COMMUNITIES | DIGITAL EXPERIENCE | GEOMATICS | BEST OF TIMES
The "Digital Experience"
SUSAN SENESEWhat does it mean to deliver a "digital experience" to web users and why is this increasingly important?
It's no longer enough for website developers to be satisfied with just delivering high quality information to their customers. Today, websites need to do more. Websites need to provide users with an outstanding digital "experience" — a recurring theme at two recent Internet conferences: Access 2008 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Internet Librarian Conference in Monterey, California.
One way to engage customers and ensure they return is to provide an "experience" in addition to a product or good. People are moving beyond the purchase and consumption of goods toward buying experiences. Consider the travel industry, for instance, where people do not simply buy trips but, rather, extreme travel experiences. Increasingly, people expect to derive pleasure from performing an activity or purchasing a good. This shift in user expectations extends to websites as well and is leading website designers to build sites and applications that deliver great user experiences.
At the Internet Librarian Conference in October 2008, David King, author of " Designing the Digital Experience," discussed three key areas to consider when designing great user experiences on the web:
- Structure – Improve a website's structure and ease-of-use to deliver a better user experience and let users focus on what they want to do online.
- Community – Incorporate the essence of Web 2.0 to encourage online participation in conversations and other interactive experiences, creating a sense of community and a memorable experience.
- Customers – Stage virtual experience online that surprise and delight customers.
Websites that have excelled in creating a highly satisfying digital experience for the end user include Amazon, Starbucks, Flickr, Webkinz and LibraryThing. Delivering a stimulating and rewarding digital experience is high on the list of objectives for the project team charged with redesigning the U of T Mississauga Library's website in the coming months.
