There are more startup tech companies launching this week than almost anyone can keep track of, but any time a new service launches - one thing is key to its survival. The initial User Experience has to be compelling or any new application is going to be passed up in favor of whatever shiny object is next in line.
What's a company to do? Luckily, there are people who specialize in the field of User Experience (UX) and many of them share their best practices freely. We see applications all the time that are based on a great idea but are poorly designed in a way that leaves us frustrated and unlikely to return as users. Below are some of our favorite resources for companies that want to smarten-up quickly about User Experience.
Joshua Porter, Bokardo
Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web Applications
Joshua Porter's three-part series from last summer is the best overview of UX design focused on social websites that we've seen. It's framed in terms of things not to do, but there's great advice here like don't focus on too many different features, don't overfocus on the social value without delivering direct personal value (what Porter calls the "Del.icio.us Lesson" - personal value precedes network value) and don't fail to archive knowledge for re-use so your community manager doesn't have to spend all their time answering the same elementary questions from every new user.
This series is a great place to start and it alone should give any company a lot to think about and implement.
Trevor van Gorp, Boxes and Arrows
Design for Emotion and Flow
Trevor van Gorp wrote an article in this month's issue of Boxes and Arrows about "flow." We're most familiar with this concept from Kathy Sierra's discussion of it.
Van Gorp defines flow as an experience characterized by users feeling:
* Total concentration and focused attention
* A sense of control over interactions
* Openness to new things
* Increased exploratory behavior
* Increased learning
* Positive feelings
That's what we want from the apps we use! That kind of experience will keep us engaged for long enough to invest time and other resources that we'll want to come back to and it will give us the emotional incentive to do so, as well.
How can you help your users get into such a mode? Check out van Gorp's post and the conversation in comments.
Steve Psomas, UXMatters
The Five Competencies of User Experience Design
The above tips and perspectives are a great start, but if you can swing it it's a good idea to hire someone who specializes in UX work. Whether you're interested in evaluating prospects for that hire more intelligently or looking for more information about the field for yourself, Steve Psomas's article on UX competencies really helps the reader understand the details of the field. Read this one and you'll be much better informed about the world of UX.
Also worth reading for anyone is Luke Wroblewski's October post on UXMatters titled Scalable Design, where you can find tips on planning your product and site design today to enable easier growth and change in the future. Who wouldn't want to do that?
Case studies are a great way to learn about anything. After an initial exposure to the resources above, we recommend checking out the following:
The above are some of our favorite UX resources and we can't emphasize enough how important this kind of thing is for new startups. You can have the most wonderful idea in the world and if your site suffers usability or user experience problems then your odds of survival are not good. We want you, friends with startups, to survive and thrive.
Let us know about your favorite User Experience resources in comments below.
Image: "Forever Flowing" Creative Commons licensed by Lisa Ruokis
Comments
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I really agree with the "personal value precedes network value" statement. When designing and building the UI for our product (www.convos.com), we focused on user productivity and utility as opposed to maximizing page views.
I've worked with SilverBack and it's great at collecting the actions / reactions. The one thing I would change is having the ability to watch the resulting videos right in SilverBack. Currently, you have to export.
Posted by: Matt | September 9, 2008 1:03 PM
Ummm examples? None cited in post. WTF?
To me the platinum standard in UX is still Flickr - it actually does stuff!
Would love to see URLs of what people think is a really great UX ( Since this post's author has neglected to do so ) here in the comments.
What could possibly be a better UX than Flickr?
Posted by: Todd | September 9, 2008 1:28 PM
thanks for pointing out some excellent articles. great post!
Posted by: dave | September 9, 2008 1:48 PM
Todd, each of the authors above are a good source for hundreds of particular examples but if you insist I'll mention a few of my personal favorite examples. I like the file upload experience of viddler.com, the send-to-group function of ma.gnolia, the file export flow of skitch, the login proccess of agglom.com and almost everything at getsatisfaction.com. Flickr is good but could be better at UX imho. the drag & drop maps, for example, i find unfriendly.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick | September 9, 2008 1:49 PM
"my personal favorite examples. I like the file upload experience of viddler.com, the send-to-group function of ma.gnolia, the file export flow of skitch, the login proccess of agglom.com and almost everything at getsatisfaction.com"
There, was that so hard? I forgot to mention Magnolia, which is teh awesome.
Posted by: Todd | September 9, 2008 1:53 PM
I really agree with the user flow and experience is determined by feelings. Whenever I am working on a new project I think of myself as the user, how would I want this, why does this make sense, and most of all, how does it make me feel?
We recently redesigned the efactor, http://www.efactor.com, an online business community connecting investors and entrepreneurs with UX as first priority.
Would love feedback.
Posted by: Stephanie | September 9, 2008 2:07 PM
Examples? Anything by Google :-) I know they're a big company now, and it's kinda uncool to give a big company props, but Gmail and Google Reader are awesome!
Also, I really recommend the Krug's book "Don't Make Me Think!" for UX advice. One of the principles in that book is to generally stick to web conventions that people are familiar with rather than making them learn a new way of interacting. There are exceptions to this, but the gentler the learning curve to your app, the more the newbies will really "get" it. Good article!
Posted by: Tony Trupp | September 9, 2008 2:30 PM
yeah great post, thanks a lot
Posted by: modelfiyat1 | September 9, 2008 4:35 PM
Kudos! Well deserved
Posted by: Dave Martin
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September 9, 2008 10:11 PM
it was a great post man.
Posted by: Zee at WeDoCreative
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September 9, 2008 10:14 PM
is that your "big pageview" post for today? :-P
Posted by: Allen Stern
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September 9, 2008 10:15 PM
Yes Allen, it is. And it's also something I'm proud to have written. Tell Sarah to poke you for me, would you? ;) Hope you're having fun at DEMO, glad you still have time to give me a hard time.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick
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September 9, 2008 10:23 PM
Really? The user experience? Don't get me wrong, a focus on these things is an improvement, but is it the right approach?
Fundamentally, the majority of UX practitioners I've worked with have a very narrow perspective on designing anything effectively. Often they don't even question the context of the problem space. Indeed, they're not designers at all. They're decorators.
Posted by: Paula Thornton | September 9, 2008 10:26 PM
hee hee - i met sarah yesterday - she's cool - too bad you didn't come to either event, would have been great to see ya - i am actually at tc50 now - doing 50/50 duty - interesting note - in the 2 yrs cn is alive, i have only been on the fp of delicious once :)
Posted by: Allen Stern
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September 9, 2008 10:37 PM
The Interaction Design Association website has a very lively discussion list about the topic:
http://www.ixda.org/
Posted by: Alexis Brion | September 10, 2008 4:27 AM
As the UX designer for one of the TechCrunch50 apps, OtherInbox, I was very excited to see all the emphasis on on creating really nice user interfaces in many of the other web applications.
I've noticed it is really hard for new designers and companies just getting into improving their UX to find good examples of usable 'applications' (not just sites).
Jakob Nielsen just put out a paper on the 10 Best Applications of 2008. The article summary alone is worth reviewing, and if you're a designer, you should definitely spring the 100 bucks for the full review. Lots of great examples, good mix of Flex and regular HTML applications.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/application-design.html
Posted by: Theresa Neil | September 12, 2008 12:03 PM