User Experience Design | ENG PT ESP

Thanks Euge and João! I love IxD! :)

Gostei do artigo Explicação dos 11 Principios do Design de Interação (http://theixdlibrary.com/articles/11-principles-of-interaction-design-ex...)

Concordo plenamente quando Paul Seys sugere os "11 Princípios para o IxD".

1. Combinar experiências e expectativas
Concordo que o Design de Interação deve está sempre aliado as expectativas do consumidor. Da mesma forma que um produto que tem um bom Design de Interação pode ser ovacionado, um produto mal desenhado pode ser mal visto.
Quando lí o o livro "A cabeça de Steve Jobs", fiquei impressionado quando o autor cita que nos produtos da Apple sempre são observados os mínimos detalhes, até coisas que as empresas não ligam muito, como por ex. o manual de instruções, a embalagem do produto, dentre outros.

2. Coerência
Em um Design de Interação deve haver a coerência entre os elementos. Isso eu considero básico no design de um projeto.

3. Funcional Minimalismo
Realmente, um design simples e bonito é muito mais agradável que um design rebuscado e complexo.
Quem não gosta de usar um sistema simples?
Por ex.: twitter.

4. Carga Cognitiva
Essa parte complementa a parte do Minimalismo. Percebemos que um design que lhe faça pensar pouco e agir rápido é agradável.
Também podemos usar como exemplo o twitter. Você precisa pensar muito para usar ele? Não, o twitter é intuitivo.

5. Engajamento
O usuário deve sempre se sentir engajado no design. Ele deve se sentir como se fizesse parte daquele sistema. Assim, como o próprio Paul Seys diz "devemos permitir que o usuário se concentre em seu trabalho e não na UX".

6. Layout Funcional
Em um IxD devemos facilitar a busca e o uso das ferramentas mais utilizadas pelos usuários.
No caso das ferramentas avançadas, devemos fazer uma explicação do uso de cada uma, para que assim o usuário tenha um maior conhecimento sobre aquilo que está trabalhando.

7. Controle, Confiança e Explorabilidade
Um bom design de interface tem que fazer o usuário se sentir confortável, confiável. Se um usuário se sente confortável ele irá usar mais aquele sistema, assim um usuário que usa muito um sistema e se sente confiável nele, o usuário irá sentir que o sistema irá lhe proteger e assim ele estará inspirando confiança e conseqüentemente pronto para explorar livremente o sistema, sem medo de se sentir estúpido por ter feito algo errado.

8. Erros: prevenção, detecção e recuperação
Prevenção: devemos prevenir o usuário de cometer algum erro que ele provavelmente irá se arrepender de ter feito e conseqüentemente sentirá um desgosto pelo sistema. Devemos prevenir mostrando avisos para as modificações mais avançadas, devemos exibir descrições e instruções de ajuda caso algo dê errado.
Detecção: devemos receber feedback dos usuários, assim iremos detectar o que eles realmente queriam fazer e se eles alcançaram o objetivo.
Recuperação: devemos exibir formas de voltar, cancelar ou desfazer as ultimas modificações que foram feitas.

Ou seja, devemos está sempre pensando a frente do usuário, para evitar que ele tenha algum descontentamento com o sistema.

9. Mousing
Achei interessante a idéia da Lei de Fitts, em que diz

"O tempo necessário para clicar em um objeto é proporcional à distância e inversamente proporcional ao tamanho do objeto."

Eu não conhecia essa lei, mais gostei muito, vou até aplicar em meus projetos futuros.

10. Affordance
Interessante essa idéia. Lendo essa parte, lembrei dos botões tipo interruptores do iOS.

11. Hierarquia de Controle
Concordo com essa parte, realmente fica mais simples e é mais intuitivo o uso de controles hierárquicos. Mas na minha opinião, esses controles são poucos usados.

Conclusão
Podemos aliar todo o aprendizado desse artigo com o que vemos do IxD do iOS e dos produtos da Apple.
Em minha opinião, o IxD da Apple serve como fonte de estudo para quem está iniciando nessa área.

Bom o que pude entender foi isso. Espero que atenda as proposições feitas na 'aula'.

