Reflections

This will (probably) be the last blog entry for the category “module NM4210″. The lecture period is over and the exams are approaching.

It is time to conclude what we have learnt in “User Experience Design”.

Admittedly, not all what I have learnt in this module can be put in words that easily. Of course, the assignments as well as the final product and thus all the blog entries testify to my learning progress. After 13 weeks of NM4210,

• I have developed an eye for bad designs. I do no longer just shake my head in disbelief about such an unstylish pattern but wonder how and why this design is unsatisfactory. Sometimes I even come up with a possible solution (though only in my mind). By the way, this was one of the coolest assignments I ever had. Finding a bad design. It’s incredible how many of them can actually be found in everyday life. A considerable assemblage of good bad designs can be reviewed here.

• I now find myself analyzing a lot of things for their emotional design. For instance, I have realized that my mobile phone is more behavioral than reflective and pretty low in its visceral performance. The same with my laptop, although Dell might be perceived by some people as having a good potential of emanating reflective emotion. However, it was not my intention to enhance my status when I bought the computer.

• I ‘ve found my new favourite market-research technique: the interesting and curious way of conducting interviews through ‘laddering’. The interviewer poses as many questions as possible targeted at a certain pleasure (or displeasure) of a product until she cannot think of any other question. We tried the laddering method in class and used it also for our final product (e.g. when we thought we had identified a need). From a producer’s perspective, this modus operandi is rather useful because it is not very intricate but provides an appropriate solution.

I understand the whole module as a one entire course with each lesson based on the preceding. For instance, in session 2 we heard about pleasure with products and the different emotional design levels (s. above). In the next lesson this concept got a little bit more elaborate and was elucidated by means of the four-pleasure-framework. This instrument that should help structuring thoughts as regards pleasure comprises the four components physio-, socio-, psycho-, and ideo-pleasure. With this framework, a product can be described in view of particular aspects and makes it thus better comparable to similar products. To my mind, the ideo-pleasure indicator is the most sophisticated. It concerns values and aspirations, ideologies. Why people like a product or what it tells us about them (e.g. a hybrid car appeals to people that are environmentally aware or are convicted to contribute to the entire good by buying such a car).

We did not only apply the four pleasure framework in order to describe products but also people. Assignment no. 3 aimed at creating a persona and analyze her profile via the four pleasure framework. In addition to that we should find a suitable product (a handphone) for our persona and depict the product benefit specifications. These are the criteria to which a product should be designed for the target user – the persona. To be honest, that was the first time that I effectively realized how closely the design of a product is actually related to its target user.

The insight I gained from this module is the fact that designing and creating has a lot to do with empiricism, with real life. Usually, one would not assume that product designers and producers put so much effort in observing and researching people’s behaviour or their needs. All our assignments and especially the design process for the final product demanded a great deal of discerning the user’s reaction to a particular product or circumstance.

My impression got a bit disordered when I read the Smoke & Mirrors article for the first time. User research indeed is a very important factor within the product design process. Maybe Christopher Fahey is right by saying “…the ideal of empirical, science-based user-centered design is something that we aspire to but never reach”. But why not trying to reach it?

I absolutely understand that this article causes a sensation among its readers because it really needs some concentration to get what the author actually is trying to say. At first I thought he sides with people who claim their unscientific research methods to be seriously scientific and try to palm them off on the public. However, later on it gets quite clear that Mr. Fahey criticizes the fact that too many people interpret “scientific” studies wrongly, either because they lack the appropriate skills to analyze the figures in detail or because the researchers do not advert to potential insufficiencies or constraints of their study or research method. This by the way is one important insight I gained from my own studies: scientific research is never without constraints.

With giving us this eye-tracking example, the author of Smoke & Mirrors points out that even apparently unambiguous research results can be interpreted in different ways: “If, for example, an eyetracker tells you that people don’t spend time looking at your company’s logo, does that mean that you need a new logo, or does it mean that your logo is already deeply familiar to the user? If the eyetracker shows someone spent a lot of time looking at your “how it works” diagram, does that mean that the diagram was extremely interesting or that it was extremely perplexing?”

The article tries to tell us that making good and competent design decisions is highly dependent on

a) the designer’s user research methods

b) the designer’s capability to interpret the data correctly.

Although our project was “just” part of a university course and the product not intended to be brought to market, we also had to cope with those difficulties when conducting user researches and evaluating the data. Christopher Fahay emphasizes what I have learned in this module: that designing for user experience is a highly sophisticated process that demands a certain sense of balancing intuition and analyzing empirical perceptions.

This experience makes me apprehending (good!) design differently now. How can the designer understand what the user wants and expects without proper research? Apart from the intuitive feel of the creator, a good design reflects her exemplary grasp of the user. It is not all about just having a nice design idea, but knowing that the user will appreciate it. When I think about this, I have one special phrase in mind: “Understanding the user holistically”.

Concluding I can say that the combination of theory and practice, interaction and reflective cerebration, notions and empiricism, makes this module an important contribution to my personal learning experience at the NUS.

This module is truly well designed .