Audience Experience

Target Corporation has long been known for its highly "targeted" marketing research and highly successful techniques.  As cited in this New York Times Article, " How Companies Learn Your Secrets ", they can predict if a woman is going to have a baby by the shift in her purchasing habits.  Even before her (or THE) father knows. It is done through a series of purchasing trends and analyses of numbers, to develop an algorithm that The System can implement to offer future coupons and incentives which will increase customer loyalty. I am here to argue that the same intense focus can be used to prevent bad UX, not only within a computer interface, but also within the context of the larger relationship of a customer and a business. I have received a few emails recently, generated automatically and from a do-not-reply email.  The last message frustrated me to the point where I considered writing back.  For a split second.  Once upon a time, if you got a letter and ...

If you are trying to explain the concept of "Affordances", you can do no better than to encourage people to play the game "The Room" on the iPad. As this article in UX Magazine reveals, the game is all about providing visual cue to the player as to how certain elements work. To take it a step further, the article explores how the game was created iteratively.  Even if every knob, texture and irregularity were perfectly designed, the user must also engage with the interface (separate thing!) successfully. What the article does not cover is the larger benefits of doing anything repeatedly, with different users/audience members, etc.  Personally, I saw this process in theater as a Production Stage Manager. You can talk about an idea as much as you want.  The WORK doesn't happen until you DO IT!  Figure out what is wrong and what is right.  Get it "up on its feet", and especially in front of an audience.  Check in with the audience and see what the...