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What crap.

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3.""

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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"User experience and business aren't mutually exclusive."

They are not necessarily always aligned either and you may have to choose at one point. UX is very subjective and taking a dogmatic approach to it and how it affects your business isn't a very good idea.

> UX is very subjective

I can't say I agree with this. Maybe you're thinking of UI, which I would agree can be very subjective.

Great UX, on the other hand, in the most simple possible terms, is the application of the golden rule to any interactive system: software, gadget, subway system, what have you. "If I had to use this thing, how would I want it to work?"

As a result, it's a pretty simple thing to test: how does this implementation enhance or detract from the user's ability to do what they're trying to do?

The degree of impact may be subjective, but I think it's pretty easy to tell when something is user hostile or user friendly.

The only way that UX can be globally optimal is if all users share the same goals, the same skills and understanding, the same capabilities (browser caps, etc.).

In the real world, where people have at least slightly different goals, are more or less sophisticated, and sometimes use IE6, compromises -- sometimes deep ones -- must be made.

For example, on our ecommerce site, we've got at least two very different user personas. One is what you might think is typical -- an end-user who browses, trying to figure out what to buy. The other is a purchasing manager, simply working his way down a purchase order. In many parts of the process these two people have very different needs. Obviously we want to try to cater to both of them, but multiplying the options in itself has effect on the UX.

>how does this implementation enhance or detract from the user's ability to do what they're trying to do?

If you're capitalistic about things though sometimes you want to do what will hinder your user's ability to fulfill their goal.

For example at the supermarket - I want to get milk and get away quick but the supermarket wants me to go through the whole store and be confronted with offers and the smell of the instore bakery, etc.. My experience is frustrated on purpose to benefit the business financially.

Similarly with "checkout" offers on a sales website. One particular printer makes you manually leaf through about 12 pages of offers after you've confirmed your purchase - it's a poorer UX (IMO) but will benefit the business.

Others will argue, this last case say, is an improved UX as I get the chance to bag offers I perhaps hadn't noticed. Thus it's subjective.

Since when is having a poor user experience good for business.

I would also say that having a poor User Interface and poor User Experience is doubly bad for business.

I'm reminded of the recent article posted here to HN about Expedia removing a single field from their checkout form that resulted in $12MM to the bottom line.

Better UI + Better UX = Better Business

Wouldn't Google's UX be better if there were no ads? In the short term, maybe. In the long term, it would kill the company, so there wouldn't be any UX at all.

no, you're confusing UI and UX... without ads, the user interface might be better (less ads, less clutter, etc) however, it could be argued that without the ads the user EXPERIENCE would not be as good... as very often ads are highly relevant to what the user is searching for on google and are therefore of value to the user.

No, adverts are almost always irrelevant for almost everybody. They are a necessary (and sometimes unnecessary) evil. Most of us don't look for something to buy all the time. When I read my mail or a blog or whatever, that huge burger and coke ad right in the middle of the screen is an irrelevant distraction.

When I have to watch that very same 30 second Hoodie Footie Pajamagram - the perfect way to snuggle up - segment before each and every 3m news video on CNBC it's a torture for my brain.

I wish more sites gave me a reasonable way to buy myself freedom from that "highly relevant" bloat.

[Edit] As a service provider, I appreciate the convenient excuse you provide for torturing my users ;-)

I think Google's billions in revenue and profits would beg to differ with you. (ads on google search results are generally highly relevant and get clicked a lot)

you are right, however, if the people you are generalizing for are HN folks, and websites other than Google.

Revenue and relevance is not quite the same. A 1% clickthrough rate would lead to great revenue for all concerned, but it still means I'm annoying 99% of my users (or one user 99% of the time).

Of course, not all non-clickers would be terribly annoyed, but many of the clickers might still be annoyed by the distraction even though the ad was relevant enough to click on.

"Since when is having a poor user experience good for business."

You'd do better to ask which situations it is good for business,and which situations focusing on a strong UX can distract from more pressing concerns, or worse.

The article mentions one potential situation of the later type and I strongly suspect that large e-commerce firms do know what they are doing for the most part. The Expedia example you cite clearly shows that they do, in fact, experiment with their UX. (It doesn't clearly show that there is a correlation with removing fields and clutter and increasing profits, we'd need a lot more datapoints than that.)

CWuestefeld, mentions another, where they have to cater to two very different kinds of customers with different needs and usage patterns. There is no single UX that would satisfy both and I suspect that it would be prohibitively expensive to target them separately, hence business, in this situations trumps UX.

Clearly this isn't always the case and everything being equal, good UX will probably trump bad UX, but everything rarely is equal, and that's the problem.

Since when is having a poor user experience good for business.

Would you like fries with that?

Article continues on page C8.

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The product is configured using a bespoke business process description language that describes your configuration in intuitive problem-domain terms. It's so simple and intuitive, a non-technical person can understand this fake example! The support contract specifies that our consultants will be available at reasonable rates to attempt to train your business analysts to be programmers, and then to attempt to train your IT staff to write code in what turns out to be an arcane '80s-era language with dozens of undocumented bugs and sharp edges, and then to do all the work themselves at great cost since nobody can actually be trained to configure the product in any reasonable amount of time.

touché (even though all your examples are in un-related industries) :-)

It depends what makes you happy. I get happy when I get a great deal more than when its a nice shiny UI.

