Long-Term User Experience

Many devices, web pages, software packages, and so on focus solely on the first impression. This may in some cases make your consumers choose your product, but the same consumers will only return to your product next time if they also feel good during daily use of your product.

Again, long-term user experience resembles a personal relationship. Yes, the first impression may make you get interested in or engaged with a person, but you will not maintain a relationship with the person unless they give you something back in the longer term.

Long-term user experience is hence just as important as the first impression—at least if you want your customers to come back to you next time. Ideally, you want a user experience curve similar to that in Figure 1-7, showing more or less constant growth in satisfaction over time. There will always be a few dips in the road, but the overall trend should be upward.

Figure 1-7. Ideal user experience curve for long-term usage

A good long-term user experience is characterized by a daily joy when using a product. It is characterized by evolving together with the user, and by a growing “love” of your product from your users.

The result of a good long-term user experience is that the end user will want to return to your product again and again. Usually a good long-term user experience is achieved by tiny things that keep surprising the user—or just making the user feel that he is in control of the product. Continuous successful improvements and upgrades of your product are also important for the long-term user experience.