What is the Secret of the UX?
Yesterday’s conversation with Lorenzo was too good not to reshape the key points in this note. I was expecting a deep dive into customer behaviors, click-through rates, and acquisition funnels. Instead, we wondered on a long (1.5h) philosophical tangent about Lorenzo’s grandparents, flowers, bees, and Polycentric Networks. Never in my career would I have dreamt of talking about UX in such terms. And Yet it makes sense.
A Long Philosophical Journey
Why so often is UX neglected?
We began our journey discussing the lack of culture in UX concepts, and my take on it was that too often is a lack of culture.
I gave my interpretation of why so many organizations even structured ones don’t focus so much on the entire Customer Experience. One problem with this pretense of certainty is that cost savings are more easily quantified than potential gains. Yet much evidence suggests that people like fewer, better things at a slightly higher price. Then more things at a cheaper price.
Lorenzo wasn’t convinced by this statement. I tried to convince him that many organizations don't think about the long-term value of a customer.
Looking for the “Simplest Answer”
Lorenzo investigated how our planet is populated of
- 97% plants,
- 2% insects
- 1% others pieces, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc., (humans are only 0.001%)
His point was that we focus too much on a factor that in reality weights do little.
He pondered how plants were able to survive and prosper for billion of years on this planet. Plants, like any complex system, are governed by Polycentric Networks.
Redefining a complex System
Complex systems share the same behaviors that their single components cannot explain.
Citing Kurt Koffka: The whole is other than the sum of the parts.
In complex systems, relationships are fundamental. It is the connections and relationships between all these parts that define how complex systems work.
Plants have a symbiotic relationship with its pollinator. They precisely design their flower to be recognizable.
Because of their simplistic precision, Bees, for instance, are perfectly adapted to pollinate, helping plants grow, breed, and produce food, keeping the cycle of life turning.
What can we learn form this experience
We concluded that there is no secret to the UX. But there is so much that we can learn from nature that with effortless elegance and surgical precision. Creates the best user experiences we could ever imagine.
So as Designers what can we learn? First and foremost just observe and learn from the greatest teacher of all. Nature.
We realize that businesses must understand the symbiotic relationship between the company (plant) and the Customer (pollinator).
Companies need to be brave to wisely choose their Customers and have the courage to become precisely recognizable.
We are not the only one that reached this conclusion. As I wrote in my book Leonardo Da Vinci the greatest Business-Designer of all times wrote:
Nature must be your guide …. Nature begins with a cause and ends with an experience. So begin with the experience and investigate the cause.
How can we apply all this in our day to day?
If we want to be competitive in our current world.