Wonderful piece on “the Age of User Experience” by Andreas Pfeiffer. Even more wonderful that it’s from January 2006. So much has changed since then, and yet these words ring just as true.

I’ve firmly believed that over the last six years or so, the average consumer has begun to appreciate user experience far more than in the past. They may not care about color palettes or gradients or animations, but they are increasingly recognizing and rejecting poor usability. Price, of course, remains an equalizer: if an otherwise poor product is cheap enough, many consumers are still willing to endure it.

If you work in software, you owe it to yourself to read this. Better yet, print it out and hang it above your workstation. (Evan Doll)