Comments on: Experience-Driven Product Strategy

By: Paul Marshall

Paul Marshall — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:34:04 +0000

[...]Peter over at Tech Capital Partners in KW has a good post on the topic where he articulates thoughts on “The experience IS the product” and the importance of establishing and maintaining a superior user interface.[...]

By: Experience Driven Product Strategy | Keen Beans

Experience Driven Product Strategy | Keen Beans — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:42:12 +0000

[...] Peter over at the Tech Capital Partners Blog posted an article about Experience Driven Product Strategy. In a nutshell, using such a strategy means to approach [...]

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:03:42 +0000

You’re right James, there are a lot of factors that can determine what makes a good UI/UX. Not many products, no matter how well they’re designed can come along and displace a large incumbent. Apple seems to be good at this (the iPod and iPhone are good examples) but the PC market has been much tougher for them. I think historically Windows PCs offered a user experience that was good enough for the average consumer and in many cases one that was better than the Mac. You have to consider that the experience for Windows (as long as it worked properly) was probably better than the Mac for most people since Windows was the “standard” and there were thousands of apps and games that could run under Windows while software selection for the Mac was far less. Windows PCs could be easily upgraded, were cheaper, and the kid down the street could fix it for you, etc.(obviously consumers can be hard to predict) Combine this with the fact that people became accustomed to using Wintel at work and the best UI/UX for them was Windows because that was what they were used to, it made sense to them. Price may also be a factor here…the marginal benefits of the Mac UX (if the person perceives them to be there) may not be worth the extra $$ required to purchase the computer when you can grab a Windows machine for half the price. Apple is making headway though and the Mac market share is closing in on 8%. I think the lesson here is that, as you pointed out, there are other things going on here but more importantly people are not always rational and the User Experience is not limited to the product itself but is affected by anything that relates to the product which can sometimes be out of your control.

It will be interesting to revisit this post in 2 years to see how things have shaken out…I have a feeling that the Mac market share will have grown considerably (in North America) by then since many of the factors I pointed out above are becoming less of an argument everyday.

By: James Storm

James Storm — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:48:56 +0000

I don’t think you can talk about this topic too much. The performance of your database queries or the elegance of your architecture are worthless if users don’t like, or want to use, the product.

Of course, there are exceptions. Consider this: if the UI and UX are such important success factors, then why don’t more people use a Mac? More is going on here methinks.

By: Melanie Baker

Melanie Baker — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:30:03 +0000

Amen! It’s a bit of a Murphy’s Law in product development that it seems like if you design products with the traditional “user is the end consideration” approach, the stuff you spend the most blood, sweat, and tears getting “right” will be the stuff the users utterly ignore or passionately hate. And the stuff you despise and cringe at incorporating will be their unanimous favourite.