Experience the experience in creating an experience

A fun experience… a great experience… a bad experience…a traumatic experience…These verbs placed in front of the key term to describe that “experience”. But, what is the perfect definition of this word? It is something abstract, and is hard to quantify. Even describing it is a little difficult. The individual has to personally experience it to truly understand its essence. Because of this, I see this module as interesting, yet challenging. It is interesting as this is something very different from other NM modules. In this module we put ourselves in the shoes of real designers, where we have the rooms to unleash our creativity. But the tough part comes when we have to create the experience for users when this experience is supposedly difficult to describe.

Bad design assignment
The very first assignment on a bad design was interesting. It opened our eyes to make us look out for bad products and explain why it is so. After this appetizer, numerous theories were thrown at us to teach us how designers gather information about user experience. Something that is fresh to me is the User Persona and the 4-Pleasure Analysis. By creating a persona of our target audience, we analyzed their needs and thus create a product that satisfies them. However, I am baffled on how to create a persona that encompasses most of the characteristics that our target users have? As every individual comes from diverse background and culture, their likings will be very much dependent on these elements.

Hell assignment
This assignment was a hell lot of fun. It taught us how to conduct enthnography to gather information about users. By observation the environment and how users interact with the product, we managed to find out things that we never know before. The fun part of this project was the creation of a video for class presentation. Not to mention how we managed to capture the class’s attention by giving a “mini lecture” about feng shui and our out-of-the-world dome-shaped LT. It made me realize that designing a product does not always comprise of science. Culture and belief systems may also play a part in the overall process.

Final project
The experience of this final project was a mixture of fun and frustration. There were many unexpected changes made along the way and this led us back to the drawing board many times. From the brainstorming session of designing a design idea, researching target users, paper prototype, usability test to the creation of the final product, we met a number of hurdles. One of the greatest difficulties was the technical aspect in creating a website. We had many good ideas, but some had to be scraped away as there were problems creating it. In addition, time constraint had made the whole creation process rather stressful.

On the final note, this enriching module allowed us to see the creation process in a different light. It highlights the importance of creating a user-centric product. We often read about articles that address this point, but we only comprehend this idea when we are the designers to experience the experience in creating an experience (What a mouthful! Haha!). The final project was the stage that made me understand this. It was inevitable to have the tendency to create something that the designers want, rather than what users really want. But the paper prototype and usability test would bring us back to earth, to sit down and redefine our product. Discouraging, no doubt, but users are the kings. Otherwise products will be labelled as a bad design, and all the time and effort will be down the drain. Being the last project of my whole university life, it is a good way to end it.

User Research Smoke & Mirrors: Non-Scientific User Research isn’t a Bad Thing

Instead of attaining enlightment, my mind is swarmed with question marks. So does that mean that scientific research and numbers are damned lies? And does that also mean that non-scientific methodologies are the key to user experience design?

I have to admit that non-scientific methods that we had learnt in class such as card sorting, paper prototype, user persona and usability test are important in making that great experience for users. This is what I didn’t realize until I take this module. Since we are designing things for our target audience, comments should be gotten from them. More often than not, suggestions given by the users are more valuable and enlightening than what numbers can give.

Design itself is subjective. This particular design may look like a piece of trash to some, but can be an art to others. The experience in using the design cannot be quantified, unless someone wants to quantify users’ thoughts about the design, be it “trash” or “art”.

Now this is what confuses me. “User experience design” is a slippery slope. What does it actually mean? For the article, it seems to me that it is referring to Human-Computer Interface. Can the same thing be applied to other user experience designs? But how about designs in architecture? It consists of a synergy of arts and science. A scientific research such as the quality of the soil, the materials needed for the building, the auspiciousness of the venue (fengshui) has to be done before going into the non-scientific aspect in creating a priceless experience for users, which is something inspirational and cultural based. So can we say that scientific research is useless?

Bringing it back to the Human-Computer Interface topic, it will be ridiculous to come out with a result that says “Design A is 5% more usable than Design B”. However, I do not fault the usefulness of scientific research in user design experience. For companies that design websites for clients, it may be useful to have fact-based recommendation rather than mere conjunction or opinions. After all, clients like to have facts and figures presented to them. This website mentions about quantifying user experience using an Objective Analysis Tool. As user experience is made up of four elements namely branding, usability, functionality and content, scores are given to each element to rate the design. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/quantify-user-experience

Rather than bashing scientific research, a holistic approach should be used. Supposed all the non-scientific methodologies had been done and the website has been successfully created, how will it be judged? By simply asking a few people who might give comments like “It’s great!” or “Wow cool!” doesn’t mean anything. Somehow the importance of numerical figures cannot be overlooked, especially for businesses and organisations. I believe that every design comprises the beauty of arts and science.