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What is User Experience?

Since the turn of the century, User Experience is one of the most important aspect for any product. The customer needs have been fueled by rapid innovation in technology which are easily accessible with world coming closer together. This has led to the creation of several products for the same need with one thing differentiating a product from the other, User Experience!

User Experience has been known and worked upon for many centuries under the umbrella of field of ‘Design’. For example: If we go into history to refer vast text available on Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), we will realize focus on design or user experience existed then too! The IVC is known for its successful urban planning and design, the reason for which was the designers understanding and meeting users needs. In fact if we list all successful products they will all have one thing in common, a great design which met the user needs.

Hence key ingredient of any great user experience is a design which meets the users needs!

Now, is meeting the user needs the only ingredient? It will be a mistake, when designing a product, to only focus on the user needs. Again history has shown us how many well designed products could not be the successful products of the times. The reason being designers in pursuit of designing to meet the user needs forgot about technology and business. Lets think about Google Glass, Tata Nano (world’s cheapest four wheeler!). One may think there was a flaw in design but my view, its a story of technology and business failure.

So other key ingredient of any great user experience is a design which can be executed with current technology and results in a product that meets business needs.

User Experience is the sustainable experience of the users when using a product or service to meet their needs.

We can say a product or service has a great user experience when the users use the following adjectives while describing it

#Easy to use #Intuitive #Pleasurable #Enjoyable #Satisfying #Usable #Accessible

In the next part of this series will dive into User Experience Design i.e. the process of designing such a sustainable product or service experience.

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