“One cannot design a user experience, only design for a user experience. In particular, one cannot design a sensual experience, but only create the design features that can evoke it.”

I heard those words when I was in third year during my Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) course and they have stuck with me since then.

What do the words mean anyway? Well, in a way, they mean that we cannot design how a user will feel when they use a product but rather we can only design the overall experience. It's a literal (word redacted) of a statement if you ask me.

In baby terms it means: We can't force a user to feel good or bad about our software BUT we can only push them towards a certain feeling as they use our software.

User Experience (UX) however is much bigger than the app/software itself. It is how you package it, the installation process, it is the time it takes to load in the browser, it is the wording, typefaces, and font families that have been used. UX is the first impression before the first impression. That is how big UX is.

And for me, that is a big deal. I remember I was always ambitious with the mini-projects I developed while I was at school. I wanted them to be the best, simple to use, and most importantly, I wanted them to to be appealing.