Off topic, but somewhat relevant. I know Dave is a smart guy and I assume that his cohorts are as well. But this serves at confirmation that a commitment to experience (call it UX, call it XD, doesn’t rally matter to me) has to have buy in from the top. I have no doubt that Dave and his team can design a great interface, but I can honestly say no interface has ever made me want to stab myself repeatedly more than a Motorola phone.

I had a clamshell phone produced by Motorola, arguably the coolest piece of hardware that I have owned, that now sits in my desk drawer because I’d rather revert to a rotary phone than use that thing again.

Okay, this was way off topic and now that I read it, not really relevant at all, but the quoted text above struck a cord with me.

Best,
Dwayne

The “user experience” piece is the whole experience and the crucial part of this story is where the ball was dropped by the company, in the store itself, with lousy customer service and process, as is so often times the case. That’s management’s fault…

I think it is a simple yet powerful article. The fact that usability is a subset of the overall user experience is quite evident.

The online channel is one such touch point with the brand. The perception of th brand is certainly is a summation of all the experiences with various touch points of the brand. Getting the site usability right and not delivering the right instore experience is a example for the above statement.

Does your boss tell you, If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it? One of the reasons usability doesn’t mesh with business at some companies is that it can be difficult to quantify the benefits of good usability. In…

Greg, I understand what you’re saying but the problem is usually bigger than a website allowing a customer to buy a product not in stock. Most times problems occur when the different systems (not just technology systems) interface with each other; then other times its comes down to a person not doing their job (i.e. pulling the product from the shelf so it isn’t sold to someone else).

I think to Jared’s point, user experience is a little more multi-disciplinary than usability. However, many of the methods and tools typically categorized under usability can be applied to improving an experience (digital or other medium).

And that is just on the design team. We also work closely with marketing, product management, engineering (electrical and mechanical, software), and support.

There is usually a design lead whose job it is to mix these various perspectives together and hold a vision of a user experience together and presents the final solution through to the product/service owner.

There are few if any single individuals who can do all of this work by themselves.

– dave

While I agree that the user experience was unsatisfactory, this is not to say that the user experience designer did not create a good design.

Too much hinges on the staff member being happy in, and committed to their job. The management following advice from the UX designer. The wholesaler providing stock on time, and so much more.

However, I do think that at it’s most basic level, the problem described in the story could, and should, have been solved by the usability consultant and the web development team.
Surely functionality within this system should be able to provide for inventory control? If it does, and if it does so correctly, then their is no reason for the customer to visit the store expecting stock that isn’t available.

I still have to ask then. As someone who consults to businesses not only on their website design, functionality, and architecture as a usability specialist, but also on the need to follow this up with full customer support… am I a usability consultant, or a user experience specialist?

The line remains blurry to me, because the role suggested in this story (user experience designer) entails the role of a branding manager, a sales expert, a marketing team, customer service staff and trainers, a board of directors…

Dave, when splitting hairs, I’ve always drawn the line between UX design and experience design according to the presence or absence of a digital product in the equation.

While many people despise the use of the term user in any case, that’s what we traditionally call people who use digital products. Thus, UX. But there’s no reason to refer to people as users in other contexts. So experience design seems to be a more appropriate term for things other than digital products—for example, airports, museums, hotels, amusement parks, highways, etcetera.

Usability isn’t separate from user experience. Usability is a key aspect of user experience, along with those more subtle emotional responses that products evoke in people, which you’ve described. What makes the idea of user experience so powerful is its holistic, all-encompassing nature.

Jared’s call for a focus on UX is certainly strategic. He’s raising the bar above mere usability, which is difficult enough to achieve in itself, to creating great user experiences. Companies that don’t have user-centered cultures rarely create great user experiences.

—Pabini Gabriel-Petit, Publisher and Editor in Chief, UXmatters

Convince me in Five Words or Less! —
Steps on how you can create a catchy, memorable, and effective tag line or slogan for your business.
The Difference Between Usability and User Experience —
Creating a great user experience means coordin…

Maybe a better way to say this, is where is “experience design” in your question. You have the very tactical goal oriented approach of holistic delight design in your scenario, but there is something much more strategic about ‘experience design” that doesn’t only aim for delight per se, but directs a clear communications message through the experience. so not only is an experience at Gap delightful in the store and online and through the receipt of your goods and the return method, etc. etc., but all of those processes evoke a specific class of emotional response that is more than positive, but hip, in, valued, trendy, not too old, not too young, etc. A well designed system will touch on each of these emotional elements at each point of intersection.

The other piece that I think you are missing is that even if you were to concentrate JUST on the online experience itself, there is a clear separation of usability and user experience. usability as you state is a quality that expresses whether or not the product allows the user to complete a task or not, even if they like completing the task. UX speaks about qualities that are beyond utilitarian and enter into the emotional that are still at the product level: visual design, interaction design, IA, etc. all effect usability, but they also come together to move beyond usability.

another aspect that I find interesting is that usability or really doability doesn’t seem to really speak to contextual realities of doability. Sure I can complete the task, but is that the BEST way for me to complete this task within my specific context of use. this is where IA and IxD merge together to really create the dynamic crux of a user experience.

– dave