I recently completed some ethnographic research around a certain demographic group (intellectual property constraints prevents me from naming said group, however it rhymes with “Men, hi!”). One of the more interesting things I discovered was that for most of the individuals I surveyed, there was a significant amount of sensitivity to bad user experiences.
It did not matter whether these bad experiences took place on-line, on the phone with a customer service rep, or in a retail store; the bad interactions lingered, and the participants volunteered them to our researchers… usually unsolicited.
I have long argued that positive experiences are fleeting, and negative ones last for a long time (a reason so many people re-visit sites like Disneyland – they want to recapture those positive memories – or they mourn Michael Jackson, attempting to recapture that magic moment they heard Billy Jean the first time). So, when I encountered these repeated instances of users complaining about such negative experiences, I was not surprised.
I think, however, there is more going on than just that. I think that for many – in the demographic group we researched, and beyond – there is something going on. I am calling it “experience sensitivity” – something that has always been around, but is now more heightened… and more visible.
Years ago, if you had a bad experience with a company, what did you do about it? Complained to select friends and family members, and that’s about it. Now, people know what good experiences SHOULD be (I’m thinking of Disney, Apple, or Costco) and they are more aware when bad experiences happen (no examples – you probably already have some). More importantly, they now have a really BIG megaphone: The Internet. They can blog, tweet, or update their Facebook status, and leave a public – and potentially prominent – record of their displeasure.
So, what can you do about it, if you are a user experience designer? The answer, obviously, is do your job – if you do it well, you will research the users of your product and convince the powers-that-be that your approach is better than the “fleece the users for as much filthy lucre as we can” ideas that others in your company have. But, if you can’t do that, send up a warn call your stakeholders: The “experience sensitive” users are out there, and they have a voice.
And the world just may be listening.