The term 'user experience' comes tagged with a multitude of definitions, all of which cannot fully explain the term but all are correct nonetheless, because experience can refer to functionality, or aesthetics, or perceived pleassure or any combination or all of them. This shows how varied experience can be for every individual. It is important to understand the needs of each individual user, yet it is impossible to design for only one person. We have to design products for the mass market, yet to design for everyone is to design for no one. Such is the contradiction that exists within the discipline of UX that forces us to keep an open mind over strategies to employ.
Current market practises are increasingly geared towards the individual consumer because that is the vital point of differentiation for their product. Increasingly, marketing strategies are placing more importance on branding and user experience creation than on the product itself. An example would be the Ipod. Functionality-wise, it is no match for the Creative Zen, but Ipod sales far exceed that of Zen's because of the marketing strategies that it took: heavy advertising and creation of perceived user pleasures. Even though functionality accounts for part of the overall experience, Ipod's focus on visual qualities proved to be successful. Looking at Apple's success it is not difficult to understand why user experience is gaining popularity as an academic discipline.
The greatest gain from this course is the identification of human behaviours and traits of emotions. For example the 4-pleasures framework could accurately describe most circumstances that people would feel pleasure in. Pleasures of need and appreciation are also personally valued, as is discovering the 3 attributes of emotions. Understanding human needs and psychology was something that would benefit me for the rest of my life.
Because of my background from the school of computing, i realised that creating functionalities alone does not really count towards creating an 'experience'. In my course of study i've come across various chances to develop small scale softwares loaded with functionalities implemented to the best of my knowledge. These softwares that i've created, though functional, does little to create unique experiences for users; they work, but you won't feel a rush of pleasure using them. They are just like any other similar utility software you might find anywhere, and there's no differentiation. That's why in my final project my team mates and i decided to try and create an experience that truly evokes emotions (all 3 attributes of it hopefully) and appeals not only to our visual faculties, but also to our cognitive faculties. Truth to be told, we had several projects already done and, in fact, we could have handed those up if we had chosen to go for functionalities. But this is not a CS course, and functionalities are not the biggest concern here.
Then again, UX is also about creating functional products (not just websites, but the priciples are the same) that makes an impact. Its no mean feat man. The LG Prada is a functions-loaded phone, but it is really more than just that, combining technology with aesthetics. Shit, it looks cool. Looks better than me. Its cool to use. Hell its cool to own it. The overall quality of experience interacting with this product, be it aesthetics or functions, is undeniably good. But which phone today isn't a pleasure to toy with? The age of user-centred strategies is upon us. Gone are the days when everyone owned the same damn pager (even then they made an effort to make the damn pager look trendy, who could forget the gold chains hanging about?). Catch on the wave or be washed away forever.
It is my opinion that this module has helped me realise the subtleties of designing for users. Consumers are not forced to buy products anymore. Their choice is their power. If we want to chase their skirts we have to let them feel the difference. Exactly how that can be done is rocket science. But, well, what i've learnt here is a first step.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Final Project: KNEON
An interactive project was set as the final project for this module. The initial idea was to set up a website introducing existing products (the Samsung D900 slider phone). We hoped to build an experience of sleeked sophistication around the product,evoking emotions of desire within audiences, and making a visceral impact on them to achieve the intended experience. This was, however, a mistake as the experience would be built around the existing image of the product, itself already fiercely marketed through UX, branding and marketing strategies of the parent company. Since an experience was already built for the product, and we are only focusing on one product without considerations for others in its range, the project would be severely lacking in depth; we would basically be imitating (or plagarising) existing works.
Thus the concept of KNEON was born. Alcohol is a product that creates strong experiences with its consumption, either through the socio-pleasure of socialising or the physio-pleasure of the 'high' that it gives. In fact all 4 pleasures can be addressed duely. Although we are promoting a drinking culture in our project, alcohol consumption is no longer seen as a social vice today, but rather as a 'tool' towards a multitude of objectives from stres relieve to building social networks.
