I’ve been re-reading Kathy Sierra’s seminal work on designing the user experience. The book is not about users becoming an expert on your product. Why, you ask? Because no one buys a camera to become an expert on all the features of the Canon EOS R5. Instead, they use the product to become an amazing photographer.
A lot of complementary products can go into that superset of “Be an amazing photographer”: speed lights, gels, Adobe Lightroom editing software, high-end photo stock paper. And the more you become an amazing photographer, the more you are able to tell the difference between a high-end camera and a budget camera. And the more you are willing to gravitate towards acquiring the high-end: Chris’s regrets in not buying the iPhone11, with its superior camera, for his once in a lifetime vacation, is a case in point. By contrast, I’m not an audiophile and will happily listen to music on the cheapest headphones: when a musician let me listen to Hamilton on their $400 headphones, I was blown away by the sound quality but I didn’t appreciate it enough to invest in a pair.
Part of improving the user experience is helping the user to become amazing at creating content with your product or service. That’s why I occasionally create FAQs on “how to Cake” and why I did a writing workshop with @JazliAziz to help content creators become amazing.
Further reading
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