Locaweb Blog

In our international blog, we want to bring to our readers the best articles published in our many technical blogs, and also new and interesting articles to help them learn and be more successful with their websites and applications. Subjects such as software development, web business and many others will be discussed here. And what better way to begin, than bring the original introductory article from our User Experience blog?

Since 2007, Locaweb has kept an active User Experience blog in Brazil. Below is the gist of the original first article in our User Experience blog, by Joaquim Torres. Joaquim is Locaweb’s Products director and has years of experience in the Internet services industry. He also keeps a blog, “Joca on Stuff”, with many original articles and his weekly Twitter updates on all sorts of web-business-related content (in English and Portuguese).

The Wikipedia definition of User Experience is:

User eXperience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a system.

Locaweb has been investing progressively more in the last few years in improvements to our products in order to ensure that our customers are always satisfied using them. We know that people who use online systems don’t want to have to call the provider up for help or to complain about them. They want a simple, enjoyable experience. In other words, a “cute” interface or website isn’t enough. Aside from being visually appealing to the user, it has to be fun to use. If a website or system can reach these three goals (being visually appealing, simple to use, and fun), its users will not only have a good experience, but will also become its greatest promoters, increasing sales!

Since we know that our customers and developers all over the world are also interested in this subject, we will be bringing select articles from the original blog, and also brand new ones, to this international blog.

Let’s begin by talking about the number of features in an application, and its impact on user experience.

Kathy Sierra, an accomplished programming and user experience instructor, presentes the “Featuritis Curve” depicted below in her blog:

In this image it’s clear to see something that we already know intuitively. The more features we add to a system or application, the more we risk overcomplicating the system to the point that the user becomes so frustrated and unsatisfied that he gives up and goes looking for other ways to solve his problem.

A. G. Lafley, Procter & Gamble’s CEO, said in the January 28th edition of Business Week that:

People remember experiences. They don’t remember attributes or benefits or features.

Therefore, here we will talk a lot about User Experience, and we hope that your experience reading this blog is the best possible!