This document discusses whether user experience can be designed. It presents arguments that experience cannot fully be controlled but can be influenced and shaped through iterative design and optimization based on metrics and goals. User experience design aims to plan factors that will guide most users' behavioral and emotional reactions in a particular way, rather than trying to control all outcomes. The results of design are a hypothesis, not something fixed, and should be measured and improved through testing.

1. CAN USER EXPERIENCE
BE DESIGNED?
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2. ANSWER ME!
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3. YES, BECAUSE
DESIGN IS A HYPOTHESIS
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4. Photo by milos milosevic UX DESIGN APP - WWW.UXPIN.COM

5. WE’LL GET BACK TO THAT
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6. 2010
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7. HORROR QUESTION
EVERYWHERE
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8. COUPLE OF ANSWERS...
• Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed
• Can Experience be Designed?
• “Can experience be designed?” Yes. No. Wait, yes. But
• Thoughts on “Can Experience be Designed?”
• Why the User Experience Can or Cannot be
Designed?
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9. DISAGREE
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10. They all tend to treat
results of User
Experience
Designers work as
something strangely
fixed.
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11. Antagonists of User Experience
Design argue that designers can’t
design experience, because they
cannot control all the factors that
influence experience.
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12. DESIGN DOESN’T EQUAL CONTROL
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13. „
If I design a chair and
one person uses it as
a table, does my
design fail? No! Maybe
this one particular
person doesn’t have
better table at home,
or just loves to use
chairs as tables.
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14. I CAN’T CONTROL IT
In the world of scientific research we call such people „deviants”. Deviants
don’t count when it comes to assessment of certain research hypothesis.
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15. On the other hand let
say I sold 100 chairs
that I designed and all
my customers use
them as tables.
Damn…there must be
something wrong with
my chair, right?
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16. MAYBE...
It just doesn’t action of sitting, but rather some table-like
experience.
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17. User Experience Design is all about planning
factors that should be able to shape behavioral and
emotional reaction of most users in a planned way.
User Experience Design is not about control.

18. Result of User
Experience Designer
work is a hypothesis
not a fixed being.
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19. UX should be measured
and optimized iteratively
till the version that is able
to shape most of user’s
experience in a particular
way.
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HeavyWeightGeek
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20. Desired behavioral and emotional reaction
should be characterized by measurable metrics.
Metrics form goals. Design that is unable to
achieve goals, equals design that doesn’t shape
an experience in a planned way, equals design
that requires optimization.

21. Do we plan to get
100% conversion rate?
No. Why? Because it
would be extremely
stupid. We can’t
control all the factors
and influence every
person.
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22. We, User Experience Designers, care for
overall users’ experience, because we
are metrics and goals driven. We care for
specific, planned by us, behavioral and
emotional reaction.

23. „ I don’t like the term “usability,” and I
don’t want to be called an “HCI expert.”
I believe that what’s really important to
the people who use our products is
much more than whether I can use
something, whether I can actually click
on the right icon, whether I can call up
the right command… What’s important is
the entire experience, from when I first
hear about the product to purchasing it,
to opening the box, to getting it
running, to getting service, to
maintaining it, to upgrading it.
Everything matters: industrial design,
graphics design, instructional design, all
the usability, the behavioral design… so,
I coined the term “user experience”
some time ago to try to capture all
these aspects.
/Don Norman
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24. THE UX DESIGN APP
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25. Marcin Treder is a design enthusiast that
literally lives for creating the best user
experience possible. After years working as
a UX Designer and UX Manager he focused
on his own start-up UXPin that provides
tools for UX Designers all over the world.
UXPin tools are used by designers in
companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft,
IBM, Salesforce. UXPin was recently voted
the best start-up in Central and Eastern
Europe. Marcin enjoys writing (e.g. for
UXMag, DesignModo, SpeckyBoy...),
blogging (Blog UXPin, UXAid, Startup Pirate)
and tweeting (@uxpin, @marcintreder).
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