Don Norman: The term "UX"
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- We asked Don what he feels about the way people are using terms like “UX” and “user experience” these days.
Don Norman, Ph.D., is co-founder and principal emeritus of Nielsen Norman Group: User Experience Research, Training, and Consulting.
For the official definition of UX, see www.nngroup.co...
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As usual, Dr. Norman hits the nail on the head. I've been using an analogy of ELEVATORS lately to help people understand the difference between UX and UI. For elevators, UI is simply the panel of buttons you use to summon the elevator or to choose your destination floor once inside, plus things like the indicator that shows what floor a car is on. UX is not only those visible/interactive objects but everything else that affects your experience of the elevator: Where do I find them? How many are there? How do I know which ones go to the floor I need? How long will I have to wait for one? Are the cars large or small? Will they be crowded? Are they noisy, bumpy, smelly, hot, comfortable, uncomfortable? Are they well-lit or dim inside? Do they move slow or fast? Can I maintain the cell signal for my phone while riding? Do the doors open too slowly, close too quickly? What factors in the experience affect my choice of the elevator vs. the stairs? And on and on. This analogy is enlightening for lots of people who don't understand the difference.
An excellent analogy. I will use this when I teach my Engineering students. Thank you!
UI is in the "experiment" and not something separate. The experience is the user's and not the designer's.
There are no UX professionals. That's just a "cool" term.
Really good
Yes nice analogy, just from what I have understood, UX is more than the elevator!
This is a deep and clear insight into the nature of UX!
It's SO GOOD to hear Don Norman, the person who "created" the term, say EXACTLY what I believe that UX really is... It's frustrating to hear everyday people using this term in a way that don't consider it's real meaning... Thanks for that!
Agreed. I'm seeing tons of web designers and graphic designers branding themselves UX Professionals thinking that UX means pushing pixels or making things look pretty. UX isn't just what we interact with on a screen and seeing people from unrelated backgrounds misuse the term is annoying. UX is about user centricity not pixels.
Henrique, hi!
I agree with you and at the same time, I would love your opinion about something else.
What do you think about the term CX?
Me too, but I do find reading the summary sentence on their website "UX encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products" to not quite be same as what he enthusiastically ended with in this video... He probably just got a little holistically excited during the shoot XD
EDIT Before Posted but leaving it there: I did watch it again, I think what I thought was him describing / explaining the whole experience / comparison part and not quite separating that from it's actually about the product / company / service - as apposed to "life and all such".
Gotta show this to recruiters so they stop misusing the label when searching candidates.
Apt😆
LOVE this. User experience is way more than a miserable diagram. You have to be careful with *everything* that touches your customer. Even email. Even phone calls. Everything.
To me Don Norman is saying that design should be holistic rather than narrowly focused on a technology, interface or device. For me his idea is innovative because it suggests that design should investigate the entire experience of the user including he context of use and user environment. In this way new and creative design ideas can flourish. Existing patterns of design can be challenged.
I understand why this would be new to you, but it's very old to many of us. And we oldsters are tired of people appending the letters to UX to everything and treating it as though they've just brought new enlightenment to a field that needed their input when actually, they've warped the original field past recognition, and chopped life living heart out of it. Then they wonder why UX doesn't work for them.
@@ktalbers couldn't agree more... and I'm not even an oldster 😉
Agreed. It's all about the Design Process.
Thanks NN group for getting Don in front of the camera - for those of us down under it is great to have an insight like this.
This guy can really teach you to think outside of the box. I never understood how people place strict boundaries between virtual and reality when talking about UX when it's basically the bridge between the two.
Well, but user experience isn't limited to "virtual" things, so it's not basically just a bridge. It's, well, the experience the user has with a given thing. A virtual thing is something that is not exactly as described, so there is no actual boundary there. Saying something is virtually real means it's not exactly real, which is by definition not something that can exist. If it exists, its real. Amazon is real, Uber is real, the electric current going through transistors is real, all that stuff is real. The problem you have is they are using the word virtual and reality wrong.
I saved this video on my playlist back in 2019 when I was learning about User Experience to launch a startup at the age of 17. Now it’s 2024, the startup became a small business and it had indeed a great user experience as Dr. Norman says. I don’t work with it anymore because we went bankrupt hehe but now I’m passionate about studying UX Design and that’s what I want to pursue as a career 😊
Thank you for sharing your story! We're glad that our videos had a positive impact on it.
