In brief
- As a business tool, “experience design” is a nuanced and complex discipline. Without exposure and appropriate training, there’s a good chance your definition of UX will be different from other people’s
- Motivational UX (MUX™) is an engaging series of process-driven workshops that build relationships and align early with teams in the product development process while encouraging an open-minded approach
- Post-pandemic, companies have trimmed budgets, cutting a core area of digital progress by putting development ahead of UX to get products to market quicker, which is like building a car with no safety inspection
Everything we interact with is an experience. How that experience impacts us defines our relationship with it.
This is something we do every day; analyze, compare, and assess our experiences with the world while assigning value based on how it affects us. Preferences, perspectives, and personality will skew each experience while we use that data to inform us on how that relationship matches up with others. When we talk about UX (user experience), this is essentially its core. But understanding how to use “experience design” as a business tool, is a much more nuanced and complicated area to navigate. Without exposure and training, there is a high probability that your definition of UX may be different than others. This includes people both inside and outside of the design and creative industries.
UX is not easy to explain to those less familiar with it, but its benefits continue to outweigh the risks of ignoring it. This is why we developed Motivational UX (MUX™). MUX™ is a set of straightforward principles that aid in educating and navigating the complex world of user experience as designers and strategists see it; a blend of traditional methods, psychology-based assessments and gaming theories. With nine core principles, each with 5 sub-principles, Smashing Ideas uses MUX™ to easily explain simplified concepts to complex practices so wider audiences can better understand our recommendations and improvements.
(Inspect the infographic below for more details on how we connect all 45 of these principles together.)
As you can see, each principle embodies a specific area of UX that is meant to motivate people to engage at various levels across any digital experience. Let's dive into a couple of them for additional clarity:
- Aesthetics/Brand presence: How do people perceive your brand when they experience it? Are they attracted to what they see? Are you targeting the right people? Who did you build your brand for?
- Belonging/Social proofing: Are you leveraging your social media in a way that proves the validity of your brand messaging? Testimonials? Case studies? Engagement rate?
- Decision-making/Limited options: When we present choices to our audiences, are we leading them in a specific direction? How much handholding should we include? Are there guardrails around sensitive or more complex decisions? How can we help everyone complete their task(s) without distraction or overcomplication?
These MUX™ principles are meant to help the inexperienced learn while reminding the experienced on why and how we can align on the right problems to solve before anything can be designed correctly.
We live in a rapidly changing digital world. Uncertainty and risk tend to dominate a large part of our decision-making, even more so post-pandemic. Because the digital ecosystem exploded so quickly, we are now suffering from an overabundance of data paired with aging technology that desperately needs modernization to ingest it. As such, we’ve seen an industry-shift that pushes development ahead of UX practices to get products to market quicker. This means we are trimming budgets by removing a core area of digital development. New technology and tools are helping us build faster than ever but employing a pre-built UI (user interface) kit to your front-end does not mean you can avoid staffing designers or strategists on a project. Would you permit a construction team to build a house without an architect? Or build a car without a safety inspection? Not only would your customers give and amplify negative feedback to the world, but it could also completely ruin your brand’s integrity. MUX™ can inform your team on why UX principles should be applied as well as align on which areas are most important or most in need of attention.
MUX™ was originally created as a core set of principles meant to act as a guiding light to follow while leveraging curiosity and craft to build better experiences. Today, MUX™ is an engaging and entertaining set of flexible process-driven workshops and exercises to build relationships, align early with teams in the process, and empower everyone to bring more open-mindedness to the process. Our flexible events can be customized for hour-long previews, divided into several individual sessions, or a 1-week (or more) long intensive immersion event that is tied into a discovery timeframe. These sessions are an invaluable output as we get the opportunity to not only share our process with you but also, come away with a narrowed look at which principles explain the gaps in the experience you want to make. When paired with strategy, this becomes a powerful statement and guiding light on how to align your business needs and timing with a clear definition of priority and severity.
At Smashing Ideas, we specialize in understanding every type of digital experience, from legacy models to innovative concepts, to help you construct more modern approaches to both UX and UI. Our teams give options that are custom to your needs and budget without presenting ultimatums or hardline choices. We even offer additional services fueled by MUX™, like creative workshops and ideation sessions, that align with groups that want to better understand our practices while building stronger relationships together. Get in contact with our team today and find out what MUX™ can do for you.
Jonathan Kneeland
With over 20 years of creative experience, Jon has worked on a plethora of brands and experiences across almost every business type and vertical in-market; automotive, ecommerce, finance, entertainment, supply chain, lifestyle, fashion, and many more. He brings this widespread expertise to the Design Leadership team while fostering individual growth and custom educational paths to every person on the team. As someone who is addicted to learning new things, Jon tends to bring a unique perspective that’s fueled by the digital industry’s ever-evolving progress and innovation. There’s always a new tool or way of working that can make things easier, which explains his love of tech gadgets, unique collectables, and various musical instruments.
