Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
– E.L.Doctorow
The main goal of the user experience design is to improve the overall experience of the user. While doing it, we go through several processes such as user research, persona mapping, information architecture, wireframing, interaction design, prototyping, testing etc. Just take an example of user research where we gather all the required information for better understanding the user. While doing it, the most important aspect that comes into the frame is user requirements which is nothing but the human expectations in terms of human language. These expectations are so vital to create the user experience and make it much better and superior if we are able to gather it and able to keep in mind while creating an experience for any of the digital platform.
Let’s talk about an “expectation”
An expectation is a belief about what will happen in the future or next.
What is an Expectation?
Expectation frequently guide behavior and make it easier to predict what will happen next. People can develop expectation about a wide range of things.
We can have several kinds of expectations as like scoring 90% in an exam though we don’t study enough to score that, Buying a Harley Davidson thought we don’t have enough money, getting a job in google though we don’t have enough eligibility. We all have expectations within our reach and some of them are out of our reach. Whatever may be the state but we still have expectations. The idea is not all about showing the expectations but relating it with a website or an application. Expectations are determined by a combination of experience, cognitive processes, communication with others, and cultural norms.
Expectations provide people with important guidance about how to behave. We all human know how our brain works or how we behave. A human takes several decision in the process of completing our expectations. The decision can be fast which require less amount of time or it can be slow which will take more time. The user research comes here, where a user takes a time to make a decision or where a user is going to take a quick and fast decision, with that reference you have to plan your solution or the experience for the user. You always need to keep the user requirement in front of you and on the priority to justify your user experience.
Let’s go through the example that we may have in the past
1. Saving a Post on Facebook
Expectations provide people with important guidance about how to behave. We all human know how our brain works or how we behave. A human takes several decision in the process of completing our expectations. The decision can be fast which require less amount of time or it can be slow which will take more time. The user research comes here, where a user takes a time to make a decision or where a user is going to take a quick and fast decision, with that reference you have to plan your solution or the experience for the user. You always need to keep the user requirement in front of you and on the priority to justify your user experience.
Now we can finally revisit on a post that we have saved. But going much more to that we have saved a lot of posts now, and it is very difficult for us to find a post on the list. So we have to put a certain amount of time for searching a post that again from our expectation should not be. So now we want a solution how fast I can see my saved videos or posts. These kinds of expectations push the experience to another level and a product too.
Yes, we all human never stop expecting more. As we see something we start thinking better about it. Until there was no video we were happy, but once the facebook started sharing videos. We all started viewing it and even gone much beyond to save or to share it.
2. Using a web a few years ago
Twenty years ago a dial-up internet connection used to be magical. All the user had to do was boot up their computers by few keys on their desktop. Wait for their modem to screen & establish a connection, the user was online; now they can check their emails, or browse everything. The World Wide Web (www) was terrible slowly as compared to today’s standard. Today a normal internet user spends approximately 1GB per day. Which is a monthly pack for the user before a year or so?
But nowadays internet has become most important aspect in today’s day to day life. The email notification gets pushed to own devices, once we connected to it. Not only email but photos, video, files, contacts are now connected to the internet which is accessible anywhere anytime. Humans have changed the way of looking as well as experiencing the web.
3. Google’s homepage
It is the best example of the user expectation and continuously changing the user experience. Yahoo was the competitor against Google when the google came up with his own algorithms for searching the web pages.
Google is the most popular search engine but it was not when it launched in the 1990s.
The web page ranking algorithm was one reason but it was also different from the other competitors by its homepage design. It was pretty much simple and goal oriented as compared to other search engines like Yahoo. Which have a cluttered homepage? Google was solely focused on streamlining the art of searching. Google reduced the amount of time and efforts required to find what the user was looking for. The company continues to restlessly improve whatever might be in the user’s way. Google efforts are intended to make searching easier to keep users coming. They enhanced the user experience day by day as per user expectations.
4. Apple iPhone Camera
We come across many incidents in the life, and that passes away in a jiffy. We always have a wish to capture them all with an ease. Just go back and remember the experience you had with the camera you are accessing from your mobile phone. You have to unlock the mobile, then you have to open the camera, and now you can click the picture that you want. In this long process, you lose few moments. Apple realized it and made the process easier for the user to capture the moments. The camera was accessible from the lock screen itself, without requiring the password or unlocking the screen. Compared to steps required for other smartphones. A simple flick gesture gives the user a monopoly to save the memories as quickly as it can.
The human expectations are not going to end, they will keep the User Experience alive and improving. It is a lot more important to know the user requirement that the business requirement. There will be no business or an existence of an application until there is a gap for the user’s need.
If I had only one hour to solve a problem,
I would spend up to two-thirds of that hour in attempting to define what the problem is.
– Matthew Wakeman from the book UX Research
– Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products
The human expectations are not going to end, they will keep the User Experience alive and improving. It is a lot more important to know the user requirement that the business requirement. There will be no business or an existence of an application until there is a gap for the user’s need.
The user requirements also need to be well gathered for creating a better user experience for the users. As the Don Norman said that we humans are living in very complex life, where we every day face new challenges and struggle to make a decision. So if we fail for a better user experience, then it is just because we haven’t been able to capture the right expectations of the user which better known to be as user requirements. So to conclude we must know the importance of user and their requirement or their expectations in order for us to create a better User Experience Design.
