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One of the industry buzzwords that needs to go to the grave is the user “experience.”
Don’t quote me here, but I recall this buzzword being developed by Microsoft as part of the marketing campaign behind Windows XP. XP was supposed to be “experience” or “expert” or “Xtra stuPid marketing,” I’m not sure. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an XP hater. But I’m definitely a hater of the term “experience.”
The user interface is just that, an interface. The term “experience” has its roots in the passive voice. Somewhere in there you’ll find that the user “experience” for computing generally sucks. It’s just a nicer way of saying “our user interface sucks, but it provides an experience.”
Whatever. Drop it. Look, other computing companies are just as guilty on this one (I’m looking at you RIM and Apple), but the fact is – everything great on the Internet is ruined by salespeople and marketers, period.
This is just one example of many.