Final reflections on UX

This is it... the end of the semester marking the start of examinations that I dread. But before I really bid this module goodbye, let me say a few things and some thoughts regarding UX design.

Assignment 0 - A good start into the module, I remembered I was trying to think of the bad designs I have came across in my life but suddenly couldn't remembered all of them for this assignment. In the end I used the clock as what I think as a bad design. From this assignment, I know how to have an eye for bad design and identify what is actually useful for the user. Sometimes when I find some things puzzling and frustrating to use, bad User Interface (UI) could be the reason, but it didn't really cross my mind at that time. And I wondered if it was my usage and being a 'bad' user really cause all the problems I was facing. But now I know that being a 'bad' user is not totally bad, it is just the bad design causing us to become one.

Assignment 1 - Wow... I have no idea that product and emotion comes hand in hand. Silly me It does. How we use a product and the emotional attachment that we bring when we use the product is very important. Sometimes this could be how experience is being build. Able to have a product pleasurable and fun to use can make the user happy and feel good. And also the subjectivity that it encompassed is wide. For a bag that I find which is practical to use (behavioural), can be a something with a meaning for them (reflective).

Assignment 2 - Difficult assignment... oops... but I remembered I spent a lot of time creating the persona for a cute Hello Kitty handphone. I learnt something new is that creating a persona from scratch is not easy, and sometimes we may be exaggerating certain aspects and ignoring other aspects. It is always useful to refer to a real person when we are creating personas for a product. I feel that a persona that we created for a product may not be the persona that the other think should be using the product. My point is that persona is another subjective thing which certain people may have different meanings and perspectives for a product.

Assignment 3 - This was called a nightmare assignment. After doing it, I think maybe it is. Although I didn't have the feeling of nightmarish doing this assignment, it could be doing this with other concurrent assignments of other modules is enough to make it nightmarish. Initally, I have no absolute idea in how to approach this other than just observation and interviews. But from what I can see, improving LT learning experience is a very big thing itself, and many factors determine the perfect environment for good learning. I learnt that there is no absolute method we can use to really improve something which is so unpredictable and subjective like learning experience which differs from people to people. The best that designers tries to do is to fulfill the needs and let the users be the ones to determine what is really for them.

Final Project - Finally the final project, I did this project with Nelson and Yee Shiang. We had a tough time to decide what product we can so before we settle on the a planner. We didn't even know we are going to do a planner when we initially were thinking about improving and imparting life skills to people, which later we realized that it is something not easily solvable by a product. Life skills is something we goes through in life so that we will learn and gain experience from. We didn't think much because we were really stuck, and then after a long discussion, we finally settle on a planner.

The most difficult part of this project is to visualise the needs and getting users to test the product. I know why the process of a good user research is messy and time consuming. It was really the case when I was doing the project. Lot of times I have to be very patient and the need to make the effort to let the user to test out our product and give us valuable feedbacks. I really want to thanks those who have give us their time in helping us in our project. Also in the process, I have learnt a lot and gain valuable experiences in UI design.

Last words - Like Reddy always said in his lectures that we cannot create experiences. I think it is a trap that designers might fall in trying to design to create the experiences, but it's just isn't the case. Experience will only come after the product is done and needs of the user are fulfilled. So needs are very important and the base where designers should use in creating their products.

Review on 'User Research Smoke and Mirrors'

The article "User Research Smoke and Mirrors" is right here.

A pretty insight read I admit. It got me into thinking of the real value of doing tons and tons user research and how it might get designers into the "wrong" track if we are not careful. I agree with Fahey point of view that it is ridiculous to make usability testing as if it is science or even make it very scientific. I feel that usability is quite a subjective matter. Some things which maybe useful to others may not be useful for others. Like some may find user interface of Mac to be user-friendly, while those who are very used to Windows might find Mac to be difficult or worse at times annoying to use. I'm not here to say that Mac is bad, but I'm just saying that things which work for some might be working for others. This is something that designers had to really keep in mind.

Like the eyetracking example that Fahey mentioned, eyetracking might be a very cool method to use as a form of user testing method. However, it will fail if it is not used appropriately. I completely agreed with Fahey that it is obviously weird and nonsensical to use eyetracking when you already know the reasons for certain aspects of design problems. I feel that if it is plain obvious that the real reason of the design is because of an serious design error, there is no need to waste time and money on superfluous user testing methods.

Certain interesting things that Fahey pointed out for example, research is completely useless when you have a capable UI designer. Although I feel it is a debatable point, it is not wrong to say that. It is completely okay to do without research if the designer really know what's good and useful for the user, and should use research whenever it is not obvious and there is a need to get unbiased feedback from the users so that the designer would fall into the trap of saying his design is definitely good.

