Final Blog Entry on Designing for UX

My experience with designing for UX might not be the same as the rest of my classmates in the class and this is exactly what UX is all about! Subjective! Everyone carries different perception towards a specific product. Some like it while others not. On one hand we must always keep in mind our client’s specifications, the purpose of the product as well as balance our target user’s interest on the other. Bearing in mind, customers are always right, just as users are always right! So similar to the previous entry, even if the answers users provided for the research are wrong, users are still right! It is on our part that we need to figure out why did they even give the wrong answers in the first place and it is us who should make changes to our product to suit their expectations.

Clearly, even if the idea is good, there must be good market research, accurate interpretation of data collected, clear target audience and not forgetting having the technical abilities to create the ‘wow’ experience and the visually attractive aesthetics of the product to retain user’s attention and create the impact in them. The feedback that we get from the users provides us with insights that we never thought it would have been a problem. As such, taking into considerations these valuable comments could help us (i.e the designers), create a better and more efficient final product which in turn leads to the highly sought after UX. In doing so, there’s a higher chance of acceptance of the product by users when launched. It is ultimately the users of the product who decides the success of the creation. The product must meet the user’s needs and wants. The product must satisfy the user’s four-pleasures (i.e. Physiology, Sociology, Psychology and Ideology) for a wholesome user experience when they interact with the product. Everything revolves around the users and users and MORE USERS!

With the advent of Internet, competition online is getting tougher. There is a need for us to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the similar websites available. We need to have a cutting edge above the rest. And one way to achieve this is via the use of advanced technology which other sites have not yet discover. Yet we should keep in mind that developing a product that is too complex would not be well received by users as there is a lack of familiarity and neither is a product that is too simple.

I recall all the methodologies that I have learnt in this module: from laddering, to card-sorting, to usability testing, UX evaluation, the bottom line for employing all these techniques is to simply understand, create accordingly to the obtained results and give the users what they want. However there’s no way we can satisfy each and every single users. We can only try our very best to develop the product to be as mass appealing as possible. That is why market research on users is an extremely vital step in the development of a product. Nonetheless, the research techniques and the rationale behind the importance of users that I’ve gained from this module would be of great application for my future endeavors.

Smoke and Mirror Article

Design and science doesn’t go together. One is subjective, one is objective. One is the right brain, one is the left brain. One is emotions the other numbers. One’s qualitative the other quantitative.

However, there are always invaluable insights to the user research done for the UX designer. Although less rigorous methodologies and techniques such as card sorting, usability testing and user personas are subjective by nature, we just have to be honest about it in the final report. Even if the results are really simple, it still provides a basis for the designer to work on their ideas for the UI, design and strategies for UX. It is after all giving the users what they want.

Someone commented that “good research methods can be rendered useless in the hands of a poor interpreter of the data; and can provide very little by way of meaningful insights when incorrectly applied to a problem.” And I totally agree with this statement because wrong interpretation would lead to the creation of a "wrong product" and thus "wrong UX".

Not all researches are bullshit thou. They do provide us with a good gauge of what users want. We cannot make people buy into our product but we can at least increase the chances of them liking it by maneuvering it to satisfy their desires according to the results acquired. User experience is something so abstract and personal and that everyone has their own yardstick to measure UX. “If web design were not an art, then we would always get every part right. But it is an art, and, like all arts, it deals with the subjective. The subjective is something you can never get 100% right”.

In any case, ultimately it’s the users who mark us and grade our success of the product so we should and we must, deliver the product spontaneously to their expectations, needs and wants.

Assignment 4: Emotion design probe

For this assignment, our group took the ethnographic study approach to improve the learning experience in lecture theatres.

We

• Familiarize ourselves with the environment

• Collect information we are exposed to

• Make notes on everything that we see and hear

• Take pictures

So basically we ‘shut up, listen and observe’.

In addition, we also interviewed some of our friends for their comments on learning experience in LTs.

On the whole, we categorized them into ‘human factors’ and ‘physical factors’. Below are the observations.

