Hacker News Reader

Comment by andonisus | Hacker News Reader

I really don't buy any of the UX spiel that you laid out. I guess it depends on what kind of product you're buying, but I have never personally had a personal connection to any (technology) product. The only UX I care about is the application being responsive and doing what it says it's going to do. Additionally, I have never once recommended a product because it has evoked an emotional response for me.

To be clear, I am not saying that UX as whole is not needed, but I do not need someone who has made a career of it to elucidate me on the finer points of emotionally connecting with a user via tooltips and the like.

View on HN

Most engineers I talk to insist that they don't have an emotional connection to products or software. Then we start talking about their favorite text editor...

> The only UX I care about is the application being responsive and doing what it says it's going to do

UX as a field goes well beyond pretty UIs.

UX designer could drive your example because they looked at the users of the product and realized that like you, they care about a very responsive system.

Detecting that someone finds the product too slow could eventually materialize a backlog item to make page load times twice as fast etc.

Absolutely correct. A UX designer will have the stake at the table with all sorts of decisions that impact the user experience.

For example:

Two competing microservices? One has a spin up time of 0.3 secs, the other 1 sec. The first is two times the price. It is the job of the UX designer to understand the impact of the longer spin up time to understand if it would impact the user experience.

The UX designer then works with the Product Manager to build a business case for the correct service and thus you've made a decision that impacts the UX but is not a UI or interaction based conversation.

You fell into the "doesn't work on me, so it doesn't work on anyone" trap.

Should I speak for everyone else? I cannot presume to share anything but my own personal experience. To that end, I am simply relating my experience with UX designers and the evangelists of it.

I think I'm similar. Although it's hard to rule out that little details don't have a subconscious impact on my preferences.

It very well could have an impact; who knows? I guess my point is that I feel that UI design should include UX as part of its guiding principles. You don't build a UI just to build a UI -- you build it to be used (hence, UX). How can you have UI without UX? Why does it therefore need to be a separate role? Shouldn't UI designers, by definition, include UX as part of their design? If your response to this question is that a UX designer would guide the UX of an entire platform, I could buy that. But that is not typically how a UX designer's role is described to me.

That’s why, as far as I’ve seen - it’s typically called UI/UX?

They certainly go hand in hand but IMHO good UX is much more important than the way the UI is displayed, which I think can honesty be more influenced by aesthetic and personal preference.

It's a good question - and the simple answer is -

Usability and interaction design is most certainly part of UX. However, the skills needed to be a competent visual designer match (in terms of difficulty, time to execute, etc) that of being a UX designer. Simply put, in order to go deep enough on either craft, you need to dedicate to one side or another.

There are many dual 'UX/UI' roles out there, but they tend to be weighted toward the UI side, maybe with some user testing tacked on the end or some journey work.

Sole UX roles are much deeper in their reach within an organisation and consist of much, much more than just wireframing and making visual deliverables.

Bad UX can certainly create an emotional response.

Almost every consumer product is sold and marketed on the basis of emotional connection.

More likely than not, you're just not aware of it, which is normal.

FYI the emotional connection is not just made 'via tooltips', it's usually a package affair.

The article is a good example: the product (gas) and price didn't change, one could argue cleanliness was changed but that's a little doubtful unless the old station was disgusting. What changed was probably brand, colours, lighting, atmosphere, modern appearance - all pretty superficial stuff that has nothing to do with the actual product - gasoline. And yet it makes a big difference to most people, probably including you and I. We probably don't notice we were more likely to pull into the big, lit, white, modern looking gas station with the brand we recognised - over the off-brand gas next door, which is identical.

I don't know why this is down voted. I think you are correct.

That is exactly why brands use bright colours. It appeals to the part of the brain that evolved to recognize ripe fruit, for example.

As uncomfortable as it is to admit that these things may influence our behaviour, it is the reality. No person is completely immune.

Free will is largely an illusion. We act on impulses, then the conscious mind comes up with a plausible explanation for that action.

I'm not sure free will is a total illusion but we definitely make decisions on cruise control all day long.

The gas station is actually evidence of this: literally the utility of the product does not change, but more revenue ...

I think maybe it's an offence to Engineers to posit that they are not 'in control'. It takes some right-brain thinking to get this it's all a little counterintuitive.

But it's definitely reality. For the quickest possible introduction to really odd marketing concepts that are true, I'd recommend the '22 Immutable Laws of Marketing'. For an Engineer, it's like getting hit in the head with a frisbee.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com