User Experience in Configuration Tools

Bob Moll, Sunday, July 9, 2006 @ 12:30 pm

The digital age has lead us to the age of customization. Whether it be your computer desktop, your portal home page, your music device or even your clothing, there is an aspect of “My” in almost everything now. But how does “My” happen? How do we customize things?

In general, we can consider two approaches:  passive configuration and goal-driven configuration. A familiar example of passive configuration would be Amazon.com, which will suggest purchases of possible interest based on a history of interaction. In goal-driven configuration, the user is actively pursuing a specific goal, such as configuring a complex piece of equipment by using a configuration tool in a purposeful way.

In goal-driven configuration, the user experience of the configuration tool is crucial along several dimensions. First, the tool must enable the user to achieve the configuration goals. Failure to configure successfully can render the underlying product useless. Second, the tool should provide a sense of progress so the user is not overwhelmed. Feelings of small successes can be crucial to tolerating a long complex procedure. Third, the tool almost always has to be intuitive to a user with far less knowledge about the underlying product than the engineers who created it.

Any product that relies on configuration can benefit from a well-designed configuration tool. In some cases, the quality of the tool will have a direct impact on the sales and acceptance of the product, and the loyalty and satisfaction of the customer.

user experience design

Comments: 2 so far

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1. 

   There even exists a company that soely specializes in configuration system (configurator) user interface design

   http://www.cyledge.com

   Comment by David Stern, Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 11:09 am

2. 

   We did alot of projects as a premium partner of the european and north american industrie specialized in the fields human interaction design, mass customization & interactive product configuration

   Comment by Hanjo Nyhuis, Thursday, August 3, 2006 @ 1:58 pm

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