Smoke, Mirrors and User Experience on the whole

Apparently this post is supposed to be a article that is considered as one that "die-die also must read". Well apparently i've read it and i'm not dead yet (ok sorry, bad joke).

anyway.... After reading through 5 parts of this article, i've got a few things to say about using scientific / objective research as a foundation of designing.

1. I finally understand what Mr Reddy means about "you will 'just know' if your product gives a2 good user experience" (but that doesn't mean that i understand his stories about samurais and attaining nirvana). In the article they talk about experienced designers not requiring hard research to know that they've done a good design (i.e. its all about intuition aka "just knowing").

2. User experience is just that - experience. it isn't something that you can quantify per se. And it's extremely subjective, varying from person to person. But I guess there's still something to be said for user experience's "scientific" research, in the sense that its more a case of providing a gauge for the general user feeling towards your product.

3. Though it may seem a little unethical at times, but i can agree that there's the possibility of needing to use "scientific" research about user experience to convince the "suits" about the validity and necessity of certain design implementations. Mostly because designers and execs think along different lines (or speak different "languages" so to speak).

Aaaaaannd.... that's about it. basically to sum up the article - user experience development is something that should not (and cannot) be solely based on "scientific" research alone.

So. enough about smoke and mirrors.

If you were to ask me about NM4210, I'd have to say I learnt a lot from it, and the times i (almost) applied it outside this module.

1. In the midst of taking this module I realised how badly-designed my CCA (NUS Psychology Society) blog is (ironical then since I was the one who designed the interface for it (disclaimer: but it was before i took this module).

2. I realised that I could have applied some of this in my TR3001 (New Product Development) module when we were coming up with the product, even though it was a physical one.

3. I've considered UX stuff in designing my game for CS4343 (Game Development Project) when designing the interface for my game.

4. I've become rather critical of website design suggestions in NM2219 (Principles of Communication Management) especially in the case where people suggest holding webpage design competitions to help improve user experience for users visiting the page.

so that's about it really.

Improving Learning Environment in LTs... the NIGHTMARE ASSIGNMENT

I was warned beforehand that this would be a nightmare assignment (damn right it is). but get this - the nightmare didn't come so much from the actual assignment, but from DOCUMENTING AND BLOGGING (which is this part of the whole thing).

So if you're wondering how my group did it, we used a mixture of 2 methods: laddering and enthographics (through observation and interviews).

if you want to see the laddering technique in action for my group's assignment, click here.

To put it simply, what happened is we went to go and observe what happened in lectures and what conditions there were like (seems rather simple, no?). We then took down our observations and put them in a cross-comparison table just to see how they would rate against one another in terms of the various aspects.

So here's some details about the modules we used in this assignment:

NM2219 Principles of Communication Management Wednesday 10am-12pm


NM3217 Publications, Graphics & Design Tuesday 12pm-2pm

SS2229 Nation Building in Singapore Monday 12pm-2pm

GEM2003/EU2219/HY2241 Why History? The Turbulent 20th Friday 4pm-6pm

LSM1301 General Biology Friday 2pm-4pm

CS3242S Hypermedia Technologies Thursday 8am-10am

So here's some of the cross- reference data from our slides:







The next thing was the interviews (because you need something to confirm your data against after all). Interestingly enough they brought up some issues that we might not have considered before (as well as providing greater detail and explanation for others).

So since this is about improving lecture styles (and its being improved for student's benefit) then it's important to find out what the students want, because that would make lectures more appealing to them (on top of that it would probably let us draw conclusions about the way they think. and when we know the way they think, maybe we can cater to them better).

Some hypotheses (resulting from information collection):

Handouts are very important to students, students want handouts that are handed out early and well presented/logical (easily digestible); -- Students are pragmatic

Lecturers who do not follow power-slides/handouts closely in their lectures, are less popular -- Students have rigid learning styles

Student goal in going to lectures revolve around exam specific issues (perceive note-taking as key to exam success); lectures where lecturers drop hints about exams tend to be more popular – Students are goal-oriented

Other suggestions / conclusions

Well obviously my group would only approach this situation from our own point of view. and its very obvious that others, though generally having the same point of view, may have alternative and addition viewpoints which could help us get a better understanding (in short: check out their blogs).

I have to agree with most of them - except the one about feng shui (sorry Chung Hau). Though most of us perhaps got around the same kind of responses (or the general feel of the situation), on our own perhaps we need to gather more data, if only for the fact that small sample sizes are rarely representative of the entire population.

I guess while we can rant and make suggestions about how to make LTs better, there're definitely limitations (some of which are beyond our control, others within our control but we refuse to follow through for various reasons - like... who wants to pay more school fees? surely not EVERYBODY... even if it means LT upgrading).

So maybe the disclaimer right at the start of the assignment was right - don't expect to be able to change things.

