Experience keywords

Once the personas have been created, list and group any descriptive words or concepts that recurred during stakeholder and user interviews. These groupings form the foundation for a set of experience keywords that will define and govern the visual strategy. Our initial groupings tend to look something like the illustration below.

These groupings of words gathered during research helped us determine a core set of experience keywords we could use to drive the overall visual strategy.

We typically consolidate the word list into three to five solid concept groupings that we then develop into a final set of experience keywords.

Experience keywords represent the "initial five-second" emotional reaction that personas should feel when viewing the interface. Thinking in terms of this initial response has two major benefits. First, it can enhance the company's brand by providing a positive first impression and an ongoing emotional experience. Second, it can have great significance in users' adoption of the product and their forgiveness of any shortcomings. Research shows that aesthetic designs are perceived to be more usable than less aesthetic designs (this is called the aesthetic-usability effect) and interfaces become more usable when people enjoy using them (see Donald Norman's account in Attractive Things Work Better; or better yet, listen to the excitement about the new iPhone).

Be sure to test the appropriateness of the keywords with your team and a few key stakeholders. Believable and visually descriptive keywords will help facilitate visual strategy discussions. Choose experience keywords that you would use to describe a person; these will be easier to design for and your audience will better relate to them. Your final set of experience keywords should look something like the ones in the diagram below.

 

In the above example, there are four experience keywords: caring, humble, conscientious and guiding. Additional words support each keyword to clarify its meaning. Supporting keywords with photos or other forms of imagery can also be effective.

Once agreed upon, experience keywords will suggest strong directions for the visual design. "Caring" might reflect an interface direction with soft colors and shapes, whereas "guiding" might represent an interface with more contrast and decisive lines.

Armed with the more objective criteria of personas, experience keywords, and branding requirements, you'll have a solid foundation for visual design decisions. You can create more thoughtful presentations about visual design, which will result in more appropriate feedback. Now when the product manager complains about the color orange, you'll be able to steer him away from his subjective comments by reminding him that the goal is to design for particular personas and to best represent the experience keywords that were agreed upon earlier. In addition, having the context of those user interviews and stakeholder interviews will help you target initial visual design concepts that are more focused and more appropriate for the people who will use your products.