Human factors

Student behavior – group

• Late-coming

• Students would choose to sit by the stairs rather than move up to the front seats. This could be because they are late for class and thus are embarrassed to move to the front seats if they enter from the back door.
• Students also love to book seats for their late-coming friends and as such, they cause distraction for those sitting by the side, front and back because they’ll be like “sorry sorry sorry, excuse me excuse me!”

• Chit-chatting
• Lots of talking among students except those sitting directly in front of the teacher.
• Noise and restlessness among students especially after announcements.
• When there’s alternating /guest lectures, students pay less attention.
• They pay more attention to jokes and examples for instance short videos.
• Decrease in attendance if module has webcast
• Students start getting fidgety after roughly an hour when there’s no break.

Student behavior - individual

• Use of mobile phones
• Either under the table of they talk behind their lecture notes
• Even when phones are put to silent mode, the vibration of the phone still annoys people around.

• Lecture materials
• Turning of the pages of lecture notes creates noise serves as a disturbance when the lecturer continues to talk.
• Those who use laptops generally surf other websites/ chat on msn/ play games at the same time so it can distract other students. In addition, the typing sound produced can be quite irritating.
• More students are caught sleeping beginning from the middle portion to the back end of the LT.

Lecture behavior

• Unrest when the lecturer paces and wanders around the room, asking questions.
• Lecture notes should be released/printed beforehand.
• No response to lecturer’s questions unless repeatedly probed.
• LT too big à intimidating?
• No incentives awarded for answering e.g. participation points in class
• Cultural factor
• Our culture is less outspoken and since the society does not encourage failures, most students wouldn’t dare to ans the lecturer’s question for fear that the answer may be wrong and we will ‘lose face’.
• Depends on the type of questions asked
• If it’s just those polls which students just need to raise their hands up, there will be response. But if it’s those that are related to the class topic/content, everyone will keep quiet.

Physical factors

• Chairs are too far back in big LTs.
• Full space of lecture theatre not maximized
• Orange lighting and dark purple walls not conducive for studying à too dark, dreamy ambience
• Certain LTs have seats that are too near the screen. Can be straining for our neck.
• Creaking lecture doors are a distraction.
• Air-con too cold for comfort
• Table too small and spoilt ones are not even repaired!
• Limited leg space between rows.

Conclusion

Ultimately, how well a person learns depends on their determination to learn (Assuming, of course, the lecturer is willing and able to teach). There is no way to force a person to learn things against their will. There are ways, however, to minimize annoyances which are likely to distract students – and ultimately detract – from their learning experience. This is what we shall try to reduce.

Solutions

• SOCIAL
• Early arrivals and latecomers showing consideration by moving in and allow latecomers to sit by the side
• Lecturer provides notes beforehand.
• TECHNICAL
• Adjust air-conditioning, oil doors, remove faulty equipment

Proposals

• Tablet PC
  

This writing pen omits the sound created by typing on laptops.

This earpiece prevents the student from getting distracted by surrounding noise created by chit-chatting among other students, laptop ‘typing’, noisy doors, mobile phones etc. this earpiece is solely connected only to the lecturer’s mic per se so that students can only hear the lecturer alone!

• Webcast all lectures
• Go at own speed, play/pause/skip/ff.
• Environmental control
• Choice between passive and interactive learning

Classmate's research:

One of the more interesting presentations is by the fengshui group. It presents learning in NUS as a whole. For instance the morning lecturers at 8am are not a very good timing due to certain factors in the fengshui saying. Although some of their suggestions to improving the learning experience is far-fetch (e.g. the omni-theatre) is not really practical, it was rather creative and maybe someday when NUS is generous enough to build such a LT, I might consider coming back to study!

Assignment 3 : Four pleasure analysis

Imaginary subject: Eunice, 29 yrs old, Singaporean.

She's been working for SIA for 5 yrs before she's promoted to a senior air stewardess. She loves her job very much as it allows her to travel all over the world and yet at the same time, she gets paid. She's a sucker for traveling and she loves meeting people from different parts of the world.

