7 User Experience Lessons from the iPhone

Below is a really good presentation by Stephen P Anderson about what UX teams do. I think this is a great summary of the misconceptions that sometimes exist about the industry, and our true purpose

It also talks about the iPhone and the fact that it doesn't have an enormous amount of new features, instead it's the great user experience that makes it such a cool device. The 7 lessons Stephen points out (with my interpretation in brackets) are:

1. Place better experiences ahead of more features (fix the things that are broken)
2. Start with actual experiences (always do your research on how users act and interact)
3. Solve the real problems (don't create "fixes" for problems -- spend some time to eliminate the root cause of the problem)
4. Play to think (false starts are ok as long as it leads you to a better idea)
5. Treat interfaces like conversations (don't show users everything at once -- show them only what they need to complete their task)
6. Lead with a vision (don't be discouraged by existing process such as engineering limitations -- if people catch the vision they will make it happen)
7. Obsess on the details (sweating over seemingly insignificant interface and cosmetic elements can make all the difference in the world)

Stephen's one-sentence explanation of what UX teams do? We make things work for people. I like that a lot...

BTW, the quotes from the slideshow are all from a Time magazine article about the iPhone.