But I feel that it is not completely fair to say that those in the senior management positions have bad design concepts and need these research results in order to be convinced. If these senior management staffs aren't good with their design concepts, probably it will be good to educate them in this area and maybe let them be the users
themselves. I feel it is also important to let them understand design flaws so that they won't make the same mistakes again. It is not exactly wise to use research especially if the method is just too devious to let them understand that unless it is justifiable. My point is it important to let those involve in the design process to know the reason for such and such design.

Since user experience from what I understand is a mostly subjective and a hardly 100% graspable topic like Mathematics or Science. It is obvious that subjective and non-scientific user research method should be employ to understand usability problems. I feel there is no hard and fast method in user research, and also it is nothing very scientific either. What we need is just common sense in helping us determine what is good for us.

Assignment 4 - Improving LT learning experience

I did this assignment with Nelson and Yee Shiang on improving learning experience in lecture theatre (LT). We had taken several types of study, mainly using laddering technique and ethnographic study: observation. We went to crash a lecture in the engineering faculty to observe the behaviours of students and how the lecture is conducted in an objective manner. The lecture that we attended was IE2101 Introduction to System Design.

We decided to embark onto this journey as we wanted to sit in the lecture to observe a lecture from a third person point of view.

And here are some of the observations that we found:
- students not paying attention
- chatting
- eating
- MSN-ing with that laptop
- lecturer droning throughout the whole lecture
- late-comers
- bland lecture slides
- students sleeping

Overall the whole an hour lecture was bland, boring and noisy (restless noises from the students). Even those who tried to listen attentively to the lecture were beginning to feel bored, started to fall asleep and find entertaining things to do like chatting with their friends. It was quite appalling for the lecturer to keep on lecturing without bothering whether the students were paying attention or not. I thought usually lecturers would pause to let the students know that they should be keeping quiet and pay attention. But in this lecture, it was really weird. Maybe the lecturer wasn't that experienced or he just didn't bothered.

Another thing was that the lecture slides were extremely wordy. Since the topic he was teaching was quite theory-centred with complex ideas, I thought he should give a clearer explaination by illustrating with diagrams and examples. Worse, he did not even pause to ask whether the students had any questions or not.


We also did the laddering approach to find out how students in general felt about the learning experience in LTs. Although by the end of the interview, many of them were quite irritated by the style of the laddering approach, most of them replied the environment was a huge factor in determining a great learning experience; while one of the them replied that all didn't matters as long as the lecturer is good in teaching and the lecture is interesting. Basically, having the mindset to learn in an interesting lecture is enough to raise the learning experience.

What the solutions that we proposed:
- compulsory effective communication courses for lecturers
- a committee to review the teaching ability of the lecturers
- graded participation for the students
- students can text message the lecturers questions via some system


From the results of these observations, I find that learning experience in LTs depends on a lot of factors. Mainly, having a comfortable environment like air-con at the right temperature (not too cold or hot); lightings comfortable on the eyes, soft-comfy chairs, visible projector screen etc. I felt that having an interesting lecturer was an very important factor in raising learning experience in LT. If the lecturer was droning on and on non-stop without injecting any humour or jokes, the lecture would probably be very boring and made students want to sleep rather than concentrate. Distractions from other students could proved to be quite fatal as other students would not be able to be concentrating on the lecture.

Assignment 2 - Four pleasure analysis

Last week I did a persona who likes that expensive Hello Kitty Camera with Nelson. I will be making some touches and colours to the personality and see what kind of handphone is most suitable for her.


Persona Chart for Deborah Lim

Deborah Lim is 17 years old. She is the only child, living in a condominium with her working parents, sometimes speaks to her parents in Cantonese dialect.

Deborah is currently pursuing a polytechnic student studying mass communication diploma.

A happy-go-lucky and a super Japanese fad, she has the tendency to act cute by speaking pseudo Japanese with friends around. Although she is good enough to qualify for a Junior College education, she prefers a polytechnic education as she cannot take the stress of the studying for the A levels and rather take the less stress route. Loves to play, occasionally go out with friends to shopping malls to chill out in TCC, fast food restaurants, sometimes outings to play pools or bowling. She also loves shopping whether online or offline, could spend up to hundreds of dollars in one go.

