I'm hearing the phrase User Experience thrown around quite a bit these days. It's become an overloaded term that means different things to different folks, yet we all seem to agree with the premise that a positive user experience is essential.

So how do we ensure that our users are having a positive experience? I believe we first need to consider how we measure success. Of course, the definition of success will be different on every project. I typically begin a new project by asking questions like, “What are the business objectives of the system?", and "Do the business objectives differ from site success criteria?” Knowing what action(s) we want our visitors to take when they arrive is far more important than simply maximizing page counts.

Regarding the total user experience (not merely the user interface): What if there was a way to measure the experiences themselves? If so, what mechanism should we use to measure how those experiences were interpreted? And what constitutes a good or bad experience anyway?

The Net Promoter Score is something that I find intriguing, and it might just be the answer. It's a simple metric that essentially asks, "Would you recommend this service to someone else?" Respondents are categorized as Promoters ("yes"), Passives ("maybe"), and Detractors ("no"). Site owners calculate their Net Promoter Score - expressed as a percentage - by subtracting their Detractors from their Promoters. Tracking the answers gives us a very strong sense how well we are doing; going beyond traditional measures like loyalty or satisfaction. Moreover, a single-question, multiple-choice survey will generate many more responses than annoying users with a lengthy questionnaire feedback form.

The Federal agency I've served for the past five years has the right mindset. Over these five years, my work has spanned four projects across three different divisions, and the model is pretty much the same. Our users are appropriately viewed as customers. Despite the fact that they don't purchase anything, external users need to be convinced that using a free service is worth a small investment of their time, and that contributing to the greater good will ultimately provide them with access to a national data store and expert analysis. A positive user experience has become more important than ever, even in the private sector.

So let's all ask ourselves: Is the experience we have in our minds taking root in the minds of our customers? If the answer is an emphatic yes - to the degree that they're actually helping to sell our products and services for us - then we can rest assured and begin to think about bigger fish.