What an enlightened man. Thank you for creating a career for me
I like how this can be implemented on a broader term, it's basically designing a memorable experience, dedicated to product users to ensure positive impressions of brand(s). A win-win situation.
These titles often get shifted from the original: UI, UX, Front End Developer, Full Stack Developer, Web Developer, etc. Sometimes what a person does day-to-day may overlap onto other job descriptions. In the end, it's the job demands and requirements that really define the title.
What a great guy; still pumping out ideas. I think that we should distinguish between macro UX which is the system and micro UX which is the app or web page. Both totally relevant and necessary foci.
Let's call micro UX what it is though... Graphic design haha
@@kidkiks6134 I know you are joking, but designing a "micro UX" is much more than graphic design. It's all about scale. Even the "micro" is a macro at its own scale.
In other words, I dare you give the job of designing your company's website to a "graphic designer".
@@Puleczech you could definitely give the job of designing a website to a graphic designer. There is some level of experience design within graphic design. I dont know why people are so afraid to call a spade a spade. Very few UX designers out there deal with things outside of the digital plane.
Just because he`s got great hair doesn't make it impressive he is "still pumping out ideas", but I do get you meant well. However, I really think you misunderstood the terms there, UX focuses on the experience the users of a given thing have, so there is no need to further qualify it with macro and micro, it's more like a fractal, you can zoom in on specific parts of it, but it's still just one thing, not two. I guess you could say that the amount of zoom you put in makes it macro or micro, that's up to you, but I think that would limit it, because of the fractal thing, you can really go as deep as you can find words for. Deeper than the quantum particle interactions of the users fingers with the phone screen, if you can find words for it :P
@@kidkiks6134 Yeah and those graphic designers will produce shit for you. You can't even record the interactivity of the mid complex component like a Search bar if I give you 5 hours.
Absolutely love this. I've been saying and practicing this approach for some time. Sadly, many organizations don't understand and it's impacting their business operations and recruiting practices. If a person truly understands the elements and principles of UX, those same elements and principles can be applied across any venue.
I wish you are my grandpa and we can chit chat about ux a lot when I visit you as a grandson XD
It's SO GOOD to hear Don Norman... 💜
Great to hear what the founding father says ;) I've always been taught those outside issues (sales to customer, opening box, loading box issues, etc) were customer experience. That's what I see flooded as info grams and overlaying circle examples about CX, UX and UI.
This video is amazing! It opens my eyes to the experiencing of the user of anything in the world.
yes! i love that Norman Nielsen calls out the disappointingly misguided usage of "user experience design." folks get so caught up in the design aspect --what's flashy, slick, new, pretty-- and completely overlook the core of UX. i've wondered if dropping "design/er" and calling it something like, "UX practice/practitionery" would be helpful to shift the understanding of what UX actually is? 🤔
Love this vid. It's just so clear and human. Don is the best of the best of the best. His book The Design of Everyday things is like this video x 1000 :)
Thank you!
And that's why I label myself a Digital Interaction Designer or Digital Product Designer now. With all due respect, this definition of UX makes everybody from a hotel manager to a movie director a UX Designer since they create experiences through usage and consumption.
If like me your job as a "UX" practitioner is about designing interactive products build with code and used on some form of computer through third party software or directly as a software running on an operating system, then you too are a Digital Interaction Designer or Digital Product Designer.
Everybody else can get the letters "U" and "X" in their job title if they want. It is going to mean anything anymore very soon.
Edit: yes I put "Digital" in the job title. That's because vacuum cleaner and toothbrush designers (Industrial Designers) will claim they are the Product Designers - which is true but for physical tangible products. We are the same but for non-physical, virtual, digital goods.
You missed the very important difference between Designing User's Experience vs Creating User experience. UXD - How the experience should be. Service Design- How this experience will be actualized. UX Designer is defining and specifying how the experience should be. The Hotel Manager to Movie Director is yielding on these definitions and specifications.
Amazing explanation
Glad it was helpful!
What a kind bright man!!
It's 2022, and what Don says still needs to be said. UX is still too-narrowly defined, a discipline seemingly hijacked by digital practitioners who miss the point.
Exactly! Thank you, Don!
This video is amazing.
Thankss so much.