RMA

Name: Max

Age: 24

Occupation: student in NUS

Profile:

Max is a university student who is media- and tech-savvy. He professes to be "extremely attached" to his tech gadgets like laptop, digital camera, MP3 player and Xbox 360 game console, and claims he would "probably die" without them. With all his interest in technology, it is no wonder then that his area of interest in school is computer science, with a focus on interface (hence he can get rather anal about things with badly-designed interface).

Max is the eldest of 4 children and stays in the east side of Singapore. Hence he spends a lot of his time travelling to and from school via public transport, spending about a total of 3 hours a day commuting on the bus. He would rather do this than stay in hall because he believes he should spend time with his family every day. To him, people in his life are important. So apart from making the effort to stay home when he can to spend time with his family, he goes out with his close friends to do stuff together like play soccer or just go and "hang out".

As a hardworking and driven student who is gunning for 1st class honours, Max feels the constant need to be productive. He believes that good time management is essential, and that everything should be prioritised and organised so that there is maximum efficiency, then he can get as much free time as possible after focusing completely on his schoolwork. He is someone who definitely believes in working hard and playing hard.

Max is also a lover of music, and listens to many different genres. Often he can be seen "plugged in" to his MP3 player, especially when he does his regular jogs at east coast park on weekends. He is an avid gamer, and spends any free time he has playing sports games on his Xbox 360, claiming that it's his source of catharsis and relaxation. According to him, it's also because he gets an extra "kick" out of it because of the thrill of the games. Most of the time, he has enough discipline to know when to stop.

Some of his friends have been amazed at Max's ability to eat "anything". He isn't fussy about his food, and his favourite saying regarding this is "I don't care what it looks like. As long as eat already don't die then good enough" (i.e. He doesn't care what it looks like. As long as it's edible and doesn't kill him, he'll eat it). Some of this nonchalance is also evident when it comes to gadgets that Max gets. Things like size and colour of gadgets are secondary considerations to Max when he makes choices regarding his tech toys (unless they're in colours like shocking pink). To him, the functionality and features of any gadget, as well as the ergonomics of it are what matters (Max totally hates things that are badly designed ergonomically) , because he doesn't buy stuff because they look good or make him look good - he buys stuff to use it. Most of the time Max wouldn't splurge on a tech gadget unless he thought it was really worth it - so they have to have a certain appeal to him.

4-pleasure analysis:

physio

- Likes listening to music

- Keeps fit by running regularly

psycho

- plays sports games on his Xbox 360 to unwind and get a "kick"

- Likes to fiddle around with tech gadgets

socio

- Likes to make the effort to spend time with his family

- Likes to do activities like playing soccer with his friends.

- isn't image concious

ideo

- hardworking and driven

- efficient

- ambitious

- flexible and not fussy

- practical

- believes in the need for good design

- isn't a spendthrift


Product Benefit Specification (Aka a handphone for Max should have...)

1. many different functions

2. doesn't have to look fantastic

3. needs to be ergonomic

4. needs to have good interface

5. should not be too expensive


Reccommended product:

Nokia N73 Music Edition

Features:

• has up to 2GB of memory
• plays MP3s
• can sync with PC to manage music
• takes videos and photos
• can share photos, photos and video can be edited either in phone or on computer
• big screen with easily navigable user interface (according to nokia)
  

Visceral, Behavioural, Reflective - a Reflection

your friendly UX designer was asked this week to go hunting around for examples of visceral (initial impact / appearance), behavioural (functionality), and reflective (message it gives about owner's taste). it has not been an easy search i can assure you (considering how each of them overlaps, and how the companies try to sell them with all 3 design emotions in mind)... but i've tried to find something (and hopefully its a good comparison)... and awaaaaaay we go!

Subject of comparison: LAPTOPS (i.e. laptop BRANDS and the images they portray)

Brands being compared: Apple, IBM (or is it Lenovo?) and.... Sony? (ok the last example was pretty difficult to find).

so now that we have the participants, let's play a little guessing game...

The Apple Macbook

"AHHHHH! MACBOOK BLACK!!!! I WANT!!!!"

I've had friends who've been DYING (and i do mean DYING) to get their hands on a Macbook, the black one especially. One particular one had this reaction when she saw a black Mac at the co-op "AHHHHH!!! i WANT!!!" which in my opinion is rather representative of most people who want a Mac (a rather insightful friend pointed out designers don't count. they use Macs for functionality, not cos it looks "cool"- you gotta be pretty "cool" to begin with if you wanna be a designer, so they don't need that extra boost).

So... based on the dominant reaction of all those people lusting after Macbooks (the black one especially), i'd say that the dominant design characteristic would be VISCERAL (though reflective could come in a close second because of the "cool" factor").

IBM / Lenovo



A quote from a friend about IBM / Lenovo laptops: "Reliable, no-nonsense and hardy. but its damn ugly lah!!!!"