The article I chose was "Make It So: What Interaction Designers can Learn from Science Fiction Interfaces" which can be found here: http://bit.ly/eGvnYG

First of all this article has made me understand why I've been a fan of movies that involved machines, robots and interfaces that consisted of a high level of anthropomorphism. I've never really liked science fiction films that included machines or interfaces that had no humanness to them.

The article focused mainly on interface and interaction design, and it's main premise is that the design of interfaces, systems, machines or robots in reality are influenced by Science Fiction and vice versa. It shares the idea that the technologies we see in many popular SciFi movies are based on current paradigms, or what an audience within that time can understand or relate to. But what SciFi does is build upon these paradigms and add unique features to make the experience of using the product better, more exciting, or with features that could be included with the product in the future. When this is done designers can get a view of how a human would relate to this product/interface, as well as any possible problems that may occur using such designs, and once the technology is available the designer may try to bring that concept to reality. So the relationship of influence between SciFi devices/interfaces and real designs is mutually beneficial.

On the point of SciFi mirroring current design paradigms, I agree with this, because if we compare the interfaces used in recent SciFi movies such as James Cameron's "Avatar," we can see technologies with interfaces that employ the use of on screen gestures, similar to what is used for real products such as the Iphone or Ipad. If Avatar was made back in the 1960's I highly doubt that a depiction of the future in the movie would include on screen gestural interfaces because the audience would not be able to relate to it.

On the opposite end of the influence relationship however, in the movie Gamer (2009), we can see the use of body gestures used to control games. When I saw this movie I thought it would be really cool if we could control games in a similar fashion, in reality. Then in 2010 Microsoft launched Kinect for their Xbox gaming system, which uses a similar paradigm to control its games. I'm not sure if the designers at Microsoft saw the movie Gamer, but it's highly likely that this SciFi concept could have influenced the design of the Kinect system, and therefore proves that SciFi does influence real designs in a positive way.

This concept of fiction and reality influencing each other is not entirely new because I've heard stories of various military groups employing film makers to think of scenarios of possible attacks, so that the army could prepare for those attacks, just in case they occurred in reality. The article I chose just applies this concept to the field of Interface and Interaction Design.

The author of the article concludes with the thought that watching science fiction can actually be beneficial to our careers as designers, and I agree totally. I think the ideas expressed through SciFi can help us as User Experience Designers to be more creative, and maybe even expose us to ideas we weren't exposed to previously. And if we can implement these ideas or concepts into our work, combined with our own ideas or concepts, we could make the world a better place through the design of better, more usable and fun products and services, whether they be physical or virtual.

I read the article “Simplicity Is Highly Overrated” from http://theixdlibrary.com/articles/simplicity-is-highly-overrated/ to http://jnd.org/dn.mss/simplicity_is_highly_overrated.html.

Simplicity is always the goal when I design. So when I read the title of the article “Simplicity Is Highly Overrated,” I had to read it. When I was learning how to write a paper in English, my instructor said to keep sentences simple. When I was doing a storyboard for a short animation, my teacher advised us to keep stories simple. When I read articles online about design principles, the author wrote one principle as keeping design simple. If simplicity is something we need emphasis that much, why is simplicity overrated as Don Norman claimed?

Don Norman used the experience when he went to South Korea about how complexity sells. This phenomenon is everywhere. I had similar experience, too. When I buy a product, I compare prices, designs, and functions. The more you buy, the more you save. This is just the way people think. When you buy a product with more functions, you think you get more. Because complexity looks more powerful, you think you need products that look complex with more functions. Even though you rarely use most of the functions later, or never. But as long as marketing keeps the way like this, complexity is here with us. I think another reason people like to buy products with complex design is because it makes them look smarter. It is a sign of higher status and power.

