Welcome to The EchoUser Experience, where we hope to inform, entertain, and offer a window into our personality. We are designers, developers, usability engineers, business strategists, human factors specialists... surfers, hockey players, runners, and enjoyers of happy hours. We have many characteristics that make up who we are. So do the products and people we work with.
EchoUser was formed with the intention of helping you, me, anybody, and everybody have better experiences in whatever is they do, use, or buy. We, as in the big Royal We of humanity, are constantly exposed to systems, products, and services that have been (hopefully!) designed to serve our wants and needs. But what we want and need can vary greatly depending on 'who we are' at any given time: coffee drinker in a cafe, reader of email and news online, rider of a bike to work, user of enterprise applications, diner at a fine restaurant, movie viewer at a local theater, driver on city streets, fan at a local ballgame, etc., etc., etc. The roles we play each day are limitless. It is our goal at EchoUser to work with the makers of these products, systems, and services to provide the best experiences possible for their users, whoever they may be.
The fun of working at EchoUser is that the projects and objectives of our clients vary greatly. While we 'grew up' in Silicon Valley working on software and the web, the reach of the creative process embraces anything we as people can get involved with. We and our clients always want to make things better... and the bosses always want to know by how much! That's where we come in -- improving and measuring. We apply the principles and philosophy of Experience Innovation to rapidly improve design and measure the outcome... I was going to write about all the things we believe in about design, innovation, etc., but this already feels too much like a commercial. Most of all we believe in the users. They are the engine that drives innovation and ultimately decide whether you succeed or fail.
You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't feel similarly. Perhaps not the same; definitely not the exact same. As a profession, we are a passionate, opinionated bunch. I hope our blog shows that passion, whether it's from the great folks we have within EchoUser, or the awesome guest bloggers we'll be inviting. I also hope that you find this blog adds to the conversation of pushing the field of user experience forward. Enjoy.
Mick
