What Is UX Design? The Banana Example
UX design in a single picture: why the banana is the perfect example of a well-thought-out user experience – from its ripeness signal to its built-in handle.
What is UX design?
People ask me all the time: "Dennis, what is UX design, and what makes good UX?" Up to now, I've gone off on long tangents and explained in great detail what this mysterious "user experience (UX for short)" is. And that really bugs me. Because a long-winded explanation is a bad user experience in itself – I can't explain my own job in a way people understand. Sounds frustrating, right? – It is!
My colleague Megan Wilson (blog: UX Motel) felt the same way. She went looking for a simple, easy-to-understand analogy and landed on the banana. Megan herself recommends that her colleagues explain UX using the banana. And I'm more than happy to do just that here.
Bananas are great fruit – and not just because of their taste and health benefits, but also because of a number of design aspects.
Visual signals
For example, you can tell how ripe a banana is by its color. A banana sends a clear visual signal that it's unripe, ripe, or overripe. There's no doubt, no need to ask, and certainly no need for user testing.
- Green: The banana isn't ripe yet.
- Yellow: The banana is ripe and ready to eat
- Brown: The banana is overripe
It's completely foolproof!
Usable anywhere:
The next reason the banana's UX is great: you can enjoy it anytime, anywhere. Bananas are the perfect snack on the go. As soon as the banana signals with its yellow color that it's ripe, its peel also turns out to be really easy to peel. If you leave the peel on, you can take the banana anywhere. That makes the banana easy to carry. You can eat it without any extra tools. It gets even better: it comes with its own handle and doesn't leave any messy stains.
Friction-free consumption
Eating a banana is a barrier-free experience. There are no interruptions from seeds, stems, or hard-to-remove parts. There's no more convenient fruit! Users don't have to worry about any pain points. There aren't any.
Available everywhere
Bananas grow on every continent, so they're available all year round. Because there's such a large supply, bananas are cheap and available to everyone.
Conclusion: What is UX design?
The banana is the perfect fruit! And that's despite the fact that some fruits have glaring advantages over bananas. There are prettier fruits, but they aren't as easy to eat. Or fruits that are easier to eat, like apples, but come with annoyances in the form of seeds and stems. Strawberries are prettier and easier to eat, but they don't grow year-round, they're more expensive, harder to transport, and leave nasty strawberry stains on your clothes. Some fruits have more nutrients than the banana, some look better, some taste better – but taste is ultimately just one aspect of how we experience a fruit. UX design, on the other hand, deals with the entire user experience of consuming a product. From start to finish!
Parallels to software
I'm pretty sure that while reading this, you spotted a few parallels between the banana and good software. UX design deals with human-computer interaction. The goal of UX design is to make this interface as pleasant and comfortable as possible. We UX designers create interfaces that are self-contained, feel logical and simple, and work without unnecessary distractions or breaks.
If you enjoy using an application, the UX designer did a good job. But if you trip over stems and seeds, struggle to eat it, or mess up your T-shirt, then the perfect UX of a banana hasn't been achieved.