Ok. After asking around for a few people's opinions, this is my conclusion about the impression (and "reputation) of IBM / Lenovo laptops: No-nonsense, reliable, can take all sorts of hits and maintain intact (i have a friend who's laptop has taken major abuse and still works pretty fine). Functionality wise, it comes with all sorts of stuff that you get with every other laptop, but is built to take more hits (and more importantly, survive them). So... i guess that would make it a BEHAVIOURAL-type design (i can't say much for visceral or reflective elements...)


Sony Vaio

the PC vs Mac vs Vaio advertisement (the "non-pc pc"? er... right. a PC by another shape or colour is still a PC):

So anyway... At first when i took a look at this ad (and the sony Vaio in general) i wondered to myself... is this more reflective? or visceral? I mean, i could easily file this under REFLECTIVE and end off my post, but i want to elaborate a little on the difficulty in this area (the other 2 were pretty much no-brainers). Reflective design is supposed to say something about the owner of the product, no? and the only way to get that across is to build brand image and perception. If that's the case, i can very easily just take one of those HP laptops as an example (especially with their "The computer is personal again" ads (which are rather well done i should think).

Then i realised unlike Visceral and Behavioural design, REFLECTIVE design is not only personal, but also a matter of how that perception is built (like through advertising). And I think Sony's above-shown ad would be an example of trying to push for the idea that it classifies as REFLECTIVE design in the sense that it makes you "cooler" than a dude who owns a mac (which would DEFINITELY say something about you).

NM4210: Badly-designed Learning Report

If there's something i can think of that's badly designed, its definitely got to be the doors to those classrooms along the AS1 walkway.... and if you wonder why....

Most (or a rather large majority) of door handles are designed to be pushed down in order to open the door. The door handles for classrooms at the AS1 walkway however have to be pulled upwards in order to open them, effectively meaning that by pushing them downwards (like you would for normal doors), you're locking yourself out instead of opening the door.

This makes it a bad design in the sense that its non-conventional. I admit it's unusual (perhaps 'cool' even to some), but when you're late, rushing to a classroom and trying to open the door, the last thing you need is a door handle which doesn't follow the standard conventions.

I'm pretty sure most people who have had lessons in the AS1 classrooms have either personally experienced or at least witnessed a harrased student trying to rush into class, only to be unable to open the non-conventional door, which would probably lead to a lot of frustration for them because it makes them even later than they already are.

After a few unsuccessful attempts (and some help from students in the classroom), they would finally be able to open the door.... and probably learn that the door handle is supposed to move up instead of down. Since the door has no "brand", it would hard to actually figure out a user's impression of the brand (except maybe if you consider comments like "why on earth did anyone design doors like this?" to be a negative impression of the architecture firm that designed the doors).

So what do i personally think of this product (if you could consider it a product)? I think that while it seems like a unique idea, it is a bad design in the sense that it works totally opposite to conventional designs for similar items. People have conceptual (mental) models about how things should work (which generally are conventions followed by the majority), and if a design goes against these conventions and conceptual models, it will be difficult for people to understand and use these products.

As for the user reaction, i would think that it is normal and understandable. Given the circumstances where the evidences of this atypical and bad design occurs, they have every reason to feel frustrated. When someone is in a hurry or under stress, they rarely think about the exceptions to the rules (such as the way this particular door handle works), often resorting to those conceptual models they know and which have become habitual, so naturally they would try opening the door by pushing the handle downwards (and get frustrated when it achieves the opposite result of locking them out of the room).

oh WOW! DOTA!

i don't really post here much anymore (not since i ended NM3216), but as i've always said "There's some things you can never really run away from."

so anyway... had dinner with mum's side of the extended family, on the table with all the cousins who have a minimum age of 18 (going on 19). Funny how at one point the conversation swung in the direction of DOTA and WOW (like i said... there's just some things you can't run away from).

I found it funny how this particular cousin of mine has now become somewhat of a DOTA fanatic (when about this time last year i recall him saying he could never understand why all his friends were persistently playing that game).

Well one year on, and things certainly have changed haven't they? on an even more interesting note, there seems to be a little inter-family DOTA competition going on (where Dota-playing siblings team up against their similarly teamed-up cousins), and where they seem to be playing for bragging rights (like my cousin said, "We have t PWN them so that at the next family gathering we can rub it in their faces!").

The other topic of interest was WOW (World of Warcraft) - mainly because i brought up the recent Season 10 episode of South Park called "Make Love, not Warcraft". Its interesting to see how immersive the game is, and how people are aware the level of immersion can reach. My cousin said that when the original WOW came out, he "lost all his friends" except when it was tuesday night (only because the server is down for maintenence). Now that most of them hit level 60 or so, he's got his friends back (or at least till the expansion comes out some time this year). The most interesting bit of all i thought, was when he said that "there's no way he's going to start on WOW, because i know once i start i won't stop." Such is the level of immersion (the guys at Blizzard Entertainment are geniuses i tell you).