Last night, while watching one of my favorite shows — Kitchen Nightmares, I was impressed by the simple and ingenious approaches taken by Gordon Ramsey. I thought “wow!” his approaches align with how we design user experiences.

As a brief background, Gordon Ramsay is a famous, well-respected British chef with several successful shows and a colorful, direct vocabulary. In the case of Kitchen Nightmares, he helps struggling restaurants reinvent themselves and become prosperous again. Needless to say, he does this in an entertaining way!

Get out of the building

After sampling the typically horrific entrees, Gordon immediately leaves the restaurant and walks into the neighborhood to chat with potential patrons. He casually, with true interest in the response, asks open-ended questions such as:

What type of food do they enjoy?

What prevents them from eating at the restaurant?

What was your last experience like at the restaurant?

Gordon uses these discussions to better understand the needs of the audience, as well as to what is working and what needs improvement within the restaurant. Similar to Gordon, we as designers must “get out of the building” and interact with users to understand their needs and preferences. By observing and engaging in a dialog, we can identify problems and determine natural behavior. Therefore, we design a solution that solves their problems. In order to achieve this design objective, there are some excellent tools available to start the conversation with your audience.

IDEO Method Cards —51 ways to help you explore new approaches and develop your own

Ten Faces of Innovation — IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization

Wufoo — A great product for simple surveys or feedback forms.

Focus on the details

Most eateries that Gordon aids offer patrons a menu the size of a book or large newspaper with dozens of choices. To keep up with the ubiquitous demand, chefs struggle and regretfully cut corners. For example, they serve pre-made, frozen meals heated up in the microwave. Mmmmm! Needless to say, the patrons receive a meal that is mediocre at best. Consequently, the staff become overwhelmed and lose pride in their work. This is a slippery slope that can quickly ruin morale and ultimately the restaurant.

Faced with this familiar problem, Gordon takes an elegant approach. Armed with his user research, he targets a specific style of food and narrows the menu to only a handful of desired choices. The new menu fits the needs of the patrons and eases the stress for choosing an entree. Even better — the staff has a clear and an achievable menu. No longer will they struggle to prepare a broad set of meals. The result — the staff is able to freshly prepare each meal and spend the necessary time delivering each delicious entree. As expected, the staff takes pride in their efforts and delivers quality meals! Customers enjoy the new entrees and staff morale rises!

Bon appetite!

In the design world, similar to delivering entrees, focus and attention to detail are vital for product quality. When a team is concentrating on too much, they normally invest less time on the details. The team cuts corners and delivers features that may partially solve the user’s problems, making hollow promises to “make it better later” while releasing a less-than-optimum solution. Unfortunately, we fall into the trap of delivering loads of mediocre features and an equally awkward user experience. We’ve seen this before — users struggle to fully utilize the product and regretfully use it less and less. Armed with their frustration, users begin a search for a better tool or product and discover a better solution. Gradually, similar to the restaurant chefs, the team feels dissatisfied with product quality and morale declines. We’re left with an ineffective solution, frustrated team and a company that could struggle to compete.

A more fruitful and yet difficult approach is to invest essential time deciding which user problems really matter and simply prune the rest away. If you can solve the core user problems more effectively than others, the odds for success are excellent.

Create an atmosphere

Along with the poor food, the restaurant's atmosphere is normally gruesome and in need of a bit of refinement. As earlier, Gordon uses his research to design an aesthetic and style that matches the audience and cuisine. People are looking for a pleasant overall experience — delicious food is only one of the elements. If the decor or ambiance is uncomfortable or awkward, the experience feels unbalanced. No matter how skillfully prepared the meal, a space must balance the entree. A new sign, more comfortable seating, refined acoustics and other touches complete the delightful experience. The result — patrons are captivated with the delightful experience and staff are thrilled!

Just as Gordon composes the right atmosphere for the restaurant, it is necessary to apply the same thinking to our product user experiences. The right blend of functionality, choosing the proper color palette, typography, transitions and iconography all contribute to an enjoyable and productive experience for the user. Taking the time to craft these details makes certain the experience is whole and finished! Users will appreciate the experience and continue to utilize your product for solving their problems.

Summary

Most designers understand that user experience design is a challenging and continuous endeavor. Designing solutions to problems for people can be complex considering unexpected human quirks and behavior, technology limitations, and resource constraints. It’s essential that our first step begins with interacting with our targeted users to observe behavior, understand needs, and distill their priorities. Crafting smaller solutions with a razor focus on key problems can be challenging although the rewards are very high for users as well as the design team. Along with solving problems effectively, experiences should deliver a fitting ambiance that ensures user happiness and productivity. Indeed, Gordon would probably be surprised to see that his methodology, from problem-solving to aesthetics, is very applicable in other arenas — in particular, user experience design.