That's how I understood it :)
Agreed in every single word with the master. Design is all about interface. No matter what. Because the human experience is interaction. So UX must be a element within the design activity, just like design thinking, prototyping, research. It's all the Design Process, and a beautiful process. Enhancing the habilities of human minds and bodies.
Every time a person finds my raw posts on socio-political and socio-economic topics disturbing in UX groups across social media due to a lack of pedagogy conditioning in the field of designing by design colleges, I assert that we can discuss all types of topics in the UX group as long as we can strive to explain a certain phenomenon with a few design terminologies looking from the lens of design. Don Norman said everything that we Experience being in the System is a part of the User Experience.
I bought a bike. Bike is pretty good. Its engine is refined, ergonomically designed, but when it has some problem, after sales support is not up to the mark. I had a bad USER EXPERINCE.
Finally someone burst the balloon of all those who think they are UX this and that
I just start an ux design degree in Germany at the IUBH... so excited
Can you tell me more about it ?
@@mahsaazhdarinosrati6240 I guess not
Underrated video ever
UX is not the result of a collection of screens, in fact titles such as UX designers should never have existed. because everyone who is involved in any design projects, services, systems e.t.c. participates in UX in some form or another, e.g. if an architect designs a building, a customer walks in and experienced it, we wouldn't call that person a UX designer, we'd still call him an architect. I am really starting to hate this word being thrown around as though it's some cool hipster term.
Journey mapping, persona creation, interviews e.t.c. those were just design research techniques formed more than 20 years ago, they are not UX.
Completely agree...architects, industrial designers, engineers, etc... all the original experience designers. UX is pretty much a term for people who can't actually design to get into the design process now days haha
You're absolutely right. The problem gets even bigger when they separate UI from the experience
he's so cute
Yes uwu
This comment made me laugh so hard. It's true! I want to put that rascal in my pocket
I HATE WHAT modern people (educators, employees, employers) have done with the term UX. It has veered so far from what Don Norman originally created and what helped Apple be so great. How could people have strayed so far from this amazing concept? UX is about the maximization of pleasing customers to the end of achieving maximum business goals from the moment they first think about your product til the last breath they take. It is everything....
Don Norman did NOT create user experience, he just marketed it more successfully than other designers. Its part of basic product design.
@@kidkiks6134 Are you stupid? 1. You haven't researched Don Norman. 2. You don't understand what UX is. 3. "Design", in the traditional sense, is a small part of UX.
When you're asking how a customer will feel, think, and behave when they tell their friends about how they use your product, and you know they will tell their friends about using your product religiously, and that they would not use any other product because they have grown emotionally attached to yours, you're starting to think like a user experience specialist. It's one of the the reasons Apple became so successful, which is also where Don Norman coined the phrase. Look it up before spewing your ignorance on here... When you think "this looks or functions really great", you are thinking as a traditional designer.
Please do some research before shouting falsities from the rooftops, thanks... A quick Wikipedia search will tell you who Don Norman is, I am 1,000% sure you haven't looked into it. Why spew your ignorance and lead others blindly? You are the problem with social media, the blind lead others to failure....
Sorry if that seemed overly blunt. Let me try to understand better.
I think in the generation of software "products", where no physical goods are involved, "product design" loses some of its traditional meaning in the application of digital design, which is why we needed User Experience architecture to combine with the talent of software engineers to create digital products in a more successful way for end users. In the realm of computer science, UX Design is basically product design. They are pretty much the same job, but UX includes products that are purely digital like software as well as physical. It's anything a user experiences, which encompasses the entire experience of people thinking of, anticipating, or interacting with your product. It's why some people will only buy an iPhone or will only use a Mac. Yes, they have marketed them well, but that kind of customer loyalty comes from carefully curating the entire experience surrounding a product. That's what obsessive UX is about....
It's also the reason people shop so much on Amazon. There are millions of online stores, but none as successful as Amazon. What set them apart? Extreme focus on end users. Specifically on the end user experience.
@@UXSpecialist haha wow man... your fingers hurt after typing that? (I'm assuming you're using a new macbook with no key travel (bad user experience) or an iPhone) 😜. 1. Don't need to, I'm merely calling him out. 2. I do, and incorporate the principals of this bastardized term into my plain old design process. 3. You're wrong, it's actually user experience that is a part of design.