She believes in taking things in stride, and usually shows a happy and cheerful personality to her friends. Despite being a super Hello Kitty fanatic, she does not overtly show off her Hello Kitty items to others. However, her best friends know her well enough would get her Hello Kitty related merchandises on her birthday and other special occasions. Deborah also knows when to work hard and put in effort when it comes to studies. She sometimes gives time to help her friends with problems in schoolwork. She is also active in school activities such as drama and dancing. She feels that taking part in such activities will widen her social circle and increase her confidence in public speaking.

Deborah learnt the piano since she was very young, and obtained a grade 8 level for it. She prefers J-pop and Korean pop songs although she listens to English and Chinese pop songs on the radio too.

She hopes to further her studies in media-related courses in the future, and she is striving hard in her studies and extra curricular activities.


Physio-pleasure:

She likes to relax in a big sofa in front of the TV or the computer after a hectic day in school. – need pleasure

She will sometimes follow her mother to spa to relief stress – appreciation pleasure

She likes to listen to music while doing her work, during free times she will watch her favourite idols concerts, drama serials in her computer or read comic on her bed. – appreciation pleasure

Compliment to her rather sedentary lifestyle, she will also go to East Coast Park for rollerblade-ing and cycling, and also for ice-skating in Jurong East. – need pleasure


Socio-pleasure:

She is a cheerful and happy-go-lucky person among her friends. - appreciation pleasure

Loves the company of her friends as without them she will feels lonely since she is the only child and both of her parents are working. – need pleasure

Provides good listening hear to her friends, she is always glad to be of help whenever any of her friends is in need of one. – appreciation pleasure


Psycho-pleasure:

She tends to get bored easily if she is left with nothing to do during the holidays. She will find activities to do and hardly ever gets tired doing them. – need pleasure

She tends to sleep late till the afternoon during the holidays to make up for the lack of sleep during her school days. – need pleasure

She will play her favourite j-pop tunes on the piano from the musical scores she can find online or in Kinokuniya and uploads them onto Youtube. She gains satisfaction from the comments and ratings she gets for her videos. – appreciation pleasure


Ideo-pleasure:

She is fairly liberal and politically apathetic.

She is not exactly worried about her style of fashion. She wears anything that she feels comfortable with and does not really bother about being not stylish or seen as tomboyish – need pleasure

Deborah does not overtly show off her Hello Kitty items to others, most of her Hello Kitty merchandise would be collectors’ items. - appreciation pleasure

She does not have any religion at the moment, but sometimes would follow her friends to churches. – appreciation pleasure


In summary,

Physio-pleasure – Physical relaxation, staying in shape
Socio-pleasure – company, maintaining good relationships
Psycho-pleasure – stress relief, sense of achievement, being involved
Ideo-pleasure – sensible, attitude of play hard & study hard, take things in stride, humble


Product Benefits Specification:

Practical aspects:

• Make calls and text messages her friends


• Able listen to music and FM radio on the go


• Large storage space for contacts and music mp3s


• Able to use to store her schedules and keep memos since she has a lot of activities going on in a day and needs to keep track of them

Affective aspects:

• Hello Kitty related since she is fanatic


• Able to snug in hand


• Aesthetically pleasing design especially for Hello Kitty models


• Design should not be too loud, able to blend in with other non-Hello Kitty phone models, and it should represents her humble personality

The hand phone that I managed to find is this Hello Kitty edition of OKWAP CT150T which is a Taiwan phone. But let’s assume this phone is workable in Singapore’s GSM phone network for the sake of this assignment.

This phone is a special Hello Kitty edition. It comes with many freebies along with the phone. It also comes with 5 different Hello Kitty ringtones, interactive game, themes and provide downloads for Hello Kitty related themes. It is perfect phone for Deborah since she is collector of Hello Kitty merchandises.

Aesthetically pleasing, the design does not scream ‘LOUDNESS’ and looks much like a normal phone except with elegant Hello Kitty design. The phone does not look too childish when she is with her friends, and instead bring attention to her friends since the phone looks elegant.

More pictures of the phone from this site.

Assignment 1- Products and emotion

According to Donald A. Norman's definition from Three Teapots,

Visceral design concerns itself with appearances... Behavioral design has to do with the pleasure and effectiveness of use... Finally, reflective design considers the rationalization and intellectualization of a product.

And we are going to look at three different examples of handbags to illustrate what the above means.



Graffiti shoulder bag from The Wallet Shop

Visceral: From the sleek half-rounded trapezium and the shiny black material being used for the bag, the design is attractive and pleasing to the eyes. The graffiti design on the front pocket gives an added edge, such that the user is straight away in love with the bag.

Behavioural: Not able to withstand very heavy weight. I fear for the weak handle to tear off in case I put too much heavy things in it. It is not difficult to get your A4 files and documents dog-ears while trying to squeeze into the rounded corners.