Now back to simplicity. If simplicity does not sell, why do we need it? I think the main reason simplicity is emphasized that much is because we have too much complexity around. We waste too much time and energy on figuring out how to use complex things, thus simplicity comes back. By simple, it is not about doing things all in one button; it is about the necessity. If the product has only two functions and they suit your needs, it is fine. But everyone has different needs, products start to get packed with all kinds of functions to suit most people’s needs. Then things start to get complex. It is unavoidable, and complexity sells as the article mentioned. This is where the designers come in. Designers have to figure out the necessities for the users, depending on different situations. Too complex and too simple things are hard to use. I think simplicity is best described as Albert Einstein said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Designers should think about the necessity, and design for it.

For this assignment, I chose http://gigaom.com/2010/01/03/objectified-design/
which loosely highlighted two areas:
1.) Strong design should aim for the "at course!" factor, not the "wow!" factor (in a way, directly related to Wei-Ching's post on simplicity vs. complexity sells).
2.) The "of course" factor is achieved by an "undesigned" quality--removing features that "vy for your attention" and leaving "what is important."

It seems to me that the "of course" factor is no easy task, and may be the most critical part of design--many of us accept the shortfalls of products we use everyday and fail to see what makes them cumbersome (forest, trees). I hate using credit card machines--but why? Isn't that detective work much of the meat of what designers do?

But instead of just using a subtractive approach--removing features until we're left with lean, significant elegance (ie Macbook Air)--I think we need to balance with a sense of the whole, how a user would move through several actions, and combinations of actions. Does clicking this minimalist mouse hurt after a while?

I chose http://theixdlibrary.com/articles/the-tyranny-of-choice/

When i was initially introduced to the concept that more choice is a bad thing (on Differentiate or Die by Trout) i was, at first, skeptical.. by golly if i like chocolate i better have a ton of chocolate to choose from.

That was about 6 years ago, and from there on i have come across this concept many times... Malcom Gladwell pursues it quite well on Blink, and i guess we can all just see the results of giving the users "less" and making them happier as a result.

I guess that minimalism and the balance with interaction that Vanessa referred to is not about taking away complexity and features... its all about providing a simpler clearer route to success, less methods to achieve the same amount of Goals so to speak.

In particular i was very impressed by the difference between maximizers and "satisficers" the first being those that always fight for better results and the second being those that just want to get by.

What i read in the article matches perfectly with Krug's "dont make me think" in general people just want to get their Goals done as painlessly as possible, they are here to do stuff not interact with the design.

I guess the hardest part is beating your ego to an extent where you are not making "minimalist" design; you are just trying to get out of the way to allow people to do what they came here to do.

[ESP] Yo elegí “Make It So: What Interaction Designers can Learn from Science Fiction Interfaces”.

Una lectura muy interesante que me dejo con ganas de leer el material que afirman haber dejado a un lado para enfocarse en la relación Diseño-Interface (muy acertado pues la relación ciencia ficción-ingeniería tiene demasiadas aristas).

“How design influences SciFi and how SciFi influences design” en un que considero relacionado artículo “From Science Fiction to Innovation in the Field of Industrial Design” el autor Lavinia Manea nos señala que la innovación es un proceso continuo que va de la realidad a la ficción y de la ficción a la realidad.

Totalmente de acuerdo, vivimos inmersos en un contexto y el contexto nos influencia, muchas de las ideas de hoy se parecen a los diseños futuristas de la series de ciencia ficción de pasado. O no les recuerdan los teléfonos celulares al comunicador de la serie “Viaje a las Estrellas”. Esto no es extraño ni anormal muchos de los diseñadores que hoy trabajan para las grandes empresas fueron niños de esa época y están influenciados por esas ideas.

Pero a su vez, ellos influencian la tecnología, pues mucha veces tiene ideas propias con las que incluyen pequeñas modificación, que quizá no son posibles con la tecnología actual pero serán posibles en breve con tecnología en desarrollo, como “implantes auditivos” o “sistemas localización global sub cutáneos”.

Otro análisis que se debe hacer al diseñar es que la aceptación de las personas a ciertas tecnologías también se ve influenciada por el contexto histórico. Por ejemplo: En las películas clásicas al voltear al futuro la interface más aceptada para controlar maquinas es la voz. Hace un par de años el controlar dispositivos utilizando computadores (video/joystick/Ratón) era la más común. Hoy día vemos como ya muchos autores coquetean con la introducción de interfaces neurales (dispositivos insertos en el cerebro).

