UIEtips: Experience Rot

In this week’s UIEtips, I explain the dangerous effects of experience rot on user experience.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Here’s a counter-intuitive fact: Chances are all those features you’ve been adding to your design are hurting your user experience. Every feature that’s squeezed in, in the name of giving your design a competitive edge, has been making your design less competitive.

Welcome to the effects of Experience Rot. As you add features, you’re adding complexity to the design, and decreasing the quality of the experience.

Pick up any modern TV remote and you’ll immediately see the problem of experience rot. On/Off, volume and channel selectors are no longer enough. We need to switch devices, control captions, have a text capability for on-screen editing, a thumbs-up and thumbs-down for ratings, pause, record, slow motion, rewind, 30-second rewind, and, well, you see the effects. The complexity never ends, it never gets simpler, and it’s never delightful.

Read the article: Experience Rot

What have you done to prevent experience rot? Tell us about it below.