A Journey into UX Design

Final Overview

2007-05-03T11:02:00.000+08:00

This module has been a fruitful experience for me in learning about experience design.
One important lesson that I have learned is that experience design cannot be learned
just by studying theories and conducting user researches. Rather, to learn experience
design is somewhat akin to attaining enlightenment (as fondly mentioned by Mr Reddy in
class) where one uses his experience, instinct and creative sense to really understand
the WAY of designing experiences. However, theories and user researches are nontheless
useful in a sense that they can guide us and aid us to a certain extent in the design process. On this note, let's recap the important take home ideas I have learnt in the weekly lessons.

Class 1: Introduction

We were introduced to the term UX design and how it is different from UI design. UX
design is popular now because it focuses on consumers needs which can be summarised by
functionality needs, usability needs and pleasure needs.

Class 2: UX Methodology

In this lesson, we focus on emotion and design. we learn that human emotion results
from 3 different levels of brain processing:

Viseral : affects first impression and impact we have about a product
Behavioural : affects the look, feel and experience of using the product
Reflective : The thoughts of using a product, how it reflect the taste of the users

Class 3: Understanding Users

We were taught how to perform reverse market analysis where we construct a user
profile based on a product given. The four pleasure framework (Physio, Socio, Pyscho
and Ideo) also allow us to analyse a user's needs from different aspects and to
identify their requirements for a certain product.

Class 4: Understanding Users 2

In this lesson, we learnt about different methods to study users which include
cultural probe, laddering and ethnographic study. These methods allows us to
understand our users and indentify areas that the users find most important in using a
product.

Class 5: Marketing

Here we study experience design from the perspective of marketing. The 22 immutable
laws of marketing revealed various ways to boost experience designing like using the
law of category to set up a new market and being the leader of that market. We also
learned how to construct an experience event matrix that categorise the needs and
expectations of a consumer.

Class 6: Branding

Branding allows users that trusts that particular brand to buy its products without
worrying (even doing less research before buying). We also learned about the halo
effect which essentially says that people have better impression of beautiful things.

Class 7: Phase 1 Discover

In this lesson, we have to start thinking about what product we are creating and why
we are creating it. We also have to draft out the customers need analysis, the brand
and the business insights/objectives. Instead of defining the product immediately, we
have to identify a problem first. From there, we need to work out the underlying
causes of the problem and design a product to fix it.

Class 8: Phase 2 Define

After the discover phase, we had to define the user and draw out their profiles. Next
we create personas for our users. We were also warned of the functionality trap where
in the design process, the functions of the product keep on increasing due to user's
desire and wants.

Class 9 - 12: Phase 3 Design

This is where we start designing the product after researching and constructing the
user profiles.

For the first stage, we had to think of what functionalities our products will
encompass. After that we have to do a content inventory and perform methods like card
sorting to organise our information architecture.

The second stage is where we draft out a low fidelity prototype for our product. The
low-fi prototype provides a cheap and fast way to test our designs and perform initial
heuristics evaluation of our product.

The third stage requires us to build a hi-fi prototype which is a detailed
representation of the final product. HEre we learned about Berlyne's model of
aesthetics which predicts a cyclical process on how people view about aesthetics.
We also learned how to do usability testing through heuristic evaluation and user
testing methods (Think aloud, co-discovery). These allows us to improve our product
and indentify possible flaws in our design.

Overall, this course has taught me much about creating experience. Beforehand, I was
only aware of product design which focuses on the object. Experience design is much
more in a sense that it encompass the entire user experience in using the product.

Smoke and Mirrors

2007-05-03T11:00:00.000+08:00

After reading User Research Smoke and Mirror, I understand that research-based design
is definitely not THE one and only way to designing good products. Although usability
testings like card sorting, interviews, ethnographic studies and contextual studies
can let us understand our users better, over-emphasis on these research methods might
hinder designers from using their instincts and experience to design products.

Research as a Design Tool

Research can give us useful information that can undoubtedly help us in our design
process. However, these results need to be interpreted CORRECTLY first. The author
gives the example of eyetracking being unable to identify the reason that people
overlook a company's logo:

1) It could be that the logo is well identified by people so they spend less time looking

2) Else it could be that the logo sucks and it need to be changed

In the end, we still need experienced designers to interprete the research data
correctly and these designers would probably have anticipated these results before the
researches were conducted.

