Abstract:
Most companies strive for superior user experience (UX) by improving the user interface of their products and services. In practice, this often means designing a more usable and beautiful user interface than what the competitors currently provide. However, a more successful strategy might be to provide experiences that are different from others; i.e. branded experiences. In this talk, I highlight the impact of a company brand to user experience, which has been previously largely disregarded by the HCI community. Taking brand identity as the starting point for user experience design has a dramatic impact on the foundational design approach in HCI, user-centred design. I introduce experience goals that are specific for a brand rather than for a product or a user group. Inspired by service design, I call for collaboration between UX and marketing experts to deliver humane, branded experiences in all touch points. I hope this talk induces researchers to study the relation between brand and user experience, and students to design for distinctive experiences.
Short Bio:
Virpi Roto’s mission is to find means to make designing for experiences more successful. Since she joined Nokia Research Center 1995, she has been a messenger between the industry and academia. The most cited works of hers relate to user experience. After she joined Aalto University 2011, her research has focused on designing for meaningful experiences in various domains, including B2B metal industry, packaging industry, as well as pharmacy and real estate services. Virpi holds MSc in computer science and PhD in usability research.