As she works in the service sector, she's in constant meeting with people and thus she needs to carry herself and present her best to others. As such, she exercises 3 times per week engaging in sports like swimming and jogging so as to maintain her figure, look fit and healthy. She has a strong determined character in achieving her goals. Her individualistic personality drives her fashion sense to be stylish and contemporary yet different from mainstream. Thus she is willing to pay for personalized/customized items for herself.

She enjoys photography and being able to travel has increased this pleasure because she gets to snap pictures from various diverse countries. Her job causes her to be regularly away from home where her newly-wed husband, Adam and parents are. Eunice and Adam are still in their honeymoon period but unfortunately she was scheduled assignments to fly long distance and for durations as long as at least a week each time. The newly-weds stay with Adam's family hence both of them do not need to cope with extra costs incurred in supporting a whole flat by themselves. They just pay monthly allowance to Adam's parents therefore, they have aside extra money to splurge on themselves on activities such as shopping, watching plays at esplanade and dining out at expensive restaurants. Eunice is also very filial to both parents so she'll buy souvenirs back for them from different destinations.

Eunice has this group of friends whom she's very close with. They are very envious of her because she gets to travel to widen her horizon and she gets to buy things that can't be found in Singapore, for instance fashion accessories/apparels in Paris and IT gadgets in Japan. She enjoys talking to her friends about her traveling experiences and finds gratification in having things that people can't get in Singapore because it makes her feel special.

Physio- pleasure – Her job as an air stewardess demands her to be at her best performance and appearance at all times and she achieves this by exercising regularly and doing yoga at fitness center as a member. She feels good when she gets praised for looking fabulous. ---- Need pleasure

To reward herself from all the tiring traveling, she goes for spas to relax herself or shop for beauty and health products to enhance her skin and to look young. ---- Appreciation pleasure

Socio- pleasure – She loves the attention given to her when her family and friends start talking about how lucky she is to be able to travel around the world and lay her hands on the latest technology and fashion. Everyone is always commenting how lovely it would be to be in her shoes and she takes secret pleasure in that. ---- Appreciation pleasure

Eunice's a 'people person' so she needs to be showered with attention and TLC (tender, loving and care) from people around her especially family and husband Adam. ---- Need pleasure

Psycho- pleasure – Eunice is a curiosity freak and thus she loves to read because this can help provide her with insights and widen her knowledge. Since she has to travel around constantly, she would usually select travel books to read so as to have some understanding of the countries she's travelling. At the same time she also improve her communication skills by picking up new languages of different countries such as spainish, french, german japanese etc because knowing another language can help her survive better in foreign places. As such, she feels a sense of achievement whenever she manage to acquire these new skill. ---- Need pleasure

Ideo- pleasure – Eunice likes to be different from people. She loves to own pretty things which is not very common among everyone. She's brand-conscious and loves customized items as she feels it eludes her status, success and independent self-hood. ---- Need pleasure

She aspires to be seen as successful young woman. Her long term aspirations are to achieve even more career success. ---- Appreciation pleasure

She has a strong sense of responsibility in the things she do and expects others to have the same attitude when it comes to work as well. She works hard, plays hard. She sympathizes with people who are not so fortunate namely people from special schools, the disabled or those with health problems such as NKF or cancer association etc. Although she may not contribute to these organizations physically, she does occasionally offer donations when her financial condition allows.

Physio	Socio	Psycho	Ideo
Staying in shape	Company	Curiosity	Responsibility
Physical relaxation	Maintains good relationship with loved ones	Sense of achievement	Independence
	Glamour		Compassion

Product benefits Specification for the ideal phone:

Physical:

• The phone has to be slick and thin as like the Motorola's Motorazr V3. This physic would present Eunice as a sophisticaed woman and it would probably match her appearance as slim and sexy. The light-weight would lessen her bag load as well (she wouldnt wanna carry a heavy handbag at the same time dragging a heavy luggage).
  