Estoy seguro que a mis padres no les gustaría la idea de que nadie les introdujera un aparato de ningún tipo ni alambres en el cerebro. Para mi es interesante pero aun visto como muy peligroso. Pero para mi sobrino es muy “en onda” utilizar un juego que ha salido al mercado y se controla con la mente.

En este sentido existe algo paradójico, la comunicación funciona de modo distinto. La aparición del telégrafo, fue ampliamente aceptada. Fue mejorada y desplazado por el teléfono que nos dejaba escuchar la voz de nuestro interlocutor. La popularidad actual del “Skype” y otros medios de video comunicación son innegables, pero aun así estamos fascinados por la posibilidad de poder tener la presencia virtual de una persona como ocurre en los las saga de los capítulos I, II y III de Star Wars. La conclusión posible a esto podría ser que el realismo le da aceptación al diseño de la interface.

Pero se debe tener cuidado con la última afirmación. La actitud que produce el diseño en la interacción es otro factor, es interesante la innovación pero el diseño debe ir adoptándola gradualmente, quizá si la aparición de dispositivos como el Nintendo Wii no se hubiese dado, interfaces de control como el Kinetic no serían tan populares, pero recuerde que Nintendo viene de tener pad y joysticks como controles de su consola.

Lo cognitivo (el conocimiento) es otra variable que interviene, hemos dicho que el diseño de una interface debe ser instintivo. Al ver un teclado lo primero que uno piensa es en escribir cosas con sus teclas pero esto viene porque algún día existieron máquinas de escribir, quizá una interface de ventanas tipo “Minority Report” no sería tan intuitiva para el que nació en 1930, como un teclado no lo sería para un hombre prehistórico.

En la conclusión el autor afirma “This is only the beginning. There's a lot more lessons we're learning and a lot more properties to explore” cosa con lo que concuerdo pues aunque el contexto referencial es una base de partida para el diseño, las modificaciones alternativas, la investigación y principalmente la imaginación son las principales herramientas que construirán el futuro del diseño y que son la vida que alimenta nuestras historias de ciencia ficción.

I read the article "Abductive Thinking and Sensemaking: The Drivers of Design Synthesis" http://jonkolko.com/writingAbductiveThinking.php

The article discusses various methods for gathering information and putting information to use to develop design solutions. To me a lot of the techniques were informative and I can see how they can help to stimulate thought and lead to innovative design, however, I am not sure that these methods are the only way for invention.

First, one of the definitions given for design is "organizing complexity of finding clarity in chaos," I disagree with the definition and think design is more than a method of organization and is an art form appealing to emotional desires.

Kolko argues abductive reasoning is the "best" logic for design because it opens the mind to make leaps and unobvious connections. For this type of logic, methods such as reframing, concept mapping, and insight combination are suggested. The arguments that are made for these thought processes to stimulate new design make a lot of sense to me, but I do not think these are the sole methods for establishing this goal. New experiences and taking yourself out of a routine are great stimulates for making new and innovative connections. In the article I believe informal modes of inspiration are overlooked and undervalued.

I chose the article “Emotion and Design: Attractive things work better” by Don Norman.

This was to me the classic “Form over Function or Function over Form” argument. Yet instead of arguing it he is, quite intelligently, giving a detailed, insightful dissertation on why “Form” is needed, essential even. I know most of us are most likely designers and so would almost always lean toward this understanding, yet he seems to be speaking to the “Function” tent. As a fellow “Functioner”, wooing them into the understanding of the psychological and anthropological evidence for the effectiveness of aesthetics in common life. How this aesthetic can, in fact, improve the response or feeling of their “Function”.

He gives a great example of the early days of personal computing. Black and white monitors displayed nothing but information meant to accomplish a task. Yet, even in that simplicity, businesses began trending to purchase color monitors for their employees. Borrowing a friends color monitor, he evaluated, after the allotted time that the color created no discernable value for getting the work done. However, he decided her would not go back to using the black and white monitor. His cognitive reasoning told him that the color made no difference, but his subjective emotions refused to comply.

