Summary

User experience is in my definition the changing feelings that a user gets when using a device, service, or system. User experience can come from a first impression. It can also come from positive and negative surprises experienced in the long term.

The ideal user experience is when the user—most of the time—feels happy, satisfied, proud, or even in love.

The ideal user experience can be achieved by knowing your target users and their needs, by focusing your design around core tasks, and by adding small positive surprises—in particular in the core interaction of your device.

User experience covers many disciplines and functions in a company. It is about unpredictable users' unpredictable feelings, and it covers basically any business. It's no wonder that many—especially smaller—companies give up even before considering improving the user experience.

The remainder of this book will hopefully bring user experience innovation from a complex academic level to a tangible level. Creating great user experiences does not require a master's degree, but it does require some practical tools and methods.