You should think twice before you so viciously defend claims that can't be proven. Anyone can claim they were the first to do something. I bet you think Vanilla Ice played the bass track on "Ice Ice Baby" 😁
Totally agree with the holistic thinking of Mr. Norman! BUT: In my understanding it is Customer Experience (Including aaall the touchpoints no matter if analog or digital). Or is this term just used in Germany?
How about the employees? They are also the users of the systems/products that were designed.
@@Charlie-tb3jp There's EX as Employee Experience which is part of Society Centered Design (if I am correct). But I am not sure it is what you mean.
Got it Don Norman!
The man!
Hmm this is extremely interesting
Experience matters 😊
Come here because my teacher send this video, doing information systems bachelor on IFF Brazil.
non of designer express UX only as designing website or app, its other people (innocent people) who uses these words, mainly to sell their product ...
Yes papa smurf got it ☺️❤️❤️❤️
UX is an approach. Human centred design, user centred design, ubiquitous design are Framework. 'User research method landscape' are methodologies. Each method have many types of processes.
Similarly, Project Management is an approach. Agile is a Framework (as per latest definition), Scrum and Kanban are methodologies. Each method have many types of processes.
instagram.com/p/BoerbNUAtxW/?igshid=krcspe5hfakw
"(...)I'm UX designer so I design apps (...) NO! It's everything: it's the way you experience the world, it's the way you experience your life, it's the way you experience the service, or an app or a computer system - but it's a system that's everyhthing. Got it?"
A story to go with this wise and epic UX definition by Mr Norman... I know someone who is deeply into the buzz word of the decade, UX. He is/was a web and app designer but since a year or so, he proudly calls himself a UX designer or expert, depends on the days. He goes through the casual recipes of user research and testings and then sits to design UIs that look and feel like the rest of the UIs out there... Anyways, recently I asked this person, what happened to the interfaces you designed for that Srartup? He replied, well, they took them to their dev team and they are now an app! I asked him, are you happy with the result? He replied, well, the integration was not clean and things are messed up in the final app that is not stable etc. So I told him, I am sorry to hear that, so you agree the UX is pretty bad right? He jumped from his seat and said, NO, my UX was all good, it is just the integration and dev that made the app all messed up and barely functional... I could not believe my ears! But how many like this designer I know, think that going through the so called UX researches and tests, designing interfaces and handing them to a dev team, then washing their hands, puts a check mark on the UX task... And it is useless to debate with these people that UX is way more global than narrow researches at the service of UI or usability design. For some reason they can't get the idea that the global product aspects like final functional quality, reliability, brand, emotion, feel, packaging, marketing and so many other factors are part of the UX success or failure...
So did you suggest that friend to take on his shoulder the "global product aspect" like shaping the app based on business insight he would gather through market studies, develop its market positioning towards their target audience in-line with the app's raison d'etre, then build its branding responsive-ready for all imaginable platforms, take care of the app's SEO so its easy to find, mind the social media visiblity, ensure all UX laws (Gestalt, Miller, Fitts, Peak-End, etc) are applied, run UR workshop, act as usability/accessibility guardian, iterate based on feedbacks, map flows and content, prototype, wireframe, run UR workshops again after release, keep track on analytics, creating and maintaining the app's design system, run UR workshops further more, advocating for the users, evangelizing Agile Scrum, Lean UX, UCD, Design Thinking, solving the entire planet's problems (because avoid thinking too narrowly) -- PLUS -- do the lead engineer's job and then maybe sleep from time to time ?
I think people removed the "client" part of the "user" experience to be able to sell bootcamp courses of two different disciplines that were supposed to be handled by only one.
iconic master, got
Nailed it!
Is it just me or he sounds like Santa to everyone??
Don just gets it!
Can you please advise when was this article published, as the date is not stated on your website, I am doing a research project on UX and Usability.So I would like to cite your article, but there is no date. Your assistance will be appreciated.
Totally agree
I don't know why people get so upset about missuse of words and terms. Back in the days when Alexander Graham Bell invented a phone, it was a completely different thing :) Times they are a-changing :D
It's like calling yourself a surgeon when you are an assistant nurse. Or calling yourself an architect when you are a kid playing with play-doh. Yes, terms matter a lot. That's why we have them.
alguém aqui venho pela unicesumar?
