[Air-l] key terms/concepts for understanding the web

[Louise Ferguson]

At 09:42 30/01/2003 -0600, Nancy wrote:
>Leaping groundlessly into Louise and Ulla's discussion of "user experience"
>
>>At 09:47 30/01/2003 -0500, Ulla wrote:
>>>Okay, I see how the term "user experience" can be interpreted in two
>>>ways.
>
>Louise responded:
>
>>But I think there's really only one accepted use of the term in the 
>>profession itself....
>>My own field is 'user experience', which these days incorporates ideas 
>>such as information design, interface design, information architecture, 
>>navigation design, visual design, interaction design, content 
>>specification, user needs, requirements definition, etc etc.
>
>It seems to me that part of what we are seeing here is that Internet 
>Research spans many professions, so a term that has a clearly accepted 
>standard meaning in one profession is used in a variety of ways in others.

The problem is here that we are not talking 'Internet'. UX (user 
experience) spans everything from games machines to mobile phones to oven 
hobs to DVD players to wearable computers to information devices....as did 
usability before it and human factors before that.

>As an ethnographer/social constructionist in Communication, I associate 
>the term "user experience" with any number of possibilities most of which 
>are far more social and less technical than what Louise includes (which is 
>not to say I wouldn't include what Louise does, but I would also want to 
>look at the social history of a persons exposure to and use of the 
>Internet -- i.e. relevant experiences people have had that shapes their 
>use). This is not just my idiosyncratic ignorance, but accepted use of the 
>term in my profession.

I would also include co-operative working (CSCW) issues, peer-to-peer, 
networking, organisational issues, group processes, information ecology etc 
issues. That's the problem when IAs (information architects) write - some 
of - the books ;-) (they think of IA in terms of 'the machine'). but as a 
UX professional, I'd still define UX as the 'what' that is experienced, 
whereas the user comes to the scenario with a set of 'experiences' (that 
may inform system 'intuitable-ness' or 'learnability') that is a parallel 
but different data set.


>This speaks to the need for us to be clear about our own definitions and 
>to recognize that terms with seemingly standard meanings may mean 
>different things elsewhere. When Louise says "user experience," I now 
>realize she is referring to a very explicit set of ideas,

Well when I type 'user experience' into Goolge, I get:
1 Microsoft user experience
2 Nielsen Norman Group
3 Mac OS user experience
4 Amazon - The Elements of User Experience (the book I referred to)
5 jjg.net - Jesse James Garrett's website (see 4)
6 O'Reilly - Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience (book)
7 New Architect: Measuring User Experience
8 Good Experience (a user experience consultancy in the US) - also refers 
to Customer Experience
9 The network is the user experience
10 Adaptive Path - User Expereince Consulting (US site)
etc
etc

all of which refer to the idea of 'what the user experiences' not 'what 
experience the user has'.

Notice that 'user experience' and customer experience' are used in a fairly 
interchangeable way in the sites mentioned.
Would 'customer experience' ever be interpreted as 'the past experience of 
the customer' rather than 'what the customer experiences'? (Discuss!)
(she asks, as a former applied linguistics lecturer ;-))

Are we down to a problem of semantics here?

Louise