What is ‘User Experience’ (UX)?

Cambridge Dictionary defines User Experience as - “the experience of someone using a product, service or system”.

Think about that for a second...

Every. single. thing. you interact with on a daily basis in order to accomplish something – whether it’s a simple as setting that alarm to wake up in the morning, or as complicated as learning a new piece of software – has a User Experience attached to it.

But the concept of User Experience is not a new thing at all, it’s been around since we as humans decided we didn’t want to live in caves anymore. For instance, the invention of the round wheel made the User Experience of traveling much smoother.

Why is User Experience Such a BIG Thing Now?

Up until the digital age, we’ve never had to really think a lot about User Experience, because those experiences tended to be simple, tactile and predictable. You flip a switch, something turns on or off. Depending on the direction you turn a knob, something becomes more or becomes less. In creating these User Experiences, we developed a set of basic, universal behaviors that could be replicated and duplicated with almost anything we interacted with, that also easily broke through any barriers related to language and culture.

Life used to be so simple. Then the digital age hit.

Fast forward to today, and our world is a volcanically hot mess of different User Experiences. Technological advances have removed most of the limitations of what is possible and our efforts cover the spectrum of amazing to absolutely awful. And it’s only getting more ridiculous as the days go by.

Now, as a quick exercise, let's dig into the complexity of the different User Experiences you navigate in one day. That alarm clock – if you still use one that isn’t also a phone – ...