The 'Novelty' of User Experience

User Experience November 23, 2007

In the movie industry, people don't want to see something new. No, they want to see the same stories over and over again told in different ways. We all know that the main character will live and the hero will get the girl. What we want to see is HOW.

The same is true of interface design. Present a user with a completely new interface and they're hesitant, confused, uncertain. There's so safety net to fall back into. We know what we want to accomplish, but we don't know how. Yes, we've done it before in other applications, but we have our problems with those interfaces and we want a new way to accomplish our tasks at hand.

This is not to say don't be completely innovative when it comes to designing an interface. Just ensure that there are features within your design that mimic those already familiar to the users. For example, look around for similar navigation structures and information architecture.

On a website, the user is going to look at three things to determine what to do next:
(1) The logo/tagline -- are we even on the right site?
(2) The navigation -- what are my first steps?
(3) The content -- is this what I'm looking for yet?

In a desktop application, the user is going to start by looking at the menu bar for familiar buttons such as "File" and "Edit" which all applications universally share. Windows' new version of Office (2007) with its Fluent™ interface has redone the menu bar to be more intuitive - we have yet to see how well it's received among the masses.

In general however, the "novelty" of user experience comes in how you tell the story - not the story itself. We know how the story ends. Tell us how it happens.

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