The 17 long time readers can tell you that I probably won’t share 163 reasons why successful businesses are not based upon user experiences but that you will benefit from those that I do share.
It sounds counter intuitive to say that successful businesses are not based user experience but the reality is that they are not. A successful business is based upon providing solutions to the problems/challenges its customers face.
Smart executives understand this and they build their companies around solutions to problems that exist in whatever marketplace they choose to operate in. That is the foundation and framework.
User experience comes after all this. It is only after you have identified the problem and created the solution that user experience comes into play.
Don’t Ignore The Users
Let’s be clear about this. I am not saying that you should ignore the users or that the user experience isn’t critical because it is. But it is not unlike taking a Kindergartner and placing them inside a high school class with the expectation that they will be able to do the same work as the 15 year-olds. It doesn’t matter if they have the world’s greatest teacher because the kindergartner doesn’t have the foundation they need to participate.
So what we are saying here is that the order of you do things is important. The first step is to identify the need and then determine how to solve whatever problem/challenge your prospective customer has.
Once you have the solution is when you need to figure out how to make it practical, easy and effective. Note that practical, easy and effective are not synonymous with cheap either.
If Johnny has a 30 mile round trip commute to work and needs to cut down on his monthly gas expense the answer isn’t necessarily going to be public transportation or a unicycle. That unicycle will certainly help him save money but it won’t get him to work and or home in a timely fashion and as a result will create other issues. That is not a good user experience.
Good user experience is a topic that really deserves its own post. How many times have you used something and wondered out loud if the person who designed and or built it had ever tried using it. I am willing to bet most of you have.
Success Based Upon Solution and User Experience
Those seven words are the secret to success. There is nothing unique or profoundly insightful there but there doesn’t have to be. Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
What do you think?
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