The User Advocate: Everything I Know About User Experience I Learned While Scooping Ice Cream

By Dave Rogers

Well, not quite everything. But stay with me here.

Like some of you, no doubt, my first job was scooping ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors Ice Cream store. In those heady days of the '70s, Baskin-Robbins was at the top of the ice cream world and by chance I worked at a rare company-owned store. I ended up staying for years, eventually filling several roles at headquarters - but it was while working in the stores that I learned the seminal lessons of user experience.

I'm serious. Scooping ice cream laid a rock-solid foundation for my user experience practice of today. Let me share a few of those insights with you.

It's all about the customer/user.

I hate to admit it, but when I first started scooping, I was not a model employee. I had to get past my adolescent self-absorption to learn that customers came in for ice cream and that I was only a means to that end. My sole responsibility was to explore and fulfill their needs and wishes. It wasn't to display my rapier wit, scooping prowess or encyclopedic knowledge.

It took awhile, but I came to recognize that the more I did expressly to make my customers' experiences the best possible, the more satisfied we all were. I may have been a Jedi master at preparing milk shakes, but if the customer wanted an ice cream cone, that's what I had to provide. It's wasn't about me. Great retail service is all about the customer's experience. Period.

That lesson was invaluable when I moved into new ventures. As an instructional designer and producer of CD-ROM courses, I saw that great training is obsessed with the learner's experience and achievement. And as an information architect, I realized that a great Web site provides experiences that help users to accomplish goals.

Users rule.

It's not all about the user.

As part of my work on a terrific community site populated by passionate and vocal users,I'm conducting discussions on the site's hyperactive bulletin boards. In answer to one query, a savvy member righteously pinned my ears back by replying, "I am a tool user, not a tool maker."

Ouch. What hurt most is that I used to tell my Baskin-Robbins store crews the same thing. Customers may have the ice cream dreams, I would rhapsodize, but we have the ice cream skills and knowledge. To make the dream come true, it takes two to tango. And we have to lead.

The Web requires the same approach. Users come to us full of ambition, goals and wishes - but they lack the knowledge, talents and skills required to dig through the databases of content and virtual reams of pages that make up a site. It's our responsibility to "lead the dance" with the IA, interface, navigation and other elements that create the experience where users can achieve their goals.

Design is everything.

My man Tom Peters writes, "I simply believe design is the principal reason for emotional attachment (or detachment!) relative to a product or service or experience or brand proposition." And for everything else, I hasten to add.

What's a banana split? A banana, three scoops of ice cream, three toppings, whipped cream, almonds and cherries? Yes - but a banana split is more than the sum of its parts. Its design is at least as important as its ingredients and taste.

"You're not making a banana split," I would tell my disbelieving trainees. "You're creating an experience for everyone in the store. Make sure people can see you prepare it - and put some showmanship into your work. Rest that middle scoop on the other two, elevating it. Gently score each scoop to hold the toppings in place. Swirl three artful dollops of whipped cream on top. Serve it with it a flourish. I guarantee you'll hear everybody ooh and ahh."

My artistic abilities are near zilch, but banana splits taught me that Peters is right. Web sites, cars, magazines, whatever, are all more than the sum of their parts. Design - visual and otherwise - is what makes things compelling and is the driver of emotional commitment.

Just one more: Process matters.

Take a milk shake, for example - a blend of ice cream, milk and syrup. Nothing to it, right? Wrong. How a shake is prepared is critical to the end result. A shake with an out-of-this-world flavor and texture requires a deft touch and adherence to a specific recipe and technique.

I'm fond of saying, "Process is the reward" - that is, that there are intrinsic payoffs in the application of a sound process that enhance the end result, whether for a milk shake or Web site. But I'm no slave to process. I'm delighted to blow a process to smithereens, even when it's my own. Yet how one goes about blowing up a process is as important as the actual blowing up. Go figure.

And while I may have learned more about user experience from Rosenfeld, Morville, Wodtke, Wurman, Nielsen, Goto, Spool, Garrett, et al, I learned my foundational lessons while scooping ice cream. I'll always be grateful.