Gibson's term was better - we _resonate_ to information...with our whole being.
adorable santa
КРУТЫЕ
КРУТЫЕ
Amen
I wish he was my grandpa
This is also a way of understanding how God operates, and can be used to help understand what the Torah means.
@@Uncouth Edgy
does this mean UI is part of UX?
Yesssssssssssssssssssssss
got it :D
anda perlu menjelaskan kandungan
gawd I hate this trendy word. Everyone wants to be a UX'r. Monetary reasons much? The new Marketeers? the best UX people will have a holistic view, are not opportunists, don't think about themselves but think about people. They more often than not will be from cognitive science, psychology, social sciences, heuristics etc
So true. I come from a background of HCI and these bootcampers sicken me.
The cognitive science people are the problem. They're trying to take something that designers instictually know and have done for years, and make it into a "science" so that it can be made into boot camps haha
OK, so what's the difference between UX design and service design? To me, it sounds like Don is talking about the latter...Am I missing something here? ;)
UX can be implemented into service design. It's not A & B. It's A applied into B,C....Z.
@@imdk_pk Um...Not sure if I follow the alphabet part ;)
@@jestempiotrek imagine a well made dinner. the meal stands strongly on its own merits (UX)--delicious.
the condiments ( B, C, D through the english alphabet to the letter Z) are applied to an already great meal to enhance it. it's not either or. it's the fabulous meal, with additional touches.
hope that helps
@@jmsl910 OK. So is Don talking about the meal or the condiments? Or both? I guess we're getting entangled in metaphors here ;) Plus, what's the difference between UX and service design? Is there any?
Quantum Entanglement
He just described Industrial Design. Just saying 😜
Nope, Industrial Design started with the packaging and ends with the physical object (e.g. the iPhone after unboxing). Industrial Design doesn't cover the marketing communication and the content the product transports (e.g. soda inside a can or the music you ear through your airpods). What he describes is CX (Customer eXperience) while calling it UX.
I have a huge respect for Don Norman but I'd dare to say he lost sight of his frankenstein here.
@@Ndriana Hate to break it to ya, but before marketeers started drumming up terms like UX and CX all this was part of industrial design (and before that just, design). It's all part of the age old design process, just with some shiny new terms and emphasis on different aspects of that process.
...there are not macro experiences neither micro experiences...please! There are experiences.
so cute
Why he always wear same clothes🤔🤔🤔🤔🙂
Sorry but no. Xerox PARC invented the term. I know Apple likes to believe they invented everything but really they had what Apple came to have ten years earlier. They were considering user experience before woz had even built Apple 1.
예공 나와라
For an old fella, sounds a bit immature.
I agree. Mocking people like that is not a good way to be educational. And certainly not a good experience.
"UX" designer much? Yeah.
Mocking people like that is not a good way to be educational. - spot on - this is exactly what i thought too but as this guy is some industry big wig most people on this page are kissing his ass...most people have left the truth a long long long time ago...
Friend... do you even know who Don Norman is? He is the Father of UX who coined the term itself! He was the head of the User Experience Architect Group at Apple before the term even existed. I suggest you check out his books and articles before you judge so quickly. He is spot on and is super humble and approachable, with or without considering his credentials.
@@GB3770 Ummmmmmmmmmmmm, he LITERALLY Invented the term; and if you are a "UX-er" then he invented your profession as well. "Some BIGWIG?" Please tell me you are not a "UX professional" that knows nothing about UX. You are the reason he made this video, because you have no idea what you are doing or what UX is, or why it is so valuable. You have degraded the term so much that now UXer's are nothing but basic designers who lower the value of their job title for everyone else. Please don't refer to designers as UX anything. You're destroying this amazing concept.
Too much nonsense about this empty term. Who cares what it is? Another veteran of interaction design, Alan Cooper, suggests that there's no such thing as UX, and he's right. It's just a self-aggrandizing term for user interface designers.
Wrong. Don Norman was a true User Experience Creator. Did you hear? It's about the moment they walk into the store and see your product on the shelf, put it into their car, take it home, open the box, put it together. It's everything, and the main reason Apple has so many loyal fans today. Many others who use the term have not understood it, like yourself, they don't know what it is, they simply do not understand the concept of it. Alan Cooper is wrong, unfortunately, he does not understand the term at all and would do well to broaden his understanding, rather than look to those who use the term improperly.