Research as a Political Tool

The author has re-interated that good designers can predict the outcome of researches
with just their design instinct and common sense. However, he highlighted that the
importance of researches can come in the form of convincing stakeholders and bosses
that a particular design is good (since many people do not have good design sense and
sometimes let other agendas like money making cloud their senses). Research becomes a
political tool to justify good designs and becomes part of the marketing strategy.

Research as Bullshit

Designers are the foundation of the design process, not researches. This line
summarises this chapter perfectly... :)

Finally, the author gives some credit to researches as being helpful in design as long
as the results are not classified as definitive but rather as qualitative and
subjective. Again it's a matter of how we interprete the data and not jumping to
certain conclusions which might be totally wrong. He also highlighted that research
can motivate designers and aid in the process of discovering new creative ideas.

Assignment 4 - Lecture Experience

2007-02-27T13:32:00.000+08:00

For the fourth assignment, we were asked to investigate some possible ways as to improve the learning experience in Lecture Theatres (LTs). In order to accomplish this, Jeremy and I used these nifty methods:

Ethnography - sneaking into the crowd and observing silently

Laddering - repeated questioning to find out the most important factor

Survey - general polling and simple questions

We based our study from foundations taken from the study of student Learning Styles, which is defined as “the way each learner begins to concentrate, process, and retain new and difficult information.” The existence of learning styles means that there are different learning preferences between different people, and that justify this study, as we embark to find some conditions in which most people would prefer, or not-prefer rather, in light of the laddering technique; but either way, by examining these preferences we would be able to do a survey study and then suggest improvements.

We based the possible factors of learning on the Dunn & Dunn Learning Style model, which sums up an individual's learning style based on a combination of affective, cognitive, environmental and physiological factors. The factors in the learning style model are as follows:

With these factors in mind, we seek to investigate the possible reasons that account for the different students behaviour and experience in different lecture theatres. In the end, we decided to short-list two factors: 1) Seats (Technological) 2) Time of day (Cultural)

For Seats, we surveyed different LTs with different type of seats. It was observed that most of the LTs house seats with foldable tables. Survey and laddering shows that the seats with foldable tables are too cramp and not user friendly.

We also did a survey (20 students and 5 questions) and concluded that:

Most students hate the seats with foldable tables
They prefer to have a more comfortable seat with a bigger table space
Students feel that the chairs might be too close to each other

Thus we suggest that

Cushion the seats to ensure comfort
Increase the seats spacing so that students would not feel cramped together.
Instead of foldable tables, install tables in front of the chairs.

For Time of Day , we attended different lecture slots at different times of the day, to gauge the behaviour of students, and it was discovered that in 8am lectures, students are either late, sleeping, or not even present in the first place, as reflected by the poor attendance. This observation is reflected and supported in Andre's and Chee Kit's group as well, in which they plotted a chart to trace the rate at which the students entered the LT during an 8am lecture. The laddering process revealed this:

We also did a survey (30 students and 5 questions) and concluded that:

Most students don’t like lectures that are too early (before 10am) or too late (after 6pm).
Students dislike early lectures more than late lectures.
Most students admit to being unproductive /falling asleep during 8am lectures.
Most students are occasionally late for morning lectures.
Students are more likely to skip lectures that are too early or too late.
Students claim to be productive in lectures that fall between 10am – 4pm.

Thus, in light of morning lectures, here is what we suggest:

ABOLISH 8am lectures (lessons) and after 6pm lectures. (As if that would be possible).
Try to schedule lectures between 10am-4pm.
Schedule tutorials at “unwanted” timings instead of lectures.
Lecturers can start a bit later for morning lectures, to accommodate to late-comers.
Give breaks during lectures (for better student concentration, studies have shown this).
TRY to keep content and delivery interesting.

In conclusion, learning preferences are very subjective to the individual and there might not be a conclusive set of factors affecting learning experience in LTs, since everyone has different personalities and different style of learning. Overall, it is quite hard to pinpoint one particular factor as being the cause for a bad learning experience in LTs since numerous factors are at play at once. The 2 factors that we highlight (seats and time of the day) might not be the only reasons affecting learning experience although our studies show that majority of the students are affected by them. So, the bottomline is, more in-depth study would probably be needed if we were to study any of the factors of improving learning experiences.

