Comments on: BarcampDC Follow-up Topic: Emotional Design and the User Experience

By: samantha

samantha — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:39:19 +0000

Robbie,

I test drove a Civic, the first car i saw on the lot and not even the color i wanted. I just had to get it over with.

By: Robbie Thompson

Robbie Thompson — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:29:09 +0000

Hellooo??? What Honda did you get? Inquiring minds need to know.

By: Robbie Thompson

Robbie Thompson — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 12:41:53 +0000

Samantha, your Beetle transcended???!!! I didn’t know. Did you get a Honda Fit?

By: Jared Goralnick

Jared Goralnick — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:58:34 +0000

You bring up a very good point. It’s that emotional tie that keeps us so much more committed to things than anything else–you call that user experience, to me it seems so much like a fact of life. The same thing can be said for me with certain projects at work, consumer electronics, and even some people or pets. Some times we fall for things and we’re just immediately gung-ho and committed, whereas other things, practical and appropriate as they are, just don’t keep our attention. You’ve given me a great rationalization for why I like my car. I had a Honda not too long before…

This also makes me think of a great discussion they referenced on this over at 37s:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/521-mailbag-jeep-dyson-the-acropolis-etc

So sad you couldn’t join us yesterday at the UX after party, cause then you could’ve brought this idea up with Dan himself over a Corona…

By: Martin Ringlein

Martin Ringlein — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:37:58 +0000

I believe there is a distinction between the “brand experience” and the “user experience” — I do think that they can influence one another though. An amazing brand experience may influence your user experience — being in love with a particular brand may cause you to look past some of the user experience pit falls. On that same note, a poor brand experience may be heightened by an unexpected yet overwhelmingly pleasant user experience.

One of the best books (industry related) I’ve ever read was “The End of Advertising as We Know It“, by Sergio Zyman. His overall point is simple, the millions of dollars spent on advertising to increase your brand experience can all be for nothing with just one bad user experience. He focuses primarily on advertising vs. customer service. His great example is that you are exposed to hundreds of airline commercial advertisements in a given year — but you may not be able to recall any of those commercials or brand messages. Yet, if exposed to one very rude flight attendant on just one flight — you are likely to remember that experience for a very long time and even go out of your way to share it with others; now diminishing the brand far beyond any of those commercials.