User Experience Honeycomb

The User Experience Honeycomb is a concept introduced by renowned information architect Peter Morville to showcase the different aspects of the user experience process that needs to come together for a successful business outcome. This is a valuable tool to help us understand and analyze any product or service that we offer, in order to improve the experience of our customers.

This formula seems to be a quite a simple and elegant solution for the problems that are faced by those in charge of user experience. However, one must keep in mind that each of these elements require time and effort to perfect. Furthermore, it is important these elements are updated constantly to keep up with the changing business environment, technological advancements and customer expectations. For example, a brilliant 2D design will need to be updated to 3D if the customer expectation is to view the product in virtual reality.

Since this is a honeycomb, it is difficult to point out where to start, but the tile known as “useful” is a good place to begin. Whatever it is that we are designing it must be useful to the customers. It does not matter how elegant or smooth the design is, if the customer finds no use, it is by extension to the company as well. This does not mean that it has to have a serious purpose. For example, there are applications that are use for entertainment and gaming, which do not have a serious goal but are still useful in many ways to customers.

The second point, is that the product has to be “desirable”. For example, customers may find a smartphone useful, but is it desirable in terms of its design, speed and other features? These are all parts of the customer experience. The third point is accessibility. This is not just applicable to customers with disabilities but also to customers in general who want to easily access the product. For example, if a customer cannot access the content of an app without constantly being bombarded with advertising, there is a clear problem with accessibility.

The fourth point is credibility. One of the most important aspects of doing business is to understand that the trust of your customers is critical. Questions such as is the product or service offered exactly the same as it is described need to be asked. Although trying to fool customers might bring short-term revenue, it will be extremely harmful to the business. Offering trustworthy information, accurate product descriptions and options for secure checkouts alongside strong privacy protections are some of the steps that can be taken of usability testing.

The fifth point is about being “findable”. In other words, customers should be able to easily navigate your website for example and find relevant information that they are looking for. If you are a barber shop, a customer should be able to easily find the locations available and features such as proximity search can be useful in this case. Furthermore other options such as click-to-call and search features within the website can also be very helpful to customers in terms of findability. The sixth point is about being “usable”. This means that you will have to consider who your customers are in terms of the devices they use for example. If you design a website for a desktop but most of your customers are mobile phone users it will not be usable.

The seventh and last element, which can be seen as a culmination of all the other values is about being “valuable”. At the end of the day, your product or service has to be valuable to your customers. This can be done by going to the core of why your business exists in the first place or in other words the mission of your business. For example, if you are an academic institution, your website should have all the valuable information that current, prospective and past students need from the university.

The User Experience Honeycomb is a useful tool to understand the key elements of web design and what we need to focus on. Each of these elements are unique but are also very closely linked and they complement each other in the implementation of successful products and services.