I have recently been inspired by one of the lectures on the VIIth semester about the Human - Computer Interaction. Having Master's degree in Philosophy, I am probably a little bit more humanist than the average Joe and as such, the subject matter of the lecture truly spoke to me. Interaction between humans and computers, more widely referred to as an interaction between people and objects has been laid out as an utterly reasonable, extremely holistic domain. Asking the right questions, providing interesting answers and asking even better questions in turn.
I wanted to focus on the evolution of design, which, from my perspective, has been widely entertaining. Back in the day, the object of the design has been the product that has been designed, but at the same time, the product has also been the subject. Currently, this has changed and the overall consensus is that the real subject of the design, should be the human that is going to use the product, which remained the object of the design. What has been realised was that the product itself is not important without a context. That the context is being provided by the humans interacting with the product. That the function of the product needs to be explicit, or that the function of the product needs to be flexible to accommodate for humans trying to break it. That design for the sake of design will always be trumped by the design to maximise functionality. Lo and behold. User Experience has been born!
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| Don Norman - First User Experience Architect recorded |
Throughout this week, I will be trying to show how the introduction of User Experience changed the design world. How it rekindled its purpose and returned the design to the masses, sort of like Ford T's design. How it bridges the gap between usability and aesthetics. And what empathy and psychology have to do with design in the XXI century.
What do you think?
1. Have you noticed how focusing on user experience affected design of things? How do you think a touch screen came to be? Why does swiping the screen feel so natural to us that pressing actual physical buttons seems weird?
2. Do you think that the practical application of a product is important in the design process? Can you think of things that you are probably not using as they were intended to be used?
3. Can design be bad? Would you be able to immediately know what to do with the doors on the example if they didn't have signs? Would you know how to illuminate a certain sector of the room based on the light switches on the other example?
I think it used to be natural that to change the screen a button was pressed and 20 years ago it was unthinkable to do so with a touch screen, until Apple revolutionized the approach to touch screens. I think that product design is one of the most important things these days. If something will have a weak UX, unfortunately, it will be forced out of the market, even if it has better solutions than the competition. The elevator can be an example at our university. Not only that the buttons do not react, the blind person is not able to choose the right floor without help.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Dajana! How would you describe the mindset of the person designing the elevator? What do you think it should be?
DeleteThis photo with doors is excellent. I have always had problem to notice inscription on doors and hesitate what to do. Sometimes pull/push information is on our sight level. That seems to be reasonable, but if I open the door I look at a handle not above, so I miss the information.
ReplyDeleteTaking practical side of using things should be taking into account. I have some experience with prams and it makes me furious in all of them, that to unlock some parts of it you have to press two buttons: one on the left and one on the right side of a pram in the same time. It means that you have two hands engaged and no third to take exact action. I have to help myself with knees, elbows or forehead to do what I need. There are many products which originally were designed to help mother with toddler, but they are useless because you need two hands to use it and one hand is usually occupied by a baby. What comes to my mind next? Mugs with handles so narrow that it’s easier not to use them and some soup plates, so shallow that it was impossible not to spill the soup. Kitchen utensils and devices are interesting according to the topic.
You chose fantastic topic. What a pity there are only two photos, but I can hunt for more examples in my surroundings.
It seems natural to me that the user's observation affects the quality and improvement of the functioning of the designed objects. Touch screen, hmmmmm electronic evolution ;)
ReplyDeleteThe natural shift of the screen is a matter of habit and intuitiveness of the product. Practicality and design should go hand in hand, we like nice things but nice and impractical things are in my opinion unnecessary. Of course, the design can be bad.
Even if the door is marked, I happen to do the opposite. Honestly, I do not know how to illuminate a particular sector.
Exactly the same opinion here!
Delete1. Have you noticed how focusing on user experience affected design of things? How do you think a touch screen came to be? Why does swiping the screen feel so natural to us that pressing actual physical buttons seems weird?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be so confident about present UX trends. An example of failure of UX area is Windows 8 graphical user interface. It was meant to be so user friendly and innovative but it turned out to be an UX nightmare. I think much of present UX trends which are commonly used nowadays, can be done much better and in a future will be. Not mentioning that for some time we will control interfaces by sight, speech or just thoughts, not by hands. Nevertheless I think pressing buttons isn't weird at all, and swiping sometimes isn't so obvious. That is just people who get habits. Sometimes even toddlers approach some screen and try to swipe, so it seems to be a natural act, but I think it is learned by observing other people doing that or by watching a behaviour of various devices responding to swipes of fingers.