Of course, both a great deal and a great UI is best, but if I had to choose one, I know which it would be.

Shiny is an aesthetic description. The importance of this discussion goes much deeper — simplicity versus complexity, and who benefits from each.

Upsells are an obstacle to completing your purchase. They're annoying. They are added compexity that has a nominal chance of benefiting the user. In contrast, they are guaranteed to benefit the company, since as a numbers game, you'll end up pitching enough upsells to convert n additional sales.

When considering the impact of adding complexity, imagine a toilet. Or, rather, your access to a toilet. Some toilets are a door knob away. Others require you to hunt down a coin and drop it into a slot before providing access.

Which toilet are you more proud to have in your business?

Your assertion that all upsells have a 'nominal chance of benefiting the user' is wrong. Some users love upsells if they are the right deal.

This is really quite an easy problem to solve. Run the upsell. If only a small percentage of users go for it, throw it away, since it's probably doing more harm than good.

I no longer use godaddy, partly because I got tired of wading through their ridiculous number of upsells. There's got to be a balance.

You're talking to a former salesman here — the art of the virtuous upsell is a delicate bit of work that takes time to practice. For humans. Very few ecommerce companies give a damn about doing the algorithmic legwork necessary to upsell "the right deal."

Even Amazon, the crem de la crem in ecommerce IT magic, doesn't often nail it for me. They get away with it, though, by being respectful to me. No interstitial horseshit, just a respectful suggestion that doesn't ever detract from my main activity — buying the things I am certain I want.

You can make money by surprising your users — Google made billions doing this with AdWords. It works for them by being good on a pretty solid basis and never being in the way when it isn't.

> When considering the impact of adding complexity, imagine a toilet.

A bidet and a toilet with toilet paper. I'd find a bidet confusing and awkward.

Upsells are useful. You make the assumption they only serve the company. This is wrong. Take for example the last upsale I purchased. I bought a Kindle. Amazon upsold a case for the Kindle before the checkout.

Apple pushes upsales all the time as well. I challenge anyone to go by a Mac in an Apple store, and try to buy it without having to mention to have the sales person discuss MobileMe, AppleCare, or OneOnOne.

You make the assumption that upsales are annoying and are obstacles. That's not true. The design of upsales can be made an obstacle or annoying, but then, I could argue the same about anything. Heck, I could take a blank page and turn it into an obstacle.

GoDaddy. Come on.

I agree on Amazon, they do their upsells in a great way that isn't distracting. They don't say "Hey, fuck you, user, can't complete the transaction until you consider this offer!"

By and large, though, don't split hairs with me, how many people are doing upsells right?

edit: Bidet complexity is significant, but the benefit is that your asshole is clean and fresh without needing a shower. Which is extraordinary, but obviously only for power users. But that's a different UX kettle of fish.

> GoDaddy. Come on.

I don't use GoDaddy. I wouldn't know. Why bring them up? As evidence that upsales can be done poorly? I never contested that. You did say that upsales are annoying complexity, obstacles to a purchase.

> By and large, though, don't split hairs with me, how many people are doing upsells right?

Most every place I frequent does upsales well, whether offline or online. I find good upsales a reason to frequent.

People doing upsales right? Apple. Amazon. Ebay (considering your not just buying something, but customising a service). DomainSite, the company I purchase my domains from, does the upsales easily without impeding the checkout process. Choose domain => shopping cart => checkout => Payment info. Along the way, options are provided, but nothing that gets in the way. Also, just now checking, those steps all fall in the same visual area on the page, so you're eyes are already where it needs to be for the next step. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

Regardless, upsales aren't bad. Bad design is still bad, however, one has nothing to do with the other.

Too bad that last paragraph doesn't fit in a tweet, it's worth quoting again and again. :-)

I'd find a bidet confusing and awkward.

Seriously, can anyone tell me what is the correct way to use a bidet? Do you sit facing the wall, so you can control the temperature and volume of water? Or do your try to adjust all that first, and then sit facing out as with a toilet?

The traditional bidet has a variety of severe UX problems as evidenced by the universal confusion over a number of issues on first use.

The old style european type is designed such that you should be facing the controls. Which is only reasonable when you think about but requires a non-intuitive posture.

There are now electronic ones which integrate with a toilet and provide a control pad.

Don't indulge yourself with a bidet as they can be habit forming.

>The old style european type is designed such that you should be facing the controls.

What's confusing, same way you use a toilet.

;0)

Isn't Google a huge, obvious exception to his thesis?

To be fair, it's not an e-commerce site, but it preserves user experience at the expense of "leaving zillions of dollars on the table" in "lost revenue" by not plastering the site with ads. I think in light of Google a big part of his argument is preposterous.

That is only true if more obtrusive ads were necessarily the more revenue-maximizing. Even the article admits that the obtrusiveness from up-selling can be counter-productive and be revenue-harmful.

I believe that when Google changed the ad click area to just the title/link rather than the whole div, the total # of clicks was lowered (fewer misclicks), but revenue was not affected since the value of each click was higher.

As an Apple user, I'd like to know what company makes UX the acid test for their business decisions over profit?