A force that works in the interest of humans not computers
After talking with Mike Johnson, the Nerdery’s UX Manager, I realized I really need to start video-taping these interviews. The passion that Mike has for user experience (UX) is tough to put into words. If his enthusiasm for what he does were a rare case this wouldn’t be a problem, but all the nerds here are passionate about what they do.
Since there is no video, I am going to try to do Mike and our talk justice. It won’t be easy.
Before we talk about Mike’s role at the Nerdery, let’s spend some time talking about UX and what it all means. It can be some pretty heady stuff, which is what makes it so fun.
Here’s the thing about UX, it’s hard to define. It’s all around you in every store you go to, every product you buy, every website you visit, and all the software you use. When the UX is good, Mike said, you don’t notice it because it just works.
But when it’s bad, when things don’t work the way you think they should or something doesn’t make sense, that’s when you notice it.
“Here’s an example,” Mike said. “I was pissed at my alarm clock the other night because the backlight is too bright. I looked at it and thought, did the designer even think about this being next to a person that’s trying to sleep? I find inspiration in these kinds of things.”
That’s user experience, though you’d probably never call it that. To you, it’s just the way things work (or don’t work in this case).
“The world is getting much more complicated,” Mike said. “People didn’t really think much about this whole user experience thing 10 years ago. There needs to be this force that works in the interest of humans and not computers. People often forget that there’s a whole human element to everything we do with computers. The computer is here to serve humans. We can mold them, and why not make it a pleasure to use?”
Mike, who has been at the Nerdery for two years (eight months as a programmer and a little over year as a Software Development Manager), said that sometimes developers forget how advanced they are when it comes to computer use. “We’re really good at it. We just love this stuff, so we’re into it. But most people just want to get stuff done and they don’t want their computers to get in the way of that.”
This is one of the reasons Mike is so excited about his new role as UX Manager, he gets to act as an advocate on behalf of users.
“For me the most important thing is simplicity,” Mike said. “Programmers have a natural instinct to make things powerful to add a lot of cool features. Sometimes there’s this innate hostility for users who just don’t understand the power of the features. I like being able to counteract that, to put the user back into the process.”
Okay, now that you’re all up to speed on what exactly user experience is tomorrow I’ll tell you about how all this fits into what we do at the Nerdery (I told you getting this all down wasn’t going to be easy).