2. Do you think that the practical application of a product is important in the design process? Can you think of things that you are probably not using as they were intended to be used?
Yes, I think it is very important to properly design any device at the beginning of the process already. It allows to avoid many problems in the future.
Sometimes it happens that some things are used differently in accord to their primary application. Sometimes it means error at the side of an user, but sometimes it means multitasking of the item ;P If the second situation is the case, that's great!
3. Can design be bad? Would you be able to immediately know what to do with the doors on the example if they didn't have signs? Would you know how to illuminate a certain sector of the room based on the light switches on the other example?
Of course designs can be bad. Your examples illustrates perfectly two opposite situations where in one case there is obvious information how to use the item and in the other example there is no clue how to use it. But nowadays sometimes good will to easy indicate an instruction of use leads to some absurdities where people are treated like complete idiots not thinking at all. Example is a manual of using chain saw where weren't written not to cut a certain part of body and somebody supposedly did cut it and won a lawsuit against the chain manufacturer. Nowadays there are requirements to point out to people even simpliest and obvious informations sometimes making people dumb, not thinking by themselves. There is no need to information not to litter a grass to be cultural and to know that people shouldn't do that.
It helped a lot of products and is really important part of product overall. Sometimes it makes things worse, for example when there's a lot a of text on a website, programmers came with feature called infinite scroll that was loading additional content when getting to the end of page. I really loved that kind of feature, but now most of UX experts says it's not so intuitive, so it's better to use pagination instead. I agree that it's not intuitive on first try, but after getting used to it, it's a lot better than slow pagination.
ReplyDelete1. I think it's more natural. When you want to move something you "swipe" it :) So that was natural that when you want to change the view, it was more convinient to swipe rather than pressing buttons.
ReplyDelete2. Yes it is, but it's changing. Nowadays people buy good looking things, without any thoughts about practical application, f.e. clothes :). I can think only about Coca-cola as rust remover right now :)
3. I think that desing shouldn't be misleading, and that would satisfy me. Second picture presents a bad design so I think nobody would buy it and it should be fixed as fast as it's possible. Those light switches? Well, I would just use the bruteforce method :)
I agree with 3rd picture. Second picture is a a terrible design and I would get lost of how it use it :)
Delete1. Have you noticed how focusing on user experience affected design of things? How do you think a touch screen came to be? Why does swiping the screen feel so natural to us that pressing actual physical buttons seems weird?
ReplyDeleteI think buttons hide logic and you actually have to read captions to know what they are responsible for. Swiping on the other hand is representing one very specific action and it is similar to turning pages in a book. It feel more natural for us.
2. Do you think that the practical application of a product is important in the design process? Can you think of things that you are probably not using as they were intended to be used?
It depends. If I will use something often then practical application is crucial. If not then both aspects are important.
3. Can design be bad? Would you be able to immediately know what to do with the doors on the example if they didn't have signs? Would you know how to illuminate a certain sector of the room based on the light switches on the other example?
Design can definitely be bad and not intuitive. Here I found few examples https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/blog/examples-of-bad-design-in-the-real-world. Also a lot of web pages and mobile applications lack good UX. Icons8 lose more than 40% of their users after redesigning their interface. They made it clean and modern but also less intuitive. As for the door with signs I don’t think it’s that terrible. On the other hand those light switches are awful.
Focusing on user experience makes things user friendly, that's natural. I haven't paid much attention to 'details' such as user experience, so I am not aware if it affected design that hard. Screen swiping might have its source in human gestures, for example when we would like to scroll down a page more natural for us is to move up/down than pressing a single button. I think that the practical application of a product should be a main aspect of the early design phase and be followed until its final pre-production tests. Refering to products that are missing their designed purpose here is one example from my surroundings - ironing board used as a table for dirty dishes. Indeed, design can be bad, we see that everyday. Those signs on the doors are helpful for users, but they're not necessary. I'd choose the one with signs personally. As for the light switches, they have a bad UX and it would be rather hard to illuminate a specific part of the room in a first try. This would obviously change over time, once the user is experienced enough about each switch function.
