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.