4 Pillars of Experience Design

We are all creatures of experience and I firmly believe that most web designers and their clients overlook the larger experience picture because of too narrow a focus on individual pieces of the puzzle. Experience design should be holistic. Many people confuse usability with experience design; thinking that they are the same thing. They aren’t, but they can and often do go hand-in-hand. I view usability as a function of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ a user does on a site. Designing for the Experience includes designing for what they do and how they feel after they have left – it is much more about the emotion and residual feelings left after interacting with your site.

I started my career as an Architectural Technician designing physical spaces where people live, work and play. With a physical space such as an auditorium or office tower there are no second chances to get it right. The planning that goes into the design needs to be bullet-proof. These physical constraints are virtually non-existent in the online world which has led to very bad design practices being the norm rather than the exception.

Good experience design practice is holistic. It delivers a result that is free flowing and seamless for the user. The look, feel, functionality and achievement of a user’s goal is an event that leaves no negative impression only satisfaction. Designing for experience is a different process than simply designing for usability or conversion or for any single goal. Designing for Experience means that you are designing for the user not simply what the user is doing or looking at.

According to Wikipedia Experience Design includes elements of cognitive psychology as well as perceptual psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, architecture and environmental design, haptics, hazard analysis, product design, information design, information architecture, ethnography, brand management, interaction design, service design, storytelling, heuristics, and design thinking.

There are no guarantees that factoring them into your design will guarantee that you will deliver a positive user experience or that your client will value the understanding  you now have of the human race but considering them will at least increase success across a wider spectrum of the audience .

At E-Cubed we have outlined 4 pillars of design that support our approach to crafting a better overall user experience. These are Interaction Design, Interface Design, Information Design and Graphic Design. Each of these pillars includes elements of Wikipedia’s Experience Design list and a variety of additional factors that provide us with a unique value proposition and consistently allows us to deliver experiences that are met with success.

Interaction Design:

Our first pillar in designing a positive user experience is to understand what a user needs to do when they arrive. These tasks are broken down to showcase every point where a user interacts with the system. This Interaction Design stage is one of the most critical to the overall experience since providing the means for a user to accomplish what they need to do is of paramount importance. Every user task is outlined in this stage. Once launched, identified interactions and conversion points can be measured and analyzed against initial projections and any that are not delivering as anticipated can be easily adjusted.

Interface Design:

What tools will a user need to get the job done? Our second pillar, Interface Design, allows us to identify interface elements and functional tools and present them in a way that supports a users ability to accomplish their tasks. At E-Cubed we typically use wire-framing techniques to visually represent the graphical and interface elements that provide the user with abilities to traverse the site as well as enter, interact with and manipulate data.

Information Design:

Understanding the information you have and how it needs to be structured, referenced and displayed  allows a user to make use of it once they have found it. Information comes in many forms and formats; text, graphics, audio, video, PDF, PowerPoint, etc. Knowing what you have and the best way to prepare and present it so that a user can make decisions based on it to further their goals is the third aspect of experience design we look at. Pillar three starts us thinking about what we have that needs to be accessed and acted upon.

Graphic Design:

Our last Pillar is the tip of the ice-burg that everyone sees. The visuals that make up the face of the site; Graphic design. While the pillars that have come before introduced elements that are visible on the site, Graphic Design wraps them in a consistent theme. While an important aspect to the presentation of data a site should NEVER rely on this Pillar alone as there is never enough support for any true measure of success. This Pillar is where the visible creative elements get created and displayed; photos, buttons, colours, styles, etc.

The human race is very visual and as such we give high marks for things that are pretty (Graphic Design). This visual bias usually masks the importance of the other three Pillars that account for usability and overall effectiveness. The more a user interacts with a site the less effect the visual elements have in the overall assessment of the experience. Clients who do not understand the larger concept of User Centric Design or Experience Design unfortunately still use graphic design as the yardstick to measure vendor competency.