Reflective: Not something to show off for.

Verdict: Visceral. Design is visually pleasing, but functionally does not work as well. Owning such a bag does not really give the user a boost in terms of status of whatsoever.



Canvas Bag from Espirit

Visceral: Looks like a common canvas bag you can get from shops selling cheap bags. The buttons give the bag a little more edge than just plain canvas material.

Behavioural: Big and able to withstand weight. No fears for the handles to be tearing off. Able to put in A4 sized documents and files with ease.

Reflective: Espirit is quite a high-end brand since their items can sometimes be quite expensive. But it is an affordable brand for most of the people so owning one is not a status boost though.

Verdict: Behavioural. It is the most functional bag out of the three. The material used and design is fit for everyday use.




Louis Vuitton bag from Marina GM from Cruise Collection 08 – Monogram Mini Lin Croisette

Visceral: Pretty, gives off high-class vibes, visually pleasing.

Behavioural: Can be a functional bag, although I feel it might not be suitable for everyday use. It is a bag to be use with care, and careful of not getting it dirtied. There is a fear for handle breaking too.

Reflective: Since this is from LV, it is definitely a status boost for the user. Owning a branded bag usually shows off the user's spending power, and being 'high-class'.

Verdict: Reflective. Because it helps boost the user's confidence by a lot, this is one design that rationalizes and built a meaning to the user herself.

Assignment - Bad Design

The gramophone


Bad-Design: A Radio cum Clock gramophone (from ActionCity)

I got this rather cute white gramophone as a present last year whether for my 21^st birthday or some other occasions which I forgot (but that’s not the point).

Resolution: This cute thing is pretty USELESS.

Reason: Tuning of radio frequency cannot work properly and I just can’t figure out how to adjust the date and time which is due to confusing controls that I could not comprehend. Out of frustration and annoyance I left it on the table to collect dust which explains the dirt. Basically, this poor gramophone is like a white elephant.



Dust collecting gramophone


Radio function

It is a working radio like any other radios we have in mp3 players or hi-fi systems, although the appearance look rather toyish. But this is from Action City so we can't expect very stylish material like the ones use for Sony or Ipod products. It can explain the cheap price too.

To get the radio to work is surprising pretty easy. Just have to move the handle onto the gramophone's 'disk' and once you see a orange light bulb lighted up, and pull the metal aerial to the maximum and you are ready to go.



The working radio will look like this


And then the frustrating thing comes in.

Tuning of the radio stations is real pain in the ass. Seriously. To tune the radio stations, you need to turn the handle on the right side of the gramophone. There is no indication of the radio stations you are tuning to anywhere, and the only clue you have is the sound. It is not helping when there is always the muffled cum "ZAZAZAAA" sound too.

One of the problem with the radio tuning design is that there is no divisions between the numbers 88 to 92 and also for the rest of the numbers. And I doubt having the light bulb is a good indication of where the exact spot of 93.3FM station or 98.2FM station is. The 0.something is not that easy to tune to as the difference of 0.1 would meant another station altogether.


Clock

Another bad design flaw of this gramophone is the clock. Although the clock panel looks fine, the buttons aren't. What's worse is even looking at the manual doesn't really help solve the problem of adjusting the time and date right.



The puzzling clock controls




One serious manufacturer error. Now I don't know what the 'start' button do.




Pardon the grammar.


According to the instruction number 2, I'm supposed to press SET together with the UP button since DOWN is replaced by START. I follow the instructions accordingly stated but alas, it doesn't really work nicely. The only thing I managed to change is the seconds which is located at the lower right-handed corner of the panel. No matter how many times I pressed SET with UP, I didn't manage to change the day, month and year. I can't even change the time in process too.

After many tries, I realised the mysterious 'START' button could be the 'DOWN' button since I also tried to with that button too, and the seconds did blink for awhile. Other than these three strange buttons, other buttons worked fine.

In the end I didn't really go and learn how to use the alarm function correctly since I failed to set the right time and date, and also tuning the radio properly. However, I didn't throw the gramophone away even though I feel it is a working object with confusing controls. And also it is a present from a friend too.


Impression

Overall, I feel the idea of a gramophone clock and radio is a good one. But it would be even better if wasn't for the radio tuning and setting time and date being a real pain in the ass. (And maybe better English in the manual.) I beginning to have the impression that products from ActionCity of not being reliable, and also of sub-standard quality, resulting it being like a children's toy rather than a fun and usable daily object. It would be good if ActionCity would put in more effort in improving user experience of their own products in the future.