I am a Macintosh guy, have been since before I can remember. The Microsoft experience has always baffled me. I think back to the days when my family had our first computer running Windows 3.1. I remember using it for the first time after having quite a bit of experience running MacOS at school. The sheer rigidity and homeliness of it sold me forever on Apple. I had no use for its function, which was most likely comparable to the Mac. Using the Windows system, although sufficient in function, gave off a truly negative response when contrasted with another equally sufficient experience that was also aesthetically pleasing.

Ah, but lest you think he ends, as all designers wish he would, on that premise, he doesn’t. The truth being, as we all know, that a balance of form and function is needed for any great user experience. Using my previous example, the original Windows software I felt had a horrendous experience because of its sheer lack of anything aesthetic. Yet, using Windows 7 today is a totally different thing. Function has finally met the balance of form to give the user a great experience.

I think as we talk about Human Interaction, I believe the interactional experience is always subject to the persons involved in the action. Meaning, the feeling that the action ensues is based solely upon the subjective, emotional experiences and responses of the user. Just as important as balance between Form and Function, if we do not have a good understanding of the specific audience or end user then it can and surely will cause a negative emotional response. Technically, both Form and Function will be affected by this thought but it I believe it must be the glue that pulls the two together.

My take on "Make It So: What Interaction Designers can Learn from Science Fiction Interfaces[1]"

An overall interesting read, although the title made me expect a more focused, succinct essay on lessons designers could glean from science fiction. It starts by proposing that Reality sets the paradigm that sci-fi builds upon, which I think is a good observation of how contemporary design influences a generation of science fiction writers, film makers and other creatives as they imagine what future technology (and therefore future interfaces) would be like. In turn, science fiction inspires engineers, designers, and other similar professionals to look at what they know and figure out a way to realize what once existed only in the imagination.

In this way, we can say that the progress made in making science fiction concepts reality is Iteration on a collective, massive scale. Reality serves as a starting point from which science fiction can extrapolate possible future creations (tech, interfaces, etc), while science fiction serves as model for technologists and designers to strive towards and make real. Unlike iteration in the design lab, this process continues ad infinitum such that we probably have the faintest inkling of what is possible decades from now (I'll call this Science-Reality, short hand for Science Fiction into Reality and Reality into Science Fiction).

The authors then talk about Inspiration and Expectation, which seem distinct enough to justify talking about separately, although the examples given for each end up in a product too similar to the prototype to make the desired distinction clear. In the former, engineers saw a 3D map in the X-men movie and was inspired to create a system that uses a dynamic sand table and overhead projection to achieve a similar effect. In the latter generations of roboticists create humanoid robots because that is what science fiction usually depicts. I think a clearer analogy would have been engineers inspired by Rosie [2] from the Jetsons to create the Roomba[3], to contrast with engineers creating ASIMO[4] to conform to popular expectation as to what a robot is.

With those out of the way, the authors start to get to the lessons part of the article (there was one lesson in between the Inspiration and Expectation discussion, "Sci Fi is a powerful cultural influence. It affects designer's ideas as well as those of our clients and audiences." but it seems more like a factual observation to me).

Lesson one sounds like a re-hash of the Expectation section, but here the authors specify how interfaces can be determined by users' previous exposure to media, and as such, I think is a useful pointer to take from Science Fiction.

Next the authors caution designers from hewing too closely to established interfaces because doing so can detract from the user experience (The authors gave as cautionary tales Microsoft's effort at an office assistant, Clippy[5]--may he rest in peace--but showing restraint in introducing anthropomorphic or skeuomorphic details is still very much relevant in interface design) and I couldn't agree more. Just because a novel interface works well on screen/on paper doesn't mean it will be as easy or practical to use in real-life. The film Galaxy Quest[6] played this up to humorous effect when Cmdr. Taggart/Nesmith (Allen) has to relay his commands to Lt. Madison/DeMarco who then "interfaces" with the voice-commanded ship computer.

(Note: The next lesson, wading into the social context is more tricky than it looks, I can't really talk much about, as I have no idea how it relates to the other points the authors were trying to make.)

