First Time Users

Steven Wittens on the experiences of first time users:

You hear a lot about “first time user experience” for example. But it’s not about wrapping up your product like a present. It’s about creating a connection of trust through empowerment and a little bit of emotional appeal: “This is for you, you can do amazing things with this.” And that means “first-time” shouldn’t refer to the first time you turn on the device, but the first time you use a device for a particular purpose and context. Traveling to Another Country should definitely be treated as a “first time” experience, same with How Do I Work This Camera, I Don’t Have an App For This, I Don’t Have Data Right Now, I Dropped It Down The Stairs, I Should’ve Cached This Map But I Didn’t, My Friend Has a Windows Phone, etc. Throwing in more obnoxious tutorials is not the answer, creating affordance is.

Yes this article is a rant against specifics of Android, but don’t let that distract from useful and critical thinking about user interfaces in general.