The Comfort of Continuity

The definition of what constitutes the discipline of User Experience has been extensively debated, especially in the last decade. Companies and organizations seem to become more aware of the term, although at times lacking general understanding of how exactly User Experience can benefit their business models and their bottom line.

UX comprises many different disciplines, from visual communication, to research to behavioral science and others. A UX professional is likely someone who has extensive formal training in one field but also has additional tangential experience in one or more UX-related disciplines, which compliment his/her formal training. This experience often comes from collaboration with other UX professionals on the team. Generally UX is a team sport, and is seldom practiced as an individual event.

While proper applications of UX practices deliver great benefits to clients, the question is often about the overarching benefit that UX provides. In my experience, a good UX ultimately delivers to the human user what I define as the Comfort of Continuity.

We will elaborate on the term Comfort of Continuity shortly. At the moment it is worth exploring the notion of the human user, as opposed to the generally accepted industry standard term the end user.

The term end user, first recorded circa 1960–1965, has had a firm footing in the technology and digital landscape, with the height of its popularity during the Dotcom era. Dictionary.com defines the term end user as “the ultimate user for whom a machine, as a computer, or product, as a computer program is designed.”

However the UX discipline of today informs us that the end user has transformed into much more than simply someone for whom a digital product is designed. Today, the end users expect smooth, uninterrupted and pleasurable experience when using digital products. One of the influential philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger spoke of the “overall being in the experience of the program, the product or the machine.” Today’s UX discipline redefines the concept of the end user as the human user.

Let’s now define the concept of Comfort of Continuity, which is the main topic of this discussion. To do so we will need to look at the very process of how human users interact with digital products, be it a smartphone app, an online form or a financial trading platform.

Human users interact with digital products via a sequential linear process, which varies in its complexity depending on the nature of the product or an application. In essence the user’s journey within a product or an application involves completing a finite number of steps and actions to get from the start point to the end point. Some examples of such interactions include filling out online forms, executing a stock trade or completing an online purchase.

The comfort of continuity in completing these tasks is critically important to human users. They rightfully expect a logical, sequential and uninterrupted experience while completing their tasks. With each repeated usage, they expect a familiar and intuitive pattern. Anything less will frustrate and disrupt their comfort of continuity. The human users always seek a simple, intuitive and pleasurable user experience.

It is worth briefly exploring the concept of Comfort of Continuity in broader terms. This exploration will take us well outside of the realm of a digital user experience.

Comfort of Continuity, in its various forms, is important to all people. As humans, we initially experience the Comfort of Continuity in utero. While developing in the mother’s womb, the yet unborn baby begins to recognize the patterns of continuity in the very early stages of development. These patterns include the mother’s walking pace, her voice, her sleeping positions and many more. Together they create a daily routine of sensory experiences for the baby, who is able to recognize and, most importantly, innately feel these sequential patterns. This is the baby’s very first experience of the Comfort of Continuity. Should the mother dramatically change her daily routine by suddenly increasing or decreasing her physical activity, or by introducing a new element within her routine, the baby will become acutely aware of such change.

Maintaining the Comfort of Continuity is equally important once the baby is born. Anyone who has had the opportunity to interact with an infant on a daily basis knows the consequence of sudden adjustments to the baby’s daily routine, from changes in her feeding schedule or bath times to even introducing a new lullaby when singing her off to sleep. The baby’s reaction will be immediate — she will be one cranky baby.

We all can think of our own personal examples where the Comfort of Continuity is important to us. It includes the patterns of our daily activities; commute routes, grocery shopping and even interpersonal interactions. Our need and desire to achieve and maintain our personal Comfort of Continuity is constant. Being able to maintain it uninterrupted makes our daily sequential routines enjoyable.

In the digital realm breaking, interrupting or diminishing the Comfort of Continuity can have dramatic consequences and seriously undermine the overall pleasure of human user’s experience. Depending on the severity of such digital offense the user may instead choose a different digital product or platform.

One can only wonder why such instances are still prevalent in our interactions with digital products today. In my opinion there are a few reasons. For the purposes of this discussion however, I would like to concentrate on the four, which I feel are of most importance.

UX Discipline Age

UX, as a stand-alone discipline, is still fairly young. Don Norman first coined the term User Experience in 1993, although the general applications of what we understand today as UX date back to the early 1950’s. The UX best practices are still being defined and re-defined, the process made especially challenging due to the rapidly evolving digital product landscape.

Lack of Holistic Approach

User experience practitioners must always adhere to and maintain the overarching holistic approach in addressing UX challenges. Martin Heidegger effectively defined this when he spoke about the “overall being in the experience of the program, the product or the machine.” This principle has to shape the daily practice of UX professionals, regardless of their areas of specialization, or the techniques used.

UX Role in Product Development

A user experience team, no matter how small, must absolutely be involved (and have a strong say) in every part of the product development process. Their close interaction with the Product, Marketing and Development groups, among others, is of utmost importance.

Empathy

A good UX practitioner is one who practices empathy at all times. A state of mind, rather than a technique, empathy provides UX practitioners with tools necessary to design an effective experience for all users of a product or service. Everyone on the UX team has to be intimately aware of this important principle in his or her daily work. With time and dedication, such a team can become a finely tuned UX orchestra, capable of delivering a beautiful UX symphony, thus creating and ensuring the human users’ Comfort of Continuity.

About the author:

Alex Yampolsky

Practicing intuitive design. Seeking simplicity in everything human.