In conceptualising and creating our product we need to know who we are creating it for. Thus target user segments and profiles are identified and drawn up, using surveys and face to face informal interviews. From the information collected, needs and wants of our primary and secondary target users (market segments) are listed and analysed. We also identify our purpose in creating the product, which is to introduce a drink that would appeal to all senses of drinkers. Current offerings on the market such as Martell carries a 'stuck-up old man' connotation. With KNEON we hope to make drinking fashionable and trendy again and inject greater vibrancy into the nightlife scene. Such is the market potential of our product. Intrinsic needs of our target users, image-conscious professionals and executives aged between 18 to 50, are to gain social recognition, be noticed and to derive pleasure from consumption (to name a few). They are the influencers and early adopters who are status and action-oriented in their attitudes towards consumption. Apart from the social drinkers, KNEON also aims to attract th lone drinker who consumes for personal pleasure. KNEON provides for this with the assortment of flavours in its labels. Tastes would generally sweeter than most existing offerings, so we hope to attract non-drinkers to try out our product as well.
Packaging of KNEON would be done in bold colours with special features such as an LED light at the bottom of the bottle. Because KNEON comes in various colours (primarily red, blue, green), the LED light would make the bottle glow, treating consumers to a visual display of colours and improving the overall experience for them. We aim to evoke a sense of awe and mysticism with our glowing bottles, as well as fun and thrill with our bright colours and flashy labels.
The deliverables for this project are the fully interactive website for KNEON, as well as the physical product itself (bottles of KNEON filled with coloured drinks). Being the only group with a physical product, we spent considerable amounts of time creating the look and feel of our bottles to evoke the right kinds of senses and emotions. A heavy focus was also put into our website. Considering the fact that our website was a shallow one with at most 2 levels in the information structure, our focus was not on creating functionalities (like other groups), but with aesthetics of the web layout and graphics. The website is meant as an information site, so presentation would be important in conveying our intended experience across to our users. After user reviews and paper prototypings, we finally set our presentation on rotating panels atop a reflective black surface, to create a sense of dark sophistication. The colours used are primarily in tune with nightclub lightings. Finally it is our intention to build the website so users may immediately recognise it to be a symbol of trendiness and associate KNEON with that kind of quality, and allow rapid adoption for KNEON, a newcomer in the market.
Thus the concept of KNEON was born. Alcohol is a product that creates strong experiences with its consumption, either through the socio-pleasure of socialising or the physio-pleasure of the 'high' that it gives. In fact all 4 pleasures can be addressed duely. Although we are promoting a drinking culture in our project, alcohol consumption is no longer seen as a social vice today, but rather as a 'tool' towards a multitude of objectives from stres relieve to building social networks.
In conceptualising and creating our product we need to know who we are creating it for. Thus target user segments and profiles are identified and drawn up, using surveys and face to face informal interviews. From the information collected, needs and wants of our primary and secondary target users (market segments) are listed and analysed. We also identify our purpose in creating the product, which is to introduce a drink that would appeal to all senses of drinkers. Current offerings on the market such as Martell carries a 'stuck-up old man' connotation. With KNEON we hope to make drinking fashionable and trendy again and inject greater vibrancy into the nightlife scene. Such is the market potential of our product. Intrinsic needs of our target users, image-conscious professionals and executives aged between 18 to 50, are to gain social recognition, be noticed and to derive pleasure from consumption (to name a few). They are the influencers and early adopters who are status and action-oriented in their attitudes towards consumption. Apart from the social drinkers, KNEON also aims to attract th lone drinker who consumes for personal pleasure. KNEON provides for this with the assortment of flavours in its labels. Tastes would generally sweeter than most existing offerings, so we hope to attract non-drinkers to try out our product as well.
Packaging of KNEON would be done in bold colours with special features such as an LED light at the bottom of the bottle. Because KNEON comes in various colours (primarily red, blue, green), the LED light would make the bottle glow, treating consumers to a visual display of colours and improving the overall experience for them. We aim to evoke a sense of awe and mysticism with our glowing bottles, as well as fun and thrill with our bright colours and flashy labels.
