[Final Reflective Essay]

Designing for user experience and Scientific Methodologies

While developing TraveLog, I gradually understood why as designers we can only try to observe patters and recreate them to evoke certain desired emotions as it is not possible to design experience. Experiences are ultimately constructed by the user, and most of the time, the intended experience is not necessarily the perceived experience at the end of the day.

Since the perception of a product is based on the individual values of the user and the context of use, perception of user experience is highly subjective. On one hand, we do need analysis to specify some of the requirements for design in terms of perhaps overall functionality, but ultimately when delivering the experience, it would rely more on our own interpretation of the data collected, and that is largely subjective. Through the course of designing TraveLog, I read articles that talked about the scientific aspects of designing, of collecting samples and research data. However, when it came down to creating the ‘flipping mechanism’ for TraveLog’s scrapbook, which is one of our key features, we relied mainly on our instincts, and tried to postulate what users would want to see based on their personas.

This idea of having a page-flipping movement was liked by users during the three phases of our prototype testing, and this is based largely on our own personal experiences.

Some limitations of empirical research

In NM2208 we learnt about color theory and visual perception, while this course emphasizes on the users’ aspect of research, on the methodologies of creating the perception of pleasure. One of the key limitations of empirical research such as user interface testing is that at some point, the results must be interpreted for it to be a useful as a design tool – and such interpretations can go easily wrong when interpreted by people without the appropriate design skills. This resonates with my experience when creating TraveLog, when the users kept using the search box to look for specific scrapbooks, rather than the interactive world map we hope they would enjoy using. We thought about discarding the world map idea, since none of the users use it instinctively when asked to perform a task. However, it was only after the second round of testing and observations, where we actually allowed users to explore the site did we realize users do like clicking on the world map. When they were not requested to perform specific tasks.


The key is to not see such empirical user interface testing as a definitive scientific measurement of a website’s effectiveness, but as an additional piece of information that can be used, coupled with one’s own design instincts.


The value of Non-scientific research


Throughout this course, the research we were taught and used are mainly qualitative and subjective. Surprisingly, less-rigorous methodologies are extremely helpful when developing the user experience. Card sorting, paper prototype testing, laddering and interviews, usability testing, and user personas (even the informal kind) can provide important insights and useful tools, even as they are entirely subjective.


Ultimately, research are use to bolster and aid in the design process and not become the entirety of the design, as the designer has to rely on themselves through interpreting the data, and creatively applying the ideas. Knowing why a design failed is just as important as finding out why some design succeeds, and sometimes scientific methodologies can fail in this aspect. For instance, choosing a sample size of mainly university students affects the results for usability testing.


It is here that Christopher Fahey words resonates with my experience in user design, ‘A user can miss everything you put in his path, and call you on it, and the user is never wrong, even if there is nothing more you could have done to help him understand. The user is never wrong because experience is experience, not fact.’

[Week 5 Improving LT Experience]

Following the series of presentations and recommendations to improve LT experience, most students would have came to the conclusion that due to the fact which no two individuals are alike, a good LT experience enclose different meanings to different individuals. In the subsequent paragraphs, I shall critically discuss the various approaches to uncovering what is a ‘good’ LT experience and what could be done to create a good, if not better learning experience for both students and the lecturer.

In the class, we learnt about the method of laddering. The laddering process is essentially the questioning that reveals the psychological consequences of outcomes of a construct or mental mode and this is important in unraveling the deep structures about a product, or in this case, the LT experience. Our group applied the laddering framework which consists of ‘laddering out’, ‘laddering down’ and ‘laddering up’.

• Laddering out: expanding horizontally the concept seeking for synonyms, parallels and other related issues. The questions ask about the concept with respect to other notions, or just repeat the concept so that the participant may just bring it back and talk more about it.



• Laddering up: looking for the consequences caused by the feeling or thought mentioned by the participant. The questions seek the origin of the phenomenon by asking why, and then elaborate on the advantages or disadvantages of it.
  
  
• Laddering down: looking for the causes of the phenomenon. The questions try to bring about other issues that would lead the participant to feel or think that which is under investigation and other similar circumstances the researcher may relate to.
  

Another method that was frequently used in the presentations is the ethnographic approach. Ethnography highlights the differences between what people perceive they do and what their final actions are. Through our group’s research over the past two weeks, we realized that ethnography is not particularly useful in this scenario as it is extremely difficult and problematic to quantify observations and relate it to specific behavioral traits of the students. For instance, observation in a lecture, students may be eating, frequently going to the toilet or even surfing on their laptop while the lecture is going on. However, this does not mean he/she is not enjoying or learning from the LT experience.

Through laddering, and simple observations of lectures during the past two weeks, our group identified three factors that constitute the LT experience. These three factors can be classified under intrinsic and extrinsic categories, where the infrastructure and content delivery of the LT comes under the extrinsic category, the perceived needs and motivations of students will be considered as intrinsic.

These extrinsic factors are in a way, controllable, where these can be changed and altered in time. As it is not possible to change the way students feel or need, using the Maslow's hierarchy, we seek to alter and tweak these factors to motivate the students and further move them up the hierarchy where, they attend the lecture not simply because they have to, but they have the motivation to learn.

