My experience with “designing for UX”

Initially, before I took this module, I had no idea what User Experience Design was all about. In fact, I’ve never heard of the term up to that point. During the first lecture when Mr Reddy was introducing the concept to us, it seemed like some mystical, tangled mess of many different ideas and fields of study. It seemed intangible and unattainable. How could one design for user experience rather than what we were all used to up to that point, designing for usability. Through the course of this module, it seems the answer can then be simplified to “understand the user’s emotional and psychological needs”.

Of course, this is harder said than done. Throughout this course, we have learnt many various frameworks, techniques and methods to try and achieve this. However, it seems all this is at best an educated guess of what your users really need and want. Of course, all this has still got to be balanced with not only usability issues, which is still very important but also the visual design of the product, which influences both usability and emotional value. A juggling act is thus needed when “designing for UX” but at the center of it all, it’s always about the users.

How then, does one figure out who one’s users are, what they want, why they want it, and how they want it? User research of course. However, as with all forms of research and testing, in my opinion at least, it probably works best in real world applications where a project team really has bosses and clients to answer to and clarify question with; potential user groups to conduct research and testing; and of course the resources to run all these activities. In a classroom situation and as students, we don’t really have access to these pools of subjects that we can turn to for research and testing purposes and as a result, our findings are understandably skewed by the conditions as well.

So do all these research and testing methods really help you develop THE killer product? I really doubt so and probably have to agree with Christopher Faheys’ rather cynical views of user research in his article, User Research Smoke & Mirrors. As he claims, how can research that is entirely qualitative and subject be transformed into something objective and quantitative? Are scientific “principles” and “correctness” really better than a designer’s gut feel, experience and talent? I think not! In my opinion, what makes a great product is a great idea, a great idea that is well executed. But how do you make sure it is well executed? From proper planning and knowing how your great idea can fit into your user’s lifestyle, needs and wants. How do you know this? Well, you can see where this is going…

But if there’s one thing I’ve learn in NM4210, it’s that everyone has their own opinion and point of view so assuming that you can pigeon hole your users is probably a very wrong approach to begin with. Through all the various classroom activities and assignments, one really does see how it really DOES depend on the user. For example, during the classroom RMA activity on the pair of sunglasses, I’ve already seen how a team of 3 people can’t even decide on which gender they are designed for, let alone the possible user profiles for marketing.

The final assignment gave us a chance to put into practice many of the research methods and techniques taught throughout the module in a long-term team-based environment, allowing us to get a feel of how a fully UX development process is really like. From conceptualization all the way through to implementation and evaluation, users were always the key. Being the only group with a physical product also gave us the opportunity to shape almost every aspect of what we wanted our project to be. We tried to appeal to our user’s emotions by using very visceral elements in terms of bold colours and striking designs because it’s always the first impression that counts. People are probably far more likely to be convinced to buy such a drink based on how it looks rather than expectations of how it could possibly taste or what kind of psychological or sociological benefits it might have.

In the final stages of our final assignment, we had to carry out User Experience evaluations. We choose to use the Circumplex of emotions and Reaction checklist methods via questionnaires. However, it seems very odd to me that one can even measure someone’s emotional reaction to a website in this way. As we have learnt in class, what users say and what they feel may actually not be the same due to their surrounding conditions, personality and even mood. In mapping out their supposed “emotional reaction” to the website on the circular graph, one really has to wonder how as Fahey has said, something subjective and qualitative can be recorded as objective and quantitative. Does this make the test and results any more valid? How then should emotional evaluations really be carried out? I suspect one way would be by observing the users as they experience the website and reading their body language and expressions. However, this is far less “scientific” and much, much harder to do than it sounds.

So if all this sounds very negative, have I learnt anything from my experience with designing for UX? Sure I have! Although many of the methods and techniques learnt and used seem to have questionable real-world importance, it is not unexpected considering how new and relatively undefined this field of study is. However, that doesn’t mean that designers should ignore UX altogether because I am convinced that it is the most effective way to capture the user. At the beginning of this course I showed one of my friends, who is running his own startup, writing software for the Treo and Mac OS, some of the reference materials from this module. As a hardcore computer science trained developer, he sees UX as a big bunch of “psychobabble” and impractical theories that don’t implement well. Maybe he fails to see the big picture but he is right to a certain extent. However, as the field of UX develops and the methods and ideas improve, many minds will soon change. I’m sold. ;)

Final assignment - Final prototype presentation (back-post)

Our final prototype had gone through quite a bit of revision since the previous paper prototype and the interface now used rotating panels rather than sliding ones. However, this solved the issues discovered earlier and also made the look and feel more slick. I also had the actual Kneon bottles for demo during the class presentation. Overall, the class reaction was pretty positive with some people seeming impressed by the look of our site. We take this as a sign of success that our design does illicit some sort of emotional response from our audience.