Lesson four talks about science fiction demonstrated that sound is sometimes enough to trigger anthropomorphism, which given the example of R2-D2[7], I can't really argue against.

The fifth lesson adds behavior to the methods an interface designer could learn from science fiction as they create real interfaces. Unfortunately, I don't quite understand what the authors wanted to convey by using Amazon's OneClick[8] as the archetype for behavior-induced anthropomorphism. It just seems to spare an interaction for me to equate with the human-like quality (shopkeeper or bartender) the authors are trying to equate with it.

The next lesson builds upon the preceding three lessons by postulating that the closer an interface imitates humans, the higher user expectations become. This sounds like good advice, but I think the author should have gone further and done one of two things: caution readers from trying to antropomorphize interfaces too much to avoid over-inflating user expectations, or encourage them to try to emulate complexity.

Lesson seven advises interface designers to include constraints into a design to aid users understand an interface even without the manual, which while sound advice, could've used a better example than the one the authors included: Lifted seems to be premised upon making fun of sci-fi interfaces by depicting a control board rife with what looks like switches. Not quite believable as something real-world engineers would be inspired by or users would expect.

The authors then point out the desirability of intelligent input devices, as depicted in such science fiction films as 2001[9] compared to dumb controls in The Fifth Element[10]. Here I think the authors singled out a great lesson interface designers could lift from sci-fi. A particular real-world application of this lesson would be accidental input filtering from track pads.

Next the authors point out the sci-fi trope of hierarchy being indicated by scale. I'm skeptical about the application of this lesson in real-world scenarios. For instance, imagine what your IM application's buddy list interface would look like if your contacts were displayed according to how important they were to you. How would you arrange such a list and where would additional information go (such as idle state & username)? A well-thought out interface design might be able to incorporate scale-as-hierarchical-indicator or it might not.

The penultimate lesson states that "what works for audiences often works for users as well." I'm ambivalent about this lesson because it can both be true and false. The example given (Minority Report[11]) perfectly supports the point the authors are making because it shows a scenario where audiences accept the interface as something that makes sense, right down to the shortcoming the scene revealed. Unfortunately the same can be said of interfaces that audiences accept as realistic but could in reality have its own deficiencies such as transparent, vertical screens such as portrayed in Battlestar Galactica [12].

Finally, the authors contend that "watching science fiction can be beneficial to your career." to which I agree 100%.

References
[1] http://theixdlibrary.com/presentations/make-it-so-what-interaction-desig...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_the_Robot_Maid
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimo
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clippy
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R2-D2
[8] http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=help_search_T1_1...
[9] http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2009/02/how-accurate-was-kubricks-2001...
[10] http://movieclips.com/E6iow-the-fifth-element-movie-choking-on-a-cherry/
[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwVBzx0LMNQ
[12] http://www.battlestargalactica.com/outside_docs/cylonorg_doc003.htm

I would like to share the article, “The A-B-C of Behaviour” by Jodie Moule for this week's assignment.

I really like Moule's example of the egg timer as a catalyst of change. She states the device immediately changed her water consumption behavior, and even mentions how it led to feelings of guilt when her usage went over the time allotted. It demonstrates how a simple device can have a huge impact on behavior.

People in this course who have read and shared this article pointed out, "We can’t change a person, but we can influence the way they behave by shaping the environment they function within." Moule emphasizes artifacts (e.g. the egg timer), and I really wanted her to go into more depth about this, or at least touch on some of the social aspects. Since she didn't, I will supplement it with Edwin Hutchin's theory of distributed cognition.

Edwin Hutchins is a Cognitive Scientist and the main developer of distributed cognition. [2] Distributed cognition is a framework that takes coordination between individuals, artifacts, and the environment into consideration. [2] Our behavior is not confined to the individual, but "is distributed by placing memories, facts, or knowledge on the objects, individuals, and tools in our environment." [2] I consider distance learning, such as P2PU, and collaborative tagging (e.g. the Twitter hashtag #) as modern applications of distributed cognition.
 
