I read a lot of blurbs titled 'About The Company' that try to position themselves as something unique and special. I commonly see words like 'pioneers,' ‘innovators,' 'trailblazers,' 'visionaries,' ‘inspiration,' 'innovative,' 'fearless,'' sensational,' or 'remarkable.'
This terminology has become a little cliched. And when you look at the definition of the word cliché, ‘A cliché is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that had become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.’ I agree with that sentiment for most of the above. Any company, calling itself sensational, one could argue has lost the meaning of the word entirely.
While I was thinking about this recently, it dawned on me that solid UX theory is often bound by the complete opposite, that great UX is all about being totally unremarkable. Patterns should be standard, obvious... in fact, the less you think about it, and the less you have to remember it, the better it is. Good UX should be invisible, totally unremarkable. If a user makes any remark, it's often a clear sign of a bad user experience.
There are many apps out there that are widely known to have great, seamless UX. Starbucks. Uber. Airbnb. What they all have in common when a user completes their conversion moment is this: no one ever has said about Starbucks or Uber, "WOW, that transaction was so seamless!" Instead, they keep walking, driving, or watching TV (usually, they are, in fact, doing something else at the same time, I'll discuss that topic in the next post) and never comment. This, always, should be exactly what we're aiming for.