• However the colour of the phone could be a limited edition maroon red in colour since red represents passion, lust and desire.
• The phone should also include mirror since she needs to be presentable at all times during work and probably when she's out enjoying as well.
• In addition, the design of her phone should also be customized in terms of say for instance having her picture superimposed on the cover of the phone. (See below)

Functions/Applications:

• Tri-band and 3G- technology is necessary since she's constantly traveling to western countries and regularly away from home and loved ones. So with that technology, she would be able to video conference with them as and when she like.
• Since she loves taking pictures of places and with people, a high pixel camera phone is definitely a must, together with a large memory card space for her to store photos and videos.
• The usual photo-editing applications for fun and entertainment, as well as practice her creativity.
• GPS application would be a plus for her because when she's overseas, she could activate the GPS to navigate around unfamiliar places.
  
• A diet calories calculator might just attract her to purchase the phone since she's so health and weight conscious!
• Others would be our usual alarm clock (probably as a wake up device when overseas), calender (plan schedule), to-do list, bluetooth (for easy transfer of photos), web applications for MSN chat, able to categorise different contact groups etc.
  

Assignment 2: Pleasure with products

Find 3 examples of visceral, behavioral and reflective design. Document your reflection on the emotional impact of these products.

1. Piano keyboard

Visceral design: The appearance/packaging of piano keyboard gives people the impression that it’s more of a musical instrument you can get from Toy ‘R’ Us. It’s not very attractive probably because of its size, those messy buttons on it and those ugly speakers attached to it.

Behavioral design: Multiple functions due to the buttons attached to it which the user can use to adjust and manipulate the music. E.g techno, organ-like, disco beats (thus it’s quite nonsense and creates the image that it’s for kids to play with like a toy and not a piano for you to play classical pieces with.) It is nonetheless easy to use as with other types of piano but however the touch of the notes/keys is not as solid as a ‘Real’ piano.

Reflective design: It feels more like a toy than a piano that you would want to use for performance. It’s more commonly used for street performance or for beginners. Hence it doesn’t reflect on users the kind of status symbol and since the music it produced is so artificial, it obviously doesn’t give the user the pleasure/feeling of performing in a grand environment when playing it.

2. Normal Piano

Visceral design: This is what we call a Piano! At least it looks more presentable than No.1 above. It has the size/height, the shiny/reflective material which makes it look elegant.

Behavioral design: The touch of this piano definitely beats the above keyboard. The look and feel of this 2nd product is much more impressive. I guess because of its physical form, it makes the user feel more like a pianist, in the sense like 1 level above the previous keyboard. Needless to say, pianos are all the same, their functionality/usability is roughly more or less there. So of course it’s easy to use lah.

Reflective design: As mentioned from above, it makes the user feel more like a pianist and the sound produced is much better than the keyboard. This piano is also much more presentable when placed at home. At least one can imagine him/her performing using this piano on stage but maybe not for a very grand occasion. This piano is like sitting on the fence, not too bad nor very magnificent. It’s like……………… normal lor.

3. Grand Piano

Visceral design: OOOOOOoooooooo don’t you just want to play on a grand piano? What are the chances of you playing/performing in a grand piano, unless you’re so rich you can afford to buy and place one at home! It’s unquestionably VISUALLY PLEASING to anyone! Argh you just want to sleep on it don’t you?

Behavioral design: This grand piano may look super nice to play with but in fact, there’s something I personally feel its bad. When you do normal playing, it’s perfect. But once you step on one of the 3 peddles below, the WHOLE KEYBOARD SHIFTS TO THE RIGHT! So it makes playing till halfway very disturbing! Unless you’re very used to playing with a grand piano, you will be so conscious of it when you’ve to step on peddle to make sure your hands don’t run off the ‘runway’! Another point to note is that because it’s so huge, when the user sits down, he/she can’t see the 3 peddles below at all and has to depend on own ‘feeling’ to place the feet at the right spot.

Reflective design: Alright, face it, anyone would be proud to own a grand piano! So naturally because of its physical outlook, the price, the name, everything that associates with it (E.g ambience) this piano represents a high status symbol. Grand piano is also well-known for its performance on stage during concerts for instance. Absolutely, a show-off!

Bad Design (warm-up assignment)

Don't press any buttons underwater!
*Click on the above image to get to the link!