Final assignment - Paper prototype (Back-post)

There was no class presentation this week so we simply demoed our paper prototype as well as user testing results to Mr Reddy during class. Our design had some issues with the functionality of interface as well as the rather cryptic labelling of different sections. These had to be ironed out later on, before the final prototype was developed.

I was responsible for creating the actual Kneon products themselves including the labelling and photography of the different coloured bottles. I had problems creating the labels for the bottles due to the uneven-ness of using silver spray paint on a transparency-based stencil. Mr Reddy gave me some good advice on how this could be done properly with the right kind of sticky masking paper. I ended up printing out the labels on sticker paper and painstakingly cutting them out so they could be used as stencils. Once applied to the bottles and with rest of the bottle properly wrapped up with saram-wrap, the spray painting was carried out. The results were not perfect but still better than the previous approach. The photography of the bottles was also rather time consuming due to the need to set up and adjust the various lights (up to 3 sources) needed to achieve the right sort of moody lighting effects required.

Final assignment - Project definition and information organization (Back-post)

After having talked to some potential users, we made some changes to our project with regard to the market segmentation. Rather than divide them according to 2 distinct age groups, we decided to use their motivations for drinking instead. The first and main target market would be those that drank more for social reasons. The secondary market would be those that drank for personal enjoyment and the taste of the drink itself. This helped make our product more specific to their different needs in terms of what Kneon could offer to each of these groups. Our experience strategy expanded on the product advantages and four-pleasures analysis done previously. As for information organisation and structure, due to our flat and low-content website design, there wasn't much that could be done. The usability and experience objectives defined some measurable goals that we predicted could be achievable.

Final assignment - Product definition and user research (Back-post)

It seems we have jumped the gun in creating our product definition and missed out the most important first step in the process: Finding out what are target users really want. Mr Reddy pointed this out to us during our group discussion and I felt quite silly that we had assumed to much about our users (this is USER experience after all). Anyway, it meant that we had to go back, question some people and then modify what we had done. Hopefully it should be pretty much on track, since we based a lot of it on what we had read from the Straits Times article on the current trends of youth drinkers (although the ST isn't exactly the most credible source on the planet).

Final assignment - Presentation and report (Back-post)

After thinking it through and getting a clear idea of what we wanted for Kneon, writing the report was just a matter of penning down these ideas and doing some research into the possible market needs and wants. I think our presentation was somewhat more interesting as 1. We were the last group to go so i think everyone was pretty much tired out and possibly bored. 2. We were the only group that is basically creating a new physical product (with of course the website as our "deliverable", since we can't actually go and make our own alcoholic beverage.. Or can we? >:) ). Looking around as we introduced Kneon, i saw a whole range of expressions, from grins to shocked faces (promoting a drinking culture to the youth i guess). Anyway, we did receive some interesting comments and suggestions from our classmates.

Final assignment - First proposal (Back-post)

Our group wanted to do a flash-based interactive product advertisement/demo based on the Samsung D900 handphone. We even came up with a whole 1.5 page draft proposal for the project describing the roles and motivations of the Producer, Designer and Users, as well as some proposed features of the application. Being all from SOC and all of us having done a similar project before for a HCI module, we felt that we could best apply our skills to this sort of application. However, the idea was pretty much shot down by Mr Reddy for the lack of depth (being only 1 very specific product) and the fact that it would have to be tagged to Samsung's own existing image, branding and UX strategy. He had a very good point and thus we decided to brainstorm again to come up with something new, fresh and totally innovative...

And Kneon was born...

Emotion Design Probe - Learning experience in the LT

A Summary

If memory serves me right, we were one of the few groups that defined the exact area of concern, that is:
1. Students’ level of concentration in lectures - deals mainly with the physical and emotional state of students
2. Students’ ability to comprehend lectures, or both – deals mainly with the cognitive aspects of learning

We also defined what a good learning experience would be.

In terms of methodology, every group had different sets of frameworks and data collection methods. Our group used field observations, interviews, questionaires and laddering while some other groups also included surveys, some form of cultural probes as well as environmental inference (Feng Shui).

In terms of frameworks, we oriented our questions towards fundamental questions of "What the students thought", "What they want", "How they reacted and Hidden reasons for their responses". As for analysing the data, we looked mainly at the factors that influence an experience: Environment, Time, Place, Other peoples’ interpretation and Previous experience. Some other groups brought in a modified version of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to be applied to the situation which was quite interesting. Some groups also tried to adapt the "Four pleasures" framework for this case. However, we felt that this was a case of force-fitting since the framework's purpose is to analyse one's sources of pleasure and the LT learning experience in itself cannot be assuming to be inherently pleasurable to begin with, at least for most people.

