About Scientific Research
Some of the “advanced” technologies used are but proofs to show your superiors of your findings, or rather, designer intuitions. Like eyetracking technology, what it does is not so hard to do so with a designer’s experience and eyes. It can only show the surface of things, yet it cannot tell you the root of the design problem.
The interpretation of results for such research plays a more important role than the result itself. In the end, it is up to the designers themselves to find and point out the mistakes in the design and make the required changes. However, I do feel that a certain amount of research still has to be done to aid the designer in the re-design or design process. The product’s intended user is not the designer himself but the target audience. So getting to know the target audience’s likes and dislikes better will definitely be of some help, especially if you are designing for user experience.
Designers can sometimes overlook the simplest of problems such as the improper placements of buttons or banners, so doing a bit of user research will do much to pick out the minute problems in large projects. However small the help, a little help through research is better than none.
Non Scientific Research
I do agree that non-scientific research methods are useful in aiding the designing process through my own personal experience of designing the Kumon learning portal for primary school children. What we think appeals to them might not be exactly so. It is only through user research that we got to know them better and cater to their wants and needs with greater ease and efficiency.
Methods such as card sorting and user persona gives valuable insight into sometimes easily overlooked areas. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to make things “obvious” to the users, they will somehow miss it. This doesn’t mean that you are wrong or the user is wrong. Everyone experiences things differently, you just have to take it that this method of design does not suit the experience that you are intending the users to have. I’ll always bear in mind the fact that user experience design isn’t all about research, but a great deal of it lies on understanding the needs of your target users and research is but one of the methods to know them better.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Reflections for the course, NM4210
This whole course has really opened my eyes and vision to the world of user experience design. UX design can’t be summarised in any number of words to do it full justice. It can only be attained through trial and error, with the target consumers in mind when designing anything.
A very important premise to designing a good experience which I have taken away from this course is that of user research. It is not just about number crunching and plain old surveys. Rather, its about getting to know your users, how they operate in their environment (not in a lab) and what they like or dislike. It is like getting to know your friends or close ones better. One of the assignments that we did included a ethnographic study, where we had to crash in on a lecture without anyone knowing that we are actually there to study their behaviours and actions during the class. The experience was totally different from any other researches that I have done before. This time round, I had to blend into the environment, observing the people around in their natural settings. I could not talk, ask questions or whatever in that environment; all I could do was sit and observe. It was really interesting that by just sitting and observing, my team could come up with so many conclusions that we might never have gotten from surveys.
Final Project
The final project was a daunting one for everyone of us I reckon. There was a large amount of freedom afforded to us to choose and create a user experience for any target audience. We decided on improving and inculcating the Kumon spirit for Kumon by designing a learning portal for the students. During the course of this project, we had to do numerous interviews, observations and researches. Drawing from what we have learnt in class, methods such as card sorting and usability settings, we were able to design and come up with a product that will be of interest to our target students.
Through our user research, we realised that no two persons are the same; one child may like the design very much but the other would not. We could not please every child with one type of design and feel of our learning portal. Further consultations with Mr Reddy got us to the conclusion that we had to design not for the masses, but for a specific portion of users.
No one research study is final; there are always things to improve at every session. However, it is important to capture the attention of your target audience and please them on the most basic level. The other parts of the design will take time and more user research to reach perfection.
User Interface
After we got the general look and feel of our portal out, we had to move on to the user interface portion. The user interface is a very important part of the entire user experience design of an interactive product. Although a good UI is often times overlooked by the users (because they are so intuitive that it seems to be second nature to the user), the importance of it cannot be stressed enough. Times when the UI is being noticed by a user is when it is badly designed, so much so that it affects and protrudes out to the user when he/she is using the product to warrant such notice. We opted for a click only interface, with the exception of the entering of data such as keying in the username and password at the start. This created a uniform feel for the user interface throughout.
Final Thoughts
Finally, I would like to add that user research is no doubt important, but in choosing our research subjects, we are already practicing a sort of bias. We think that they belong to a group of people that we are trying to target and customise our software to. What happens if they are not really part of our target group? I guess there’s no absolute objectiveness in user research; as such, it is just best to concentrate on a specific group of people that we think would best suit the current project. We can’t please everyone, can we? :D
A very important premise to designing a good experience which I have taken away from this course is that of user research. It is not just about number crunching and plain old surveys. Rather, its about getting to know your users, how they operate in their environment (not in a lab) and what they like or dislike. It is like getting to know your friends or close ones better. One of the assignments that we did included a ethnographic study, where we had to crash in on a lecture without anyone knowing that we are actually there to study their behaviours and actions during the class. The experience was totally different from any other researches that I have done before. This time round, I had to blend into the environment, observing the people around in their natural settings. I could not talk, ask questions or whatever in that environment; all I could do was sit and observe. It was really interesting that by just sitting and observing, my team could come up with so many conclusions that we might never have gotten from surveys.
Final Project
The final project was a daunting one for everyone of us I reckon. There was a large amount of freedom afforded to us to choose and create a user experience for any target audience. We decided on improving and inculcating the Kumon spirit for Kumon by designing a learning portal for the students. During the course of this project, we had to do numerous interviews, observations and researches. Drawing from what we have learnt in class, methods such as card sorting and usability settings, we were able to design and come up with a product that will be of interest to our target students.
Through our user research, we realised that no two persons are the same; one child may like the design very much but the other would not. We could not please every child with one type of design and feel of our learning portal. Further consultations with Mr Reddy got us to the conclusion that we had to design not for the masses, but for a specific portion of users.
No one research study is final; there are always things to improve at every session. However, it is important to capture the attention of your target audience and please them on the most basic level. The other parts of the design will take time and more user research to reach perfection.
User Interface
After we got the general look and feel of our portal out, we had to move on to the user interface portion. The user interface is a very important part of the entire user experience design of an interactive product. Although a good UI is often times overlooked by the users (because they are so intuitive that it seems to be second nature to the user), the importance of it cannot be stressed enough. Times when the UI is being noticed by a user is when it is badly designed, so much so that it affects and protrudes out to the user when he/she is using the product to warrant such notice. We opted for a click only interface, with the exception of the entering of data such as keying in the username and password at the start. This created a uniform feel for the user interface throughout.
Final Thoughts
Finally, I would like to add that user research is no doubt important, but in choosing our research subjects, we are already practicing a sort of bias. We think that they belong to a group of people that we are trying to target and customise our software to. What happens if they are not really part of our target group? I guess there’s no absolute objectiveness in user research; as such, it is just best to concentrate on a specific group of people that we think would best suit the current project. We can’t please everyone, can we? :D
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