There is a feedback loop between the intrinsic and extrinsic factors. This loop is to allow the extrinsic factors to change with accordance to the various circumstances and needs of the students.

In our proposed approach, we realised that due to varying individual need, it takes an optimal combination of these factors to create a good experience. Hence we propse an approach to uncover this optimal combination where due to too many uncertain variables, there is a need to conduct experiments to properly identify the cause and effect of a positive learning experience. Our group strongly believes that infrastructure, content, student needs and motivation are constituents of the learning experience itself, changes in each factor needs to compliment each other.
The aim of this method is to tweak external factors to optimize and move the student up the motivation hierarchy.

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Week Three [Four Pleasure Analysis]

Persona: Joe, 25 years old, purchasing executive, living in Singapore.
This is his second job since graduating with a business administration degree, majoring in finance.

Joe really regrets not working hard enough during his university years and has seen his friends and acquaintances went on to glamorous and esteemed jobs in the finance industry that allowed them to travel frequently. He likes to surround himself with friends whom he considered to be smart and witty. After seeing how ambitious and hardworking his friends are now, Joe has since been very driven in his work so as to attain his desired form of lifestyle. He really envies his friends who had bought cars, but Joe being more pragmatic knows it is impractical for him to get a car now even with the independence and convenience that would bring.

In his free time, Joe enjoys thrilling action-packed movies ranging from bond movies to the latest blockbuster. Also, he enjoys reading fictional books such as those by John Grisham, listening to artists such as U2, and magazines, ranging from FHM to men’s magazines. Recently, he upgraded his computer so that it could support his gaming pleasure online. Like any normal executive, Joe does not mind buying branded goods, but he takes more pleasure in buying things such as vintage watches, latest gadgets, gaming and sports equipments.

Joe believes in taking care of himself, he goes to the gym twice a week and plays soccer with his friends once a week to ensure that he stays in shape. He enjoys hanging out with his friends in person and over MSN, having dinners, karaoke sessions and watching soccer matches over at their house during the weekend. Furthermore, Joe makes sure that he keeps in touch with his ex-colleagues as he firmly believes in good networking.

He is also currently taking a Certificate of Financial Analyst course being very interested in investment and the finance industry. Recently, Joe is considering another job offer, working at a bank introduced by one of his university friends and he sees it as a great opportunity for him to gain a foothold in this industry he desperately wants to be part of.

Joe talked about this offer over with his parents and they were very encouraging even though they were slightly concerned over the demands of the job. Due to the salary increment and the prestige that comes with this job, Joe plans to change his job anyway. Also, some of his close friends who heard about his plans were extremely encouraging as they all felt that it was a good career change and were filled with envy that Joe had such good recommendations.

Physio-pleasure
Due to the nature of his job that does not require much physical activity, he goes to the gym twice a week and have soccer sessions with his friends in order to stay in shape - Need
He browse through men’s magazines so as not to appear unfashionable – Need
Takes pleasure in purchasing vintage watches and latest gadgets – Appreciation
Joe wants a car due to the pleasure and convenience it would bring, but knows it is not pragmatic to get it yet - Need

Socio-pleasure
He enjoys surrounding himself with friends whom he considers to be smart and witty, likes to hangout with them often, and also keep close contacts with his ex-colleagues – Need
Joe wants to have a sense of belonging within that group, hence the pressure to get a job that could elevate him to the glamorous lifestyle he perceives his friends to be having. - Need

Psycho-pleasure
Acceptance and prestige plays a big part in Joe’s life. He not only wants to be as successful as his friends, he wants to be admired for his networking skills and determination.
When he was recommended that job, he feels a sense of achievement and satisfaction, where his networking skills had paid off and he gets a job within his desired finance industry. - Appreciation

Ideo-pleasure
Joe prides himself on being sophisticated both in style and in intellect, and the things he buy reflects that he cares a lot about what others think of him. – need pleasure
Joe does not just want to be successful in monetary terms, the jobs he desires need to be just as prestigious and a sense of exclusiveness where others have no chance in getting that job but him. – appreciation pleasure

In terms of value systems, Joe is believes in individual freedom to do what he wants and self-sufficiency, at the same time he believes in being filial to his parents and to be pleasant with his friends and colleagues.

Product Benefit Specifications

There are three temporal categories of emotions, namely affect, emotion, and sentiment.

At the [behavioral level], this often entails a thorough usability evaluation, hence below are the list of basic practical specifications that a phone should have for Joe.

• Phone basics of calling, text messaging, web browsing and contacts management
  
• Music Playback
  
• Photos and Videos storage and playback capacity


• Gaming capabilities


• Three way conference calling capabilities


• Ability to sync with desktop wirelessly
  
• Large screen


• Usable key pad size


• Lightweight
  
• Reasonably priced


• Good interface design that allows for easy navigation
  

From the above, three way conference calling capabilities will allow Joe to fulfill one of his need, which is to maintain his personal relationships and networks. Music, games, photos and videos would appeal to his appreciation need where such functions could also aid in his networking activities.

