User experience vs. Consumer Experience

User experience is limited to the actual usage of your product. Consumer experience, on the other hand, also covers the experiences that the user gets when looking up your product on the Internet, when seeing TV commercials, when entering a shop, when giving the product back for repair, when replacing the product with another, and so forth.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we judge people very much on the first impression we get of them. Glance at the person in the picture.Do you have an impression? Very likely you do have an impression, and it’s from just one quick glance at a single image.

There is also first impression for the user experience of a product. If your product needs eight hours charging before you can turn it on, if the user is faced with tens of difficult questions before you can start using your web page, or if the user’s impression of the sales shop she enters is far from optimal, then you have given the user a very bad first impression of your product.

In the best case, the result is that the customers will lower their expectations respectively. This is, however, not good for any business, since it will also lower the price expectations of your product.

In the worst case, you will lose existing customers, or you will leave the customers with a first impression that can take at least ten great user experiences to change into a positive overall experience. 

Many web page developers in the world didn’t really understand that a Flash introduction means losing a large amount of customers (even if it looks cool), simply because it may take tens of seconds or even minutes to load. Many owners of social websites mistakenly believe that users want to tell everything about themselves, and spend several minutes doing this even before they know what to use the website for. Many device manufacturers ask users to configure complex settings before even letting them get into the core functions of the device. Complexity usually equals failure when introducing just about anything to anyone. Making your users think too much is a great way to losing their interest in what you have to say about anything. 

Many devices, web pages, software packages, and so on focus solely on the first impression. This may in some cases make your consumers choose your product, but the same consumers will only return to your product next time if they also feel good during daily use of your product.

Again, long-term user experience resembles a personal relationship. Yes, the first impression may make you get interested in or engaged with a person, but you will not maintain a relationship with the person unless they give you something back in the longer term.

Long-term user experience is hence just as important as the first impression— at least if you want your customers to come back to you next time. Ideally, you want a user experience curve similar to how a known brand introduces a new and improved product that eventually becomes the norm for its regular customers, showing more or less constant growth in satisfaction over time. There will always be a few dips in the road, but the overall the trend should be upward(ideally).

A good long-term user experience is characterized by a daily joy when using a product. It is characterized by evolving together with the user, and by a growing “love” of your product from your users. The result of a good long-term user experience is that the end user will want to return to your product again and again. Usually a good long-term user experience is achieved by tiny things that keep surprising the user—or just making the user feel that he is in control of the product. Continuous successful improvements and upgrades of your product are also important for the long-term user experience.