On User Experience

I’ve dedicated the last 15 years of my life to creating custom software interfaces and functionality, or user experiences. In the earliest phase of this career it was all about me—the developer—figuring out how to make the software work without generating error messages. It didn’t take long to realize that good software from a developer’s perspective wasn’t necessarily good software from the end-user’s perspective.

The fact is it’s ALL about the end-user, not the developer, not the client. If the software doesn’t serve the end user, it doesn’t serve anyone. If the software isn’t intuitive and compelling, doesn’t offer transparent access to the content, and doesn’t allow the user to seamlessly reach their goals for the software, it isn’t good software.

A couple of books I’ve read that present this concept are The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman, and The User Experience by Jesse James Garrett. I’ll write about these books in future blog entries.

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