The best brands and products in the world have one thing in common. The user experience is killer. It just feels good.

They tend to embody simplicity and ease of use. The products and services just work - and the quality seems to be bar none. Even the customer service seems thoughtful and personal.

I'm going to use the word 'user,' because as a product designer, that's how I define it. But it's essentially a person who experiences a company's brand, service, product, and/or content.

These companies understand one thing. They understand that great experiences create and elicit positive feelings. The more positive feelings they can get around the experience, the more loyal users will become.

Apple, Amazon, Airbnb, and Disney are obsessive about this.

Most companies unfortunately are not in this camp. Their brand is messy, their products suck, and customer service seems out of touch.

These interactions lead to way more negative experiences, which has an opposite effect - disloyal users and flat business growth.

In theory, it's a simple concept. In practice, it's hard to pull off. Companies have to deeply understand their users on an emotional level and make decisions that put them at the center of everything.

What is experience

The experience in this context is about looking at the subjective experience of your users (customers) at the emotional level.

Experience is about feeling. Not thinking. It's a present state moment when you are aware of how you feel when doing something. How do you feel when doing x or being presented with y? Those feelings happen on the subconscious level which gives us a dose of endogenous chemicals, such as; dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. Then our brains form a response to act on that feeling.

Designing an experience for users should start with the understanding that emotion is at the core.

We have to seek out and understand our users' emotions, contextually. This relates to how you position the brand and design the product's experience.

How does this interaction make them feel? What are the positive emotions? And where are the negative ones?

Finding the negative

One of the best ways to improve the user experience is by seeking out the negatives in both the digital and physical context. Often times some of the biggest negatives fall between the intersection of the digital and physical world. They are both part of the same "experience".

A few years ago, I worked on an app for nurses to use at a patient's bedside at a hospital. We were able to observe the negative emotions of the user through various points of the experience. The solutions become obvious once you uncover these points.

Here are some questions to ask as you observe users going through various parts of an experience:

-Are they getting confused by the messaging?
-Do they understand what to do next?
-Do they know how to do it?
-Are they losing patience or getting frustrated?
-Do they feel insecure?
-Are they feeling understood?

These questions are the ones to observe because they lead to broader experiences and bigger themes.

All of these emotions are important in the proper context. Context is key to understanding how to improve it.

Plotting it to the context

Once you understand where the negative emotions are, the next step is plotting it to a contextual scenario.

Let's use an example of a travel booking experience.

Let's say a user was trying to buy a product on a website. They find the product to buy, add it to the shopping cart, click checkout, and then bam - a signup form comes up and says they have to create an account or signup before checking out. Some users might feel frustrated by this forced step.

This negative emotion in the proper context allows you to explore the best solution to match. Maybe it's about moving the 'create account' after the purchase?

So it seems like a simple design change, right?

Well, then the marketing department is up in arms because that's how they collect email addresses.

Internal resistance is why companies don't have great experiences.

Various departments can have control over certain parts of the experience so this can make simple decisions, hard. More on that topic to come at a later time (so please consider subscribing).

Outcome

In a world increasingly driven by digital and physical interactions, the key to standing out is a killer user experience.

"You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology - not the other way around." - Steve Jobs

Companies that prioritize this will risk falling into mediocrity and stagnation. So putting the user experience before everything else might be the key to brand and business growth.