19 Sep Love the things you buy. Musings on ‘joy’ and UX.
Our Managing Director Jon recently celebrated a big birthday. One with a zero involved, that’s all I’m saying. His birthday present to himself was a ‘top of the range’ road bike. He sure does love that bike. I’ll ask him to post his thoughts on how much he loves his new bike very soon. In-between his euphoria he has fleeting moments of tormenting guilt about how much it cost.
This got me thinking about how pre-purchase thinking and consuming conscientiously is in part about making sure you’re really going to love something for the long term. If you love it, you value it, and if you value it, you’ll care for it.
Nowadays I seem to agonize longer over purchases then I ever did before. Shopping is something I avoid unless absolutely necessary. Some of the questions I try to untangle go like this:
Did the person (or company) have ‘fire in their bellies’ about making it the best it could be? Were they passionate about it? Has obsolescence been sneakily built into the design? Is it inherently disposable? Do I love it? And will I love it ‘long time’. Why do I love it? Fashion? Kudos? Have I given this purchase proper thought? Will I use it regularly? Is it practical? Ahhhh! Buying things is tough.
Here are a few things I thought hard about and decided yes I would love them and yes they would bring me a bit of joy every single time I used them.
My ‘box of Poppets’ size camera. It’s dead handy and bloody lovely to look at and hold.
My Roberts Radio. It’s on almost 365 days a year in my house. I love the buttons and the lovely rounded, deep sound.
My new shower cap. An obvious solution to keeping the ‘hairdo’ in check and adding a bonus ten minutes to my day. Got to love that.
And so to the real ‘digital’ point I’m trying to make. Web content, websites and blogs need constant nurturing; they are living things that are never finished. Owners have to continuously invest time into maintaining and developing the content and functionality. Being the demanding little buggers they are its vital that people love their websites and that using them brings them joy.
Making sure users enjoy their websites is a core design and UX (user experience) challenge. Not only should it look lovely up front it should be quick, easy and enjoyable update and maintain from the back end.
If using your website brings you (or the team) no joy it’s destined for neglect and will inevitably end up in the big digital landfill in the sky. Our Word Press blog is testament to a great back office user experience and a great design by Pete and his team on the front end.
We love it, it’s a joy use.