Holiday Lights and the User Experience

I fiddle with designing experiences and often talk about the user experience during projects. When I get questions about what “user experience” is, I like analogies to help me answer.

So what can the holiday season teach us about the user experience? Does Santa Claus have some insight? Is there some wisdom a midst the candles of a Menorah? Is there something about the hectic shopping, cooking and planning, or something to be found in the peace of a still night?

Who know? But let’s look at Christmas lights.

Holiday lights can be simple like a star atop a tree, a single candle in a window. They can also be multi-colored, blinking, neighborhood-covering eye sores. Some festive people can string up lights on a tree or house and dazzle the passers-by. And other folks, well, let’s just say some holiday lights seem like fast food meat: barely appropriate for human consumption.

But maybe the lights aren’t meant to be viewed from people on the street? Perhaps they look askew from the sidewalk because the correct view is from up in the sky in a sleigh? Or could it be that a mirror should be used to properly view these particular lights?

I’m not one to judge.

Something, though, goes on in the mind of the person decorating. They plan to lay-out the lights and imagine the perspective of the viewer. And because it’s the holiday season, they imagine the viewer full of joy and awe. That’s the experience they want for their user.

And that just happens to be what we want for our readers this season, too.

Happy Holidays from eLearning Weekly Magazine.

[box_dark]Photo Credits:  Jo Naylor  andrewmalone and jdnx[/box_dark]

Author: Eric Matas

Eric is the Managing Editor of eLW Mag. He works as an elearning specialist focused on iPad apps and media strategy. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and their five children.