The guidelines identify desirable characteristics for the user's initial experience from the user's perspective.This sometimes results in a tension or conflict with other product goals, such as cost reduction and control. These guidelines should be applied within a process that considers the overall perspective for the product, a process in which trade-off decisions are highlighted and information is made available to facilitate the best overall decision for the product and the user.
Many of the design alternatives and decisions addressed in these guidelines are within the domain of product designers, be it hardware, software, or packaging related. For example, whether or not handholds are provided on a display device is clearly a decision for the display design team to make. The intent of these guidelines is to focus the attention of such design teams on product aspects that affect the user's initial experience of the product. Product designers should consider these guidelines along with other factors considered in the design process they normally use.
These guidelines address three major aspects of the design of the initial experience:
- User expectations and environments
identifies user skill and experience differences that influence decisions about the initial experience OOBE design. Environmental aspects that may need to be considered, such as the size and sophistication of a business customer, are also identified.
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Designing the initial experience
provides detailed goals, desirable characteristics, guidelines, and criteria for each of the initial experience phases from Packaging through Further Assistance.
- Measuring the initial experience describes an approach for integrating the initial experience design and validation into the overall product development process. The approach is based on User-Centered Design (UCD), which emphasizes understanding users' skills and requirements, competitive position, design steps, and validation.