Our observations and results were structured to look at both the humanistic and technological factors that influence students' level of concentration as well as the effect of different lecturer styles on students' ability to comprehend lessons. Our findings pointed towards comfort levels as a major determinant to level of concentration. From poorly designed furniture, over-enthusiastic air-conditioning, overly early/late lectures to the LT location, a myriad of different complaints were suggested. Many distrations also occured due to the misbehaviour of other students. As for presentation style, students generally disliked lecturers that read off slides and many cited unintelligible lecturers as a major concern. Other problems identified included the lack of equipment and organisational proficiency.

Most groups bought up many of the same problems highlighted, including the lack of legroom in some lecture theaters, the poorly designed tables, lecturers with poor communication skills and so on. These common issues are probably the most obvious to all of us as students and thus become the most salient.

While most groups were able to come up with numerous recommendations to overcome hardware flaws such as increasing legrooms, or installing padded seats and rubber padded doors, most would agree that disturbances from other students were difficult to stop. Through our observations, disturbances from students were extremely common, ranging from chitchats to food consumption. Although rules are made regarding student behaviours in lecture theatres, they are conveniently ignored. The most potentially viable recommendations, however, was to have teachers make better lesson deliveries. Some of the groups have brought up the same issue of conducting more interesting lessons (such as having a lecturer with a good sense of humour) to make the learning experience a pleasurable one. Our interviews and surveys reveal that students prefer lessons with value added extras such as multimedia presentations of videos, audios, interactive software and images, rather than just powerpoints and transparencies. Other elements such as animations can also help students understand difficult concepts better than just verbal explanations. Students have reflected that ‘if the lecturer is good, even if the LT is bad, at least the lecture can be made interesting.’ Our recommendation is thus to have enrichment classes for lecturers, so as to work towards that target of giving students an interesting and pleasurable learning experience for every lecture.

Four pleasure analysis

The target user profile:

Anton, 35, is a General Manager of the marketing department of a MNC in Singapore. He has degree in marketing as well as an MBA from an American University. He was offered a job by his present company even before he graduated with his masters. After a few years of hard work and rapid promotions, Anton has reached a position where he has both the spending power as well as comfort level to start enjoying his life.

Although hard working, Anton is also a party animal, frequenting clubs and pubs on the weekends till the wee hours of the morning, living by the philosophy of working hard and playing hard. Anton also enjoys a game of golf with his buddies on Sunday afternoons as a way to relieve his work stress as well as a way to keep fit since he rarely has the time to exercise on most days, being stuck in the office till late. He doesn't believe in mixing business with pleasure and would rather not be bothered by work when he is out enjoying himself.

Anton lives alone in a private apartment in an upmarket area, enjoying the bachelor lifestyle. He hires a maid to come over to tidy up the place and do the laundry once every two days since he doesn't have the time to do the household chores himself. Anton normally eats out and there are rarely any dishes to do. However, he does invite his buddies over sometimes for poker games where they polish off many cartons of beer. His circle of friends are mostly professionals like himself that he has met over the years working for the MNC. He had lost contact with his old friends after he went for his studies overseas.

Although an only child, Anton choses to stay alone away from his parents because of his years of studying overseas and being independent. He likes to feel free from obligations and wants to be his own man, in control of his own destiny. He does however, visit them once every month at their flat in Woodlands. He also helps them out with the household expenses as he still feels a sense of duty towards them, especially for their huge investment sunk in when they sent him overseas for studies.

Anton doesn't have any steady girlfriend, choosing instead to remain free from any serious relationships which he sees as a burden to the lifestyle he is enjoying. Seeing himself as a swinging bachelor, he also has a thing for the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s. He also likes designs that are unique and products that are more exclusive, helping seperate him from the crowd and celebrating his individualism.

Applying the four-pleasure framework:

Physio-pleasure:
Clubbing/drinking (Appreciation)
Golf for fitness (Need)

Socio-pleasure:
Enjoy bachelor lifestyle (Need)
Freedom from relationships (Need)
Hanging out with his buddies (Need)
Need visit parents since living alone (Appreciation)

Psycho-pleasure:
Stress release (Need)
Keeping work and play seperate (Need)
Ability to be fully in control (Need)
Feeling that he forged a successful career (Appreciation)

Ideo-pleasure:
High regard for individualism and personal freedom (Need)
Working hard and playing hard (Need)
Sense of duty to parents for upbringing (Appreciation)
Unique sense of style for the exclusive (Appreciation)

The ideal hand phone:

Product benefits specification:

• Stylish, retro look (Appeals to the retro-inspired sense of style)
• Quality finish and build (Adds to the feeling of a high quality product, something befitting one's high status)
• Designed by a renowned designer (ie. Philippe Starck, gives a sense of exclusivity and good taste)
• Slim clamshell design with large main and external display (Easy to carry and read for the active lifestyle)
• Large buttons and easy to use interface (Less stressful operation and gives the user a sense of control)
• Easy to manage contacts and grouping options (Easier to manage large groups of contacts with groups, for example, work, buddies, girlfriends)
• User defined profiles to store various configurations (Ability to quickly switch from work oriented settings to play oriented settings)
• Customisable user-interface with themes, wallpapers and screensavers (Ability to personalise the look of the phone to one's own unique taste)
• Basic organiser functions like calendar and todo list (Ability to handle some work or non-work related activities more easily)

Emotion and design

How does emotion play a role in how a product is designed? Let's take 3 examples in the form of electric guitars and see how they stack up.


The first contender: Gibson Custom Shop Zakk Wylde Aged Les Paul



Behavioral: Great tone, great handling, comfortable to play, but otherwise like most electric guitars out there

Reflective: Signature series of a well-known guitar hero with distinctive trademarks (the bulleyes paint job) to identify itself, limited edition with special aged finish and hardware (gives it an antique look), USD$6000!

Visceral: Classic sexy Les Paul shape (but common), unique paint job


The second contender: Schecter C1EA Semi-Hollow with Piezo Pickup



Behavioral: Extremely versatile in terms of tone due to the addition of piezo pickups (gives an acoustic guitar like sound when played without distortion), semi-hollow body gives it a warm acoustic tone, comfortable to play, great handling

Reflective: Apart from the piezo pickups (which are not obvious just by looking at the guitar) there is nothing special about this guitar, the price is not particularly prohibitive either

Visceral: Very plain and common looking


The final contender: BC Rich SE Beast



Behavioral: Doesn't seem particularly comfortable to play with all the sharp edges and points, no way to stand the guitar on it's own, hard to transport (need unusual shaped bag), possibly easily damaged due to all the bits sticking out

Reflective: Quite easily available (even locally) and not particularly expensive so it's not really exclusive in any way

Visceral: Extremely unusual and radical design that looks like no other guitar, makes you go "Wow!" the first time you see it, shouts aggression

Reflections on a bad design

The candidate - The wiper controls from a 2006 Subaru Legacy


To understand why this is a bad design, 2 infrequent users of the product were interviewed to see if they could still remember what each control did and how to operate them.

Their reactions:

The first user: My dad

He was able to recognize what main function the wiper control was for but failed to correctly identify how the main wiper speed was set. He thought it was done by twisting the knob as this was his experience from previous vehicles. However, in actual fact this is done by pulling or pushing the entire stem down or up.

Next, he was able to identify the interval duration control for the wiper (the knob with the marked out scale besides it) but incorrectly assumed that twisting the knob towards the larger markings made the wipers activate faster (shorter interval). The reason given for this was that it is usually the norm that the larger markings would mean a faster setting. The smaller markings actually indicate a shorter interval time and thus the knob should have been twisted upwards instead.

For the rear wiper controls, my dad didn’t have any problem identifying the functions and operation of the controls. He did however, find it weird that the marking for the ‘interval’ setting is inconsistent between the front and rear wiper controls. For the front it’s a symbol while for the rear it’s the words “INT”.

The second user: My mum

She pretty much had the same reactions and problems with the controls but in addition, she was initially unable to identify that it was for the rear wipers.

What they learnt:

Having both individually gone through the design of the wiper controls, they both then realized that the controls were not very well designed as they are not intuitive enough. Some amount of trial and error would be needed to figure out how to use the controls.

Both of them had relied on their past experiences with other vehicles as well as certain assumptions about conventions in design (such as the larger markings = faster/bigger assumption) to aid them in understanding these controls. However, through their interaction with this specific design, they then realized that these assumptions may not always be the case.

Their impressions on the brand:

Both of them however, did not feel that feel that this poorly design component would affect their impression of the brand as it was only a trivial matter.

Personal thoughts:

Having used these controls myself on quite a regular basis, especially during these few rainy weeks, it is still easy to understand why one would be confused by them. I only figured them out after some period of trial and error, especially the interval duration setting.

Both my parents have not used these controls for a few months and it would seem that their operation is easily forgotten. All these factors point to the importance for such product design to be intuitive and natural to the user so that for example, the common assumptions made by users can be applied. It was not at all surprisingly that they were confused by the controls, especially the interval duration setting since the mapping used is counter-intuitive.

Welcome to my new Blog aka Rantspace!

This blog was spawned out of necessity to fulfil a module requirement. The only other blog I've ever created (and still maintain) is my photoblog. Anyway, I might get hooked on this whole "share your thoughts with the world as if they give a (insert animal)'s (insert body part)" thing. =^)