Clarke, M.J. Murphy, G.C. Nørager, R. Richter, T.S. JACoW Publishing Geneva, Switzerland 2226-0358 978-3-95450-209-7 10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-TUCPR04 English 812-817 TUCPR04 interface experiment software neutron status Contribution to a conference proceedings 2020 2020-08 https://doi.org/10.18429/JACoW-ICALEPCS2019-TUCPR04 https://jacow.org/icalepcs2019/papers/tucpr04.pdf Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen* define User Experience (UX) as "encompassing all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products". The question is, however, is it possible to provide a significantly better UX in an inherently complex environment, such as at a neutron beamline instrument? With this in mind, we decided to ask the professionals at Design Psykology** to see what might be achievable for user-facing scientific software at the ESS. During a series of short workshops, we looked at general UX principles and how they could be applied to two of our user-facing software projects. We learned a number of useful practices and ideas, such as: why UX is more than just the graphical user interface; the value of creating user personas and mapping their workflow; How to design for the user’s "System 1". A bad UX may make the user feel like they are fighting against the system rather than working with it. A good UX, however, will unobtrusively help them do what they need to do without fuss or bother. If done well, UX is not a zero-sum game: improvements can be made so novices and experts alike can work more efficiently.