“Why, daddy,” says the curious toddler. “Why?” No parent has yet found a way to escape this exasperating line of questioning. We should be grateful. For as frustrating as the interrogation becomes, its purity of purpose cannot be denied. Focus on the why, the root explanation of the thing you are examining. This honest, unrelenting desire to understand requires us to rethink, reconsider, and clarify motives. In a similar way, UX designers and product managers can employ this technique to resist the impacts of “experience rot,” Jared Spool explains on today’s episode of the Product Momentum Podcast.
Today on the Product Momentum Podcast, hosts Sean and Joe speak with UX design authority Jared Spool of Center Centre about the experience rot paradox. Experience rot is a phenomenon that arises when product owners perceive new features in a way that reinforces the “if one is good, more is better” philosophy.
Jared shares several strategies to resist experience rot when building products:
- Focus on user problems without immediately jumping to the solutions
- Use data to inform features and problems, and collect this data before you need it
- Refine and redefine company culture to make the best product possible