Assignment 3 - Reversed Market Analysis

2007-01-30T13:01:00.000+08:00

Subject: Roger, 25 years old, young aspiring designer

Having joined a major design firm for only a year after he graduated with a second class degree, Roger has been appointed chief designer for the latest project assigned to him.

Roger is a perfectionist and he strives for very high standards. As a responsible team leader, he ensures that his teammates produces high quality work. He is a good listener and communicates well with people.

Roger spends a lot of time socialising with people. After work hours, he knows how to reward himself by having some fun by drinking with friends and engaging in recreational activities like billard and karaoke.

Roger is creative and he likes his designs to be simple but aesthetically appealing. This too applies to his taste in fashion and the products that he would buy. He does not like products that are packed full of functions since he might not even use most of them. Roger likes to differentiate himself from others and this is often reflected in his outfit and the products he owned which are well designed and unique.

Four pleasure analysis

Physio - Relaxation, Intoxication

Socio - Good personal relationship, Communicates well

Pyscho - Perfectionist, High Achiever

Ideo - Responsible, Sense of being unique and different, Creative

Product Specifications

1. Simple, easy to use, main communication functions are more important

Since Roger does not require the phone to be packed full of additional functions, a phone that is user friendly and simple would suit him. He communicates alot so the phone should have features that would enhance his communcations.

2. Aesthetically appealing, sleek and minimalist in design

This would appeal to Roger's fashion taste - simple, appealing and different

3. Music playing capability

Since Roger enjoys Karaoke and music generally, a phone with music playback capabailities woud be appreciated.

4. Creative touches

Roger is a creative designer. A phone that has some creative touches to it would be greatly appeal to him.

Reccomended phone: Nokia 8800 Sirrocco Edition

Assignment 2 - Emotion and Design

2007-01-22T15:38:00.000+08:00

Behavioral Design Example - LG CRT TV

A normal CRT TV.. hmm what can I say? Practical but boring..

Behavioral: Easy to use, sturdy build quality, standard picture quality

Visceral: Simple normal box like design. Not very appealing and definitely boring

Reflective: Perhaps a show off in some rural village but definitely not in the city

Visceral Design Example - Bordeux Samsung LCD TV

Samsung's award winning LCD panel. Design inspired by a wine glass.

Behavioral: Sophisticated, not as user friendly. Excellent picture quality

Visceral: Curvy design make it very appealing. Sleek black shine gives it a posh look

Reflective: Doesn't have much show off value since LCD Tv is quite common now and the prices are going down

Reflective Design Example - “Yalos Diamond” LCD TV

The world's most expensive TV (as of current). Studded with 160 real diamonds worth 20 carats. It cost a whopping 130, 000 USD.

Behavioral: Sophisticated LCD panel, emphasis is on the looks rather then on the usability and practical application

Visceral: Appealing slim looks, glittering diamonds result in a high class appearance

Reflective: Diamond studded TV. That's going to be high up on the show off ranking list. Definitely has a WOW factor

Assignment 1 - Bad Design: The Bin

2007-01-16T09:35:00.000+08:00

I'm sure everyone uses the public rubbish bins but I bet no one cares about their designs. Almost all the rubbish bins out there look like this:

which certainly isn't a good design in my opinion.

Bad Point #1 - The opening

First, let's look at the opening where we throw our rubbish in. The opening is on the side of the bin which is not a good location since I often notice that people miss when they try to throw their rubbish in a hurry (not to mention that most of them can't be bothered to pick up the rubbish that they drop). A rubbish bin with an opening at the top would have been a better design choice.

Bad Point #2 - The ash tray

Next up is the ash tray that we find on top of the rubbish bin. It's usefulness is a big question mark - why is it neccessary to maintain a separate container for cigerette butts and ashes instead of just throwing them into the main bin. Moreover, I find the ash tray too shallow. Since some of these bins are placed out in the open, a gust wind can easily scatter these cigerette ashes into the surrounding.

Bad point #3 - The looks

I wonder why all rubbish bins need to look so plain and uniform in design. If the makers of these bins can put in extra effort to design funkier and more aesthetically appealing bins, these rubbish bins can served as decorations for the surrounding.