? Or is it watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones on HBOnordic? Because if the essence of films and games is not a "designed experience", then I don't know what it is.
UX Design should be about evoking emotions, and it must be said that the film and gaming industry are experts in this. Because if anyone knows something about retention in terms of DAU (Daily Active Users) and MAU (Monthly Active Users), it is the gaming industry. We design experiences that are created for retention through internal motivation, which should be the core of true UX design. In contrast to external motivation, which is often used in marketing, which is motivation created by external parameters such as bribery in the form of rewards – i.e., anything but an "experience".
The focus is currently on the vertical and convergent mindset, that each given problem can be solved based on individual known methods. This is one of the main driving forces in UX design in 2014. The more theoretical knowledge about design processes and consumer behavior you have at hand, the easier it is to solve the task. But if we refer to Søren Hansen and Christian Byrge, we will also see that vertical knowledge application is a limited knowledge application because we have learned and believe that there is only one specific type of knowledge that can be applied as a solution to a given task.
While theoretical methods in "design thinking" are refined and contribute to progress in knowledge about what we already know about using design for problem-solving, we also see a fragmentation, as the scientific application methods have become more niche-based. And at the same time, there have been significantly more of them, which thereby lose connection to each other and to the real issues of everyday life.
– Richard Buchanan "Wicked problems in Design Thinking"
Which leads us to the use of horizontal and divergent thinking as part of the design process. Horizontal thinking is the use of knowledge that exists across subjects that do not immediately have any relevance to the given problem. It is a method that provides significantly more knowledge available in a design process. It is driven by associations that we consciously or unconsciously draw from other knowledge libraries in the brain. For some, the associations occur naturally. This is where the creative design process comes into play. If you only use vertical thinking, for example, rule-based theoretical methods in design thinking, you will find it difficult to come up with innovative creative ideas that are drawn from your horizontal knowledge bank.
In chapter 5, we look at a specific case that utilizes soft values and internal motivation, which is also explained further
On to chapter 5: Case study Animal Cards –>
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