Experience Design

Many famed columnists, pundits and commentators have made brilliant careers of using anecdotes to draw insights and conclusions and even predict the future.

For those of us fortunate enough to have visited any of the Walt Disney Theme Parks, we understand why they are the happiest places on earth for kids. As generations of park-goes have come and gone, so have generations of technology and means of engagement.

Last week I attended the Information Architecture Summit in New Orleans (oh yeah!) and talked about the Cross-Channel Experience with 700 of my closest peeps.

Since ancient times, when users were ‘surfers’ and Netscape still roamed the Information Superhighway, screen resolution has been a concern for web developers. It was difficult enough in bygone eras to determine how much content could fit onto a screen before the user was treated to an unseemly scroll bar along the bottom of their browser. A developer had to carefully plan the dimensions of their website to accommodate the four or five monitor resolutions used by the broadest possible audience.

One of the first steps in designing a successful user experience is knowing your users. Understanding their goals, needs and skills lets you to provide content and functionality that resonates with your audience. There are plenty of tools in the user experience arsenal to help such as stakeholder discussions, user interviews, and surveys.