Personal Reflection:

The above product is an utterly bad design for a water resistance watch! How can a water resistance watch not able to perform underwater when in the first place the main function of it is supposed to fulfill the very basic of operating in water? I totally agree with the author that the limitations are ridiculous because one definitely needs to press on the buttons if we were to use the watch as some form of stopwatch under water if swimming for instance. Hence the functionality wise for this product is a failure. For usability wise, I guess apart from the pressing of buttons underwater, the rest of the operations like telling time and acting as a ‘timer’ on land would probably be working perfectly fine. Visually it might have been quite restricted because it’s too sporty to be worn in other occasions other than while playing sports. Although we can’t really tell what brand this watch is but I suppose the company has a whole load of PR to do so as to change the public’s opinion on their product and brand name! (I mean it’s under the list of ‘BAD DESIGNS’!!) I can’t really comment on the quality of pleasure one has with the product because I do not have the real product with me. But based on the author’s write-up, I guess his experience with the product isn’t too good either.

Other user’s reaction:

Below are 3 participant’s comments after visiting the page and reading about the product.

o Capture user reaction

• Their feelings towards the product
• Lesson they learnt from the interaction
• Their impression on brand

Participant A:

“He thinks the watch sucks and that it doesn’t look nice aesthetically because probably this kind of watches doesn’t appeal to him. He also mentioned that “ …if it fills up when I press some buttons in the water, I guess the function sucks as well. But I wouldn’t blame the watch though because I would ask about a watch clearly before I buy 1 like what it can/cannot do.” Lesson learnt for him is that one should find out more about a certain product b4fore purchasing as after all who would like to make second trips back to the shop? Impression on brand is that it looks cheapskate!”

Participant B:

“Firstly, I feel that this product has a degree of deception because they are deceiving consumers about their functionality. “It’s like selling a product with small fonts saying ‘batteries sold separately’ where people can’t see and won’t notice.” Functionality wise it’s definitely not practical because if you design a water resistance watch, it should be functioning properly like it is when it’s on land. The watch’s design definitely looks good- very sporty and light. Other than that, if I had such an incident with this watch, I would lose faith in the brand and their other products and would be more careful in selecting any of their products next time.”

Participant C:

“Who would press the button in water? I swim, and from this article, it states that this person swims laps and counts the timing. If he reaches the end of the lap and touches the wall... then who would stay inside the water and press the button? You would lift up your head... your body upright and start pressing the button rite..? Logical? To me, I think the brand itself, has already taken into the consideration that water might leak in if you press the button underwater... If the brand markets it as a triathlon watch on their part, I think they have done their best.

But on the consumer part, I still don’t understand how and why he press the button underwater... as it is not an underwater watch... it didn’t state that was a diving watch.... but a triathlon watch instead and its partly his fault... he did not clarify... and when the watch is here... after something happen den he reads the instruction booklets... why does he do it in another way? It states water resistant... not water proof...if he had tried to go underwater without pressing the button... sure can but by pressing the button... u create open space in between the walls of the buttons and the buttons... thus allowing water to reach the inner parts of the watch - which is the electronic part.”

Personal Reflection on User reaction:
After being exposed to the participant’s comments, especially participant C, it actually did changed my opinion of the watch as true enough, when I had the words ‘resistant’ and ‘proof’ checked up, it states that :

• Resistant- resisting though not entirely preventing the penetration of water.

• Proof- Impervious to or unaffected by water.

Hence the watch can’t be blamed for everything in this sense because it stated itself as a ‘Triathlon model’ and water resistant instead of waterproof. Through this exercise, I realised that however bad a design is, some people would still see the benefits of it. It all depends oh how the user uses the product and what the product meant to the user. However, a good product should not ‘deceive’ their consumers in such a way that it will cause them to be in a state of confusion when using it, causing them to feel unsatisfied after using it and worst create trouble for them such as having to return to the retail shop/log a complaint etc. The product must not mislead anyone using it and it should be easy to use/understand, states clearly its functions and is of use to people. Nonetheless, the product has to be aesthetically attractive enough to capture people’s attention. The user’s experience towards a company’s product is very important for the organization because it can affect their long-term profits thus causing the downfall of the business. If the UX is pleasurable, it’ll increase sales and customer loyalty.