Here's an excellent excerpt on cognition from Hutchins' book, Cognition in the Wild:

". . . in watching the ant [in a complicated path across a beach], we learn more about the beach than about what is inside the ant. And in watching people thinking in the wild, we may be learning more about their environment for thinking than about what is inside them. Having realized this, we should not pack up and leave the beach, concluding that we cannot learn about cognition here. The environments of human thinking are not “natural” environments. They are artificial through and through. Humans create their cognitive powers by creating the environments in which they exercise those powers. At present, so few of us have taken the time to study these environments seriously as organizers of cognitive activity that we have little sense of their role in the construction of thought.

Moule makes a convincing argument about the impact of design on behavior; as designers "we can change behaviour through design of products, services and systems".[1] My only critique of this article (and design in general) is the lack of emphasis on the responsibility of the designer. If design is such a powerful tool, capable of changing behavior, then more weight should be placed on the impact of one's ideas and products. She alludes to this briefly at the end when shes states, "the best way to do this is to first consider the customers culture and context, before we even start on ideas." [1] I couldn't agree more, and this is where ethnographic studies and user research can help. To know a society's stories is to know where it intends to go [4], after all. I would go a step further and ask, how do we hold designers responsible for the ideas they put out in the world, where the effects are not readily visible or comprehensible? There is a current trend towards sustainable design, where the environment and the product life-cycle are taken into consideration – that's a good start, but it took us forever to get there!

[1] Moule, Jodie .“The A-B-C of Behaviour”. January 2011. Johnny Holland Magazine. http://johnnyholland.org/2011/01/24/the-a-b-c-of-behaviour/ (8 Feb. 2011).
[2] Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_cognition
[3] Hutchins, Edwin. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995. p.169
[4] Sachs, Jonah. “Modern Storytelling”. Compostmodern, AIGA SF. Hub SoMa, San Francisco. 22 Jan. 2011.

I read 'Controls and choices' http://www.designingdevices.com/controls-are-choices/

It's been a fruitful reading, as I kept thinking of different devices and their controls while following the article.

I'll take this sentence literally: 'Complexity just doesn't go awaý' as I think that it determines how difficult it is to deal with controls design and taking the correct decision to make a perfect balance between simplicity and giving options to users.

I find particularly complicated in controls selection, as do it too simple can bore easily, but doing it too complicated can be annoying, and probably the answer here is (as always) in target users and figuring out which are their real needs, which makes me think of reading Don Norman´s article´'Technology First, Needs Last'.

I'm going to defend Don Norman's point of view in a more practical way.

I found the video from Don Norman a real entertainer. The ideas of BMW and Mercedes Benz to give the user a centralized control over all aspects of there cars. Altering the volume of the car radio required at least four steps. And this were they went wrong as stated in [7] http://uxmag.com/design/the-psychologists-view-of-ux-design; “People Don't Want to Work or Think More Than They Have To” give them defaults. So often used controls should be a. enabled by default or b. require the least amount of interaction. One of the first Basic Principles of HCI
is “Requirements Analysis Agree on the users' needs and aim for usability requirements.”[2] http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/computer-interaction-site

Also all the same buttons to control parameters from the car do not take a mental models into consideration. I've just got my new iphone4. I never owned an idevice. I was fiddling with ipod function and stumbled upon this GREAT mental model of how to shuffle song; just by shaking my iphone4! I think it's genius and thought “That's how you make use of metal models!” So probably touch screen or just by motion sensors where the user make clockwise circle motion to pump up the volume would be a better solution.
I think this where BMW and Mercedes Benz went wrong. They looked at there problem of giving the user full-control and probably out off a marketing point of view; a strategy. Tedde van Gelderen is mentioning in the third YouTube movie [6.3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7sL9g8homo&feature=channel “A common error to jump to the design stage and don't do some extensive research.”

I'd like to use the article "Good Design in the Digital Age" (http://id.bobulate.com/readings/gooddesign.pdf) as a starting point to developing language around and criteria for measuring "good design".

