An old art professor of mine used to tell us that when an artist makes a piece of art, they are responsible for the whole canvas, regardless of whether they put anything on it or not. As UX designers, we are responsible for the whole experience, whether it is part of what we are designing or not. Now, this does not mean that we must account for and mitigate every conceivable point of interaction. It does mean, however, that we need to think things all the way through in terms of how a user will interact with a system.
A recent stay in a resort hotel presented a potentially embarrassing situation with a door and an oddly placed mirror. The mirror was placed on the wall that the door opened to. This meant that if one were to be not fully dressed when someone knocked on the door, answering it by opening it enough to pop one’s head out, would reveal everything that was happening behind the door in the reflection.
The mirror on its own had a solid purpose; to check yourself out before you leave your room. What was not considered, however, was the interaction between the mirror and the door once the user got involved.
When designing user experiences, we must consider the aggregated experience. Looking beyond user/system interactions into the interactions that happen within the system — and perhaps other related connections outside of it — may reveal some faults in the design that can be easily addressed before they become an issue.