ReplyDelete1. Have you noticed how focusing on user experience affected design of things? How do you think a touch screen came to be? Why does swiping the screen feel so natural to us that pressing actual physical buttons seems weird?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely focusing on experience changes they way things are designed. I think Apple is one of easier examples of this. They go so far with changing the design to fit the overall aesthetic of their brand. For example they removed USB type A from their professional line of line- Macbook Pro. They believed that less ports is better. But is it really? For me using this laptop means carrying more dongles and struggle than improvement compared to the last generation. I think touch screen was almost natural way of we were communicating with the phone so it came as a revolution over time with iPhone being the big change. Using the touch screen feels more natural compared to the physical buttons because you can interact with it instead of just pushing it.
2. Do you think that the practical application of a product is important in the design process? Can you think of things that you are probably not using as they were intended to be used?
Yes definitely, user feedback is essential for creating new systems. I think cotton buds are usually not used they way they meant to be but everyone is fine with it.
3. Can design be bad? Would you be able to immediately know what to do with the doors on the example if they didn't have signs? Would you know how to illuminate a certain sector of the room based on the light switches on the other example?
Yes design can be bad. Combined with bad usability it can create chaos. Using the doors or everyday items that we are used to other way that are intended can be stressful and give some problems with using it. Yes having fun with illuminations is a great idea can can have great design as well.
Good design is important even for products that some people might think that could go without it. As you pictured it in your examples with doors and switches. Watching people bumping on those doors might be fun, for some time.
ReplyDeleteHowever as some ideas might be so natural for one generation might be jedged differently in othe generations, groups of people.
Great example with doors and light switches! Actually, I never really read signs on doors, they simply need to work correctly - they don't when I have to read instructions.
ReplyDeleteWhen it feels natural, design of a product is good from my perspective - otherwise it's not.
As you said, it is interesting that design is created more in our heads, things design themselves and become natural in us, what can be sometimes unexpected for their creators!
This is why practical tests of a product and feedback are needed. Sometimes you can turn it in favor - create a base and let your target group design its application.
I can't remind example of thing I don't use as it was intended, but I would not certainly know which sector I would illuminate, it would be a random guess.
I such situations I tend to go to different room..
There's one fun fact about user experience - it will soon be designed by machines. Not because they are cheaper, but because they know us better. With the "Idontknowwhatextremeprefix"bytes of data being collected about people every day the most effective way to interpret it all will be to give it to machines. They - in the process - are going to optimize interfaces and other points of contact for humans. Effect - no more bad design! (Some repetitive and boring though.)
ReplyDeleteI think that change in user experience is the most visisble in a computer software. It all started from a black screen and now websites that are not fully graphical and extremally user friendly have little chance to succeed.
ReplyDeletePractical aspect of product is very important - after all we make thing to use them and it would be nice if such product would be easy and comfortable to use.
I think that making things practical and beautiful is one of most challenging things in creation process. Your examples answer your question about bad design - yes, it can be bad.
In my opinion evrything that sourounds us can be improved. Most of cheap stuff in markets is not designed to be user friendly. They are designed to be cheap. Things that are user friendly, made from high quality materials are pretty much always more expensive and not everybody can afford it. In many cases it is a matter of choice - a lot but low quality or only one or two but well designed and made from high quality materials.
1. For sure, nowadays people mainly care about the „inside” of things. Design takes second place, so big companies decided to focus on the usage of stuff, not their appearance. I think touch screen is the result of people’s dreams. We’ve started with very small screens and people wanted more than that. Besides, the competition between an the companies is huge. They had to fight to get more customers so they just thought “okey, let’s do something different”, borned with swiping ability. Otherwise, the technology takes a big part in our lives, so we just automatically adapt to new things.
ReplyDelete2. Of course! That is the one of the most important thing! You have to produce something that is practical, has a good design but also it has to look like actual thing I hate when companies want to be so original that it leads to the point when I’m struggling with guessing the usage of the product.
3. Everything has got pros and cons. Design is a pretty good thing, but it can’t be over the top. These doors are really simple to recognize. They contain every important element and I don’t think anyone would have a problem even when it didn’t have any signs. Same thing with the light switches. People are used to new design things. They look just like simple watches and we just associate with these.