[Visceral design] is important in covering the need appreciation pleasure for Joe. As he likes to be thought of having sophisticated, fashionable tastes and be the envy of his friends. Furthermore, the phone has to be unique, which means that it should be noticeably different from others.

• The design should be sleek and sophisticated, hence bulk is not desired neither is loud and ornate design. This would appeal to Joe's need pleasure.


• One of the most important appreciation pleasure for Joe is the want for glamour and prestige, hence the design needs to look expensive.


• Lastly, in terms of ergonomics, the design should conform nicely with the fit of his hands, similar to that of an iPod.
  

Emotional design at the reflective level, may actually require the company to develop a corporate image that is reflected upon the user. For instance the motto for Apple's consumers is "Think different" is expressed through their zeal for developing great designs. Hence for Joe, the brand of the phone needs to reflect individualism, uniqueness and modern.

Week Two [Emotion & Design]

I shall be using examples of the standard fixed-line phones to illustrate the three aspects of emotion and design. As mentioned during the lecture, visceral design refers primarily to that initial impact of the phone’s appearance. The new age cordless phone aptly represents this aspect (as shown in the figure). It is black and sleek, promising the freedom and ease to talk and walk around the house, and to always be in a reachable distance for you. However, over the years, due to constant charging and abuse (the fault is shared among my family), the battery life has depleted, and the sound is much softer now. Moreover, the ease of carrying it around the house has become a source of irritation for me as the cordless phone is difficult to locate and moved around in the house by everyone.

Next concept is the behavioral design that is more about the look and feel, the total experience of using the product. This phone (the red one) has been with us for almost seven years if I recall, even though I have no significant memories of it unlike the traditional dial phone, it is easy to use, and it has a redial function that is not found in the traditional phone. Moreover, the ringing tone for this phone is much softer than the jarring ringing sound from the traditional phone. This phone is much better than the cordless simply because it will always be found at the same place, and there is no need in charging it.

For the reflective design, after much thought, I have chosen the traditional phone found also in my house. For this aspect, I have chosen a traditional phone, which belongs to my grandma. She bought this in the 1980s but till today, she still keeps (and it works) in the house. This phone just looks wonderful to me with an almost antique feel to it. But the best part about this phone is the sound of the dial turning and this just brings back so many memories of times spent at my grandma’s place since young. This phone is not sold anymore on the market, so using it does have a unique and exclusive feel to it. In my opinion, the phone is just as functional too. Firstly, I do not have to keep charging it (unlike the cordless technology), this phone will always be found at the same place hence, easier to locate than my cordless phone which keeps appearing at different places all the time.

Different objects are bought with different objectives in mind. For instance, a picture or vase or expensive watches and cars, would be bought purely for their appearances, others, functionality would rule, such as kitchen appliances perhaps, even they could be use for decorative purposes. For me, the most important factor is still its functionality, the cordless phone is still in my house, but due to the hassle of using it, I have gradually preferred the normal red phone. As for the cordless, initially the convenience and sleekness appealed to my, but when obvious deficits occurs, the desire to use it also greatly decreased.

Week One [Bad Designs]

Bad Design Chosen: https://webrb.nus.edu.sg/ctt/classtt.aspx

Like many of my peers, I use this website to check timetables for lectures and tutorials for various cross-faculty modules. During the Cors bidding and module selection period, several of my peers complained about the hassle and frustration of using this website when they are trying to view their timetables.

The flaw of this system shall be illustrated by a series of screenshots as seen beneath.

For instance, a peer of mine start by selecting the module BSP3001, click ‘add’, followed by either tutorial or lecture schedule options provided beneath. Each of the schedule, tutorial or lecture is provided separately, where at any point of time, you can only view one. More exasperatingly so is that when he hits the ‘Back’ button, it automatically clears his previous selection of the same module of BSP3001, thus he actually has to search for the module in the drop down list again, reselect and click the schedule that he wants to see.

This procedure gets very trying after a while as users usually do not check for one module only, and also if one forgets to copy down the schedule they have previously viewed, they would have to do the above procedures repeatedly.

When asked about their overall impression of this website, 4 out of 5 of my peers unconsciously linked it to the IVLE website where NUS have been consistently improving upon the older version. They felt that the same could be done for this website, where users’ opinions should be sourced and applied and those improvements to this website could happen in the “near future”, they described hopefully.

User experience is used to describe the overall quality of experience a person has when interacting with a product or a system. In this case, they experience has been one of exasperation and impatience with a system that does not seem to be able to understand their needs and habits. The functionality and ease of use is somehow lacking.

Furthermore, as my peers are like me, from the Arts and Social Sciences, our schedule is provided to us very differently, where when we click a module; we get to view both the lecture and tutorial schedule. Hence, generally when people get used to having something, they then start looking for something more, as the case with this website where constant comparisons are made with own faculty’s websites and the infamous IVLE. As with the improvements to IVLE, the users expect NUS websites to possess a certain degree of usability and design. Therefore, overall this website could be improved along the lines of criticism provided above and also perhaps, take into account the perspective of a student next time.