The Red Queen and Alice from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There . Illustration by John Tenniel, 18711
A hundred years after the publication of Alice in Wonderland, the American biologist, Leigh Van Valen, used the exchange between Alice and the Red Queen to explain the extinction of species . The “Red Queen hypothesis ”2 describes coevolution: When two or more entities (anything ranging from species to countries to multinational corporations) compete for resources, they must continually evolve to keep up with one another. They lock themselves into a continual arms race. An advantage to one causes a disadvantage to the other. This disadvantage fosters an adaptation or causes an extinction. Each entity must keep running, simply to maintain its own position and not fall behind.
Like Alice, we all strive to advance. We wish to move forward in our professional and personal lives. Experiences dominate this landscape, either helping or hindering our efforts to gain ground. Bad experiences halt progress; good ones speed us along our way. The question becomes what makes a good experience.
What Is “Good” UX?
One could argue that good user experience is efficient user experience: a user’s time and energy are treated as precious commodities and spent only when necessary. Efficiency is certainly an important part of crafting experiences, but I bet you can think of many experiences that are worthwhile and not efficient: a good meal, a romantic vacation, a fun video game, an entertaining movie. Inefficiency is the hallmark of many good experiences.
One could argue that good user experience is a matter of ease-of-use : make the experience as easy as possible and it will be good. However, I bet you could think of experiences that were not necessarily easy but that you still found rewarding. Learned a new recipe? Went whitewater rafting? Beat the monster at the end of a video game? Many experiences are not easy, but you would not change them—even if given the chance.
One could argue that good user experience delights a user: make the experience pleasant and users will endear themselves to your creation. Yet again, we find ourselves in familiar territory. Think of an unpleasant experience in which you willfully engage: horror films, hot sauce, and hard exercise workouts , to name just a few. The experience may have been grueling; however, you willfully participate in it time and again.
If achieving good UX were only a matter of designing software with a stopwatch in one hand and a scorecard in the other, we would have perfected software design by now. eBay would have perfected auctions. Amazon would have perfected e-commerce. Facebook would have perfected social media. And every other digital archetype would exist in an ideal state of timeless perfection. But we know this to be untrue. Although these applications are successful, they constantly change—they pivot and tweak. New competitive companies enter the market. New devices come out. New attitudes emerge. New patterns unfold.
What we are left with is a problem, but a clearly stated one: the potential for both good and bad UX is built into every product, service, function, interaction, and piece of content. It is not one thing that makes an experience succeed or fail. It is everything. A good experience attempts to solve this unsolvable riddle. It makes the effort. It races up the hill, striving to advance, if only to keep its users from falling behind.
Key Takeaways
UX is in a constant state of change.
The potential for both good and bad UX is built into every product, service, function, interaction, and piece of content.
No one thing makes an experience succeed or fail.
Good UX serves users.
Questions to Ask Yourself
At the minimum, does an experience preserve user safety, security, and dignity?
Does any part of an experience hinder users’ efforts to complete their goals?
Am I making the effort to provide users with a good experience?