"Good Design in the Digital Age" posits the question "What is good design?" Buchanan discusses the difference between culturally accepted definitions of "good design" from the 50's to what "good design" means now. In the 50's designers concerned themselves with "form, function, and materials and the manner of industrial production", they designed from an external perspective. Designs were created as entities unto themselves, and were judged externally too –– "there was little sense of the context in which products would be used by people in daily life." Fast forward to the year 2000. The perspective on design has shifted from external to internal where it is specifically concerned with the human experience –– "designers explore what is useful, usable and desirable in products". Designers are no longer working solitarily and products are not seen as simply by themselves, they are seen in conjunction with the interaction with other products or services within the company. Now there are teams formed around exploring human experience with products; designers work in with cognitive psychologists, social scientists, usability experts, and marketing strategists.

Buchanan attempts to set up some criteria for judgement of good design.
1. What is the intended use?
2. How will it fit into a users life?
3. Has the content been organized clearly and efficiently?
4. Is the product easily accessible?
5. Is the product useable from the first screen?
6. Does the product demonstrate an understanding of the needs and limitations of its user?
7. Does the product engage its user?
8. Does the product please and delight its user?
9. When the user has a choice of a similar variety of products, why would they choose this product?

For Buchanan then, the main qualities of good design are "usefulness, usability, and desirability" and how these attributes are used to effectively communicate. I think this is a great starting point, but in order to measure what makes up "good design" we need to create an even more thorough framework by which to judge and evaluate design.

Sorry for the late post! Anyway, I read Ben Bashford’s Emoticomp: http://journal.benbashford.com/post/2848763029, where he discusses the need of embedding identities and personalities within smart products, and the various ways they’ve been implemented effectively, as well as wrongly: Clippy the paperclip from MS Office, had been too aggressive of an implementation and ended up being intrusive to the user’s working space, while Breakfast’s Precious - Bike with a Brain (http://yesiamprecious.com/) tweets about its progress on its journey across the USA, based on its current temperature, humidity, location, speed, direction, etc. Precious’ tweets oozes with personality and is filled with snide comments, but at the end of the day, it was a very passive and subtle presence.

The article does not come to a conclusion. While we try to build identities and trigger emotions from our end users through the use of tone, voice, colours and various other design principles, the idea of giving personas or personalities to products and devices we interact with is still not one that users accept easily. It’s one that users will react negatively to if done incorrectly; in the case they become annoying or intrusive as with the Clippy example.

Here is one that I came across awhile back that I thought was an awesome design/implementation of a persona with a product: http://benthebodyguard.com/

I read the article, The myth of discoverability by Scott Berkun, August 2003.

I chose it because I've been working on an older software product (nearing it's 11th year) which has over a thousand screens - many of which are very complex. After 3.5 years I still find pages which I've never seen before. We're constantly adding new sections, new buttons, new options, configuration, etc. How do you make something stand out and de-emphasize the lower priority elements?

I thought Berkun did a reasonable job at covering the common sense concepts of how everything in design is a trade-off, you're always making compromises and there is no such thing as the ideal perfect design. You're always going to be short-changing someone or some feature in order to make another one more prominent.

I liked how he spelled out the general priorities:

1. Things most people do, most often.
2. Things most people do, somewhat often.
3. Things some people do, most often.
4. Things some people do, somewhat often.
5. Things few people do, most often.
6. Things few people do, somewhat often.

Then listed exceptions such as start up tasks, features only needed in emergencies, complex systems, and diverse user groups such as roles. I might add some other considerations based on how the application will be used. Is this a quick interaction (what's the time, weather, or special for dinner tonight?) As opposed to a deeper layer of study.

I'm a big fan of metaphors so his highway analogy struck a chord with me. This largely boils down to how we choose to drive the highway because it takes us where we want to go quicker. It does this by not providing an exit for every side street, but by skipping most options and spacing out the exits. The value comes from the compromise.

He wrapped up by describing some methods of how to make something discoverable by using real estate, order, form, expectation & flow, and finally consistency. I understood his explanations for these, but I would have liked to have seen some examples which were really well done, or even poor designs which would have benefitted from using these principles.

I wanted to share this Ted.com video with everyone because it goes along with our discussion in week 2. Design in the details: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/paul_bennett_finds_design_in_the_detai...