Saturday, November 24, 2012

5 User Experience Lessons From Tom Hanks


by Steve Tengler for 
You may work for a company that just hasn’t figured it out. It may still be pondering, “Why should we care about user experience?” Maybe it doesn’t care at all. Maybe it has lucked into a strange vortex where customers are accepting of unpleasant interactions and misguided designs.
If you’re that lucky, stop reading this article and go buy a lottery ticket. If, on the other hand, you work at any company with a product, website or application within which a customer might fail or succeed, you should pause to understand how the strategic failings of some companies (e.g. Research In Motion, Yahoo or Sony) caused them to be leapfrogged by the vision of others (e.g. Apple, Google).
But delineating the underpinnings of user experience clearly for everyone is not an easy task. There are algorithms, axioms and antonyms abound. Our frequent reference-point is pop culture — something to which folks can relate. We’ve already touched on UX lessons from Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp. But a thirsty person crawling through the desert of knowledge needs more than two swigs. So today’s user experience lessons are five taken from the cannon of Tom Hanks.

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