/personal

A few months ago I posted a rough idea for a user experience chart explaining what makes up a user experience for a product. Since then I’ve refined the chart, thought what the chart is good for and how it relates to all the other user experience concept maps out there.

A tool for brainstorming and defining “goodness� of user experience for a product. Click image for a larger version on Flickr, or download PDF version (104 KB).

Why yet another UX chart?

My user experience chart is completely subjective so you cannot place different products on the chart and compare results. And that’s not even the point. I had three things that motivated me to create the chart:

• Facilitate selling the concept of user experience to the uninitiated. By showing what elements move a product from the neutral “enough” area to providing a truly “good experience”, valid arguments can be crafted for technology lovers pushing for feature creep or managers trying to improve a product by bagelomics, pouring money to marketing. Or whoever you need to persuade.
• Make it easier to identify which aspects should be focused on to improve the user experience. When your team already wants to create the perfect user experience, this chart can help you find out where to start. Maybe you need to make the product simpler. Maybe the customer service has to be quicker. Maybe the price is not right. Plot the product on the chart and start re-thinking.
• Provide a sense of just how good a given user experience is. By separating the user experience in subjective (even if a little fuzzy) elements, you can evaluate one element at a time and move your product up, down, left and right on the chart accordingly. Does the product save time? Move it right closer to the “convenient” edge. Do you get complaints about ease of use? Maybe move it back left a bit towards the “inconvenient”. Has the packaging been praised? Move it up towards “attractive”. And so on. After this exercise you’ll have a better idea of how good experience you think the product is delivering and what influences the experience.

Other user experience charts

Luke Wroblewski has collected a good list of user experience maps (although the original Morville honeycomb is missing). Each of the maps looks at user experience from a different angle and for a concept as abstract as user experience, the more angles the better. Also check out The Importance of User Experience, a new concept map by the guys at Experience Dynamics. I particularly like the inclusion of expectations in the chart as I thought long and hard before I decided expectations did not belong on my chart.

And while Mark Hurst’s three strands of good experience doesn’t have a diagram, it is essential reading nonetheless.