The deliverables for this project are the fully interactive website for KNEON, as well as the physical product itself (bottles of KNEON filled with coloured drinks). Being the only group with a physical product, we spent considerable amounts of time creating the look and feel of our bottles to evoke the right kinds of senses and emotions. A heavy focus was also put into our website. Considering the fact that our website was a shallow one with at most 2 levels in the information structure, our focus was not on creating functionalities (like other groups), but with aesthetics of the web layout and graphics. The website is meant as an information site, so presentation would be important in conveying our intended experience across to our users. After user reviews and paper prototypings, we finally set our presentation on rotating panels atop a reflective black surface, to create a sense of dark sophistication. The colours used are primarily in tune with nightclub lightings. Finally it is our intention to build the website so users may immediately recognise it to be a symbol of trendiness and associate KNEON with that kind of quality, and allow rapid adoption for KNEON, a newcomer in the market.
Emotion Design Probe - Learning experience in the LT
If memory serves me right, we were one of the few groups that defined the exact area of concern, that is:
1. Students’ level of concentration in lectures - deals mainly with the physical and emotional state of students
2. Students’ ability to comprehend lectures, or both – deals mainly with the cognitive aspects of learning
We also defined what a good learning experience would be.
In terms of methodology, every group had different sets of frameworks and data collection methods. Our group used field observations, interviews, questionaires and laddering while some other groups also included surveys, some form of cultural probes as well as environmental inference (Feng Shui).
In terms of frameworks, we oriented our questions towards fundamental questions of "What the students thought", "What they want", "How they reacted and Hidden reasons for their responses". As for analysing the data, we looked mainly at the factors that influence an experience: Environment, Time, Place, Other peoples’ interpretation and Previous experience. Some other groups brought in a modified version of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to be applied to the situation which was quite interesting. Some groups also tried to adapt the "Four pleasures" framework for this case. However, we felt that this was a case of force-fitting since the framework's purpose is to analyse one's sources of pleasure and the LT learning experience in itself cannot be assuming to be inherently pleasurable to begin with, at least for most people.
Our observations and results were structured to look at both the humanistic and technological factors that influence students' level of concentration as well as the effect of different lecturer styles on students' ability to comprehend lessons. Our findings pointed towards comfort levels as a major determinant to level of concentration. From poorly designed furniture, over-enthusiastic air-conditioning, overly early/late lectures to the LT location, a myriad of different complaints were suggested. Many distrations also occured due to the misbehaviour of other students. As for presentation style, students generally disliked lecturers that read off slides and many cited unintelligible lecturers as a major concern. Other problems identified included the lack of equipment and organisational proficiency.
Most groups bought up many of the same problems highlighted, including the lack of legroom in some lecture theaters, the poorly designed tables, lecturers with poor communication skills and so on. These common issues are probably the most obvious to all of us as students and thus become the most salient.
While most groups were able to come up with numerous recommendations to overcome hardware flaws such as increasing legrooms, or installing padded seats and rubber padded doors, most would agree that disturbances from other students were difficult to stop. Through our observations, disturbances from students were extremely common, ranging from chitchats to food consumption. Although rules are made regarding student behaviours in lecture theatres, they are conveniently ignored. The most potentially viable recommendations, however, was to have teachers make better lesson deliveries. Some of the groups have brought up the same issue of conducting more interesting lessons (such as having a lecturer with a good sense of humour) to make the learning experience a pleasurable one. Our interviews and surveys reveal that students prefer lessons with value added extras such as multimedia presentations of videos, audios, interactive software and images, rather than just powerpoints and transparencies. Other elements such as animations can also help students understand difficult concepts better than just verbal explanations. Students have reflected that ‘if the lecturer is good, even if the LT is bad, at least the lecture can be made interesting.’ Our recommendation is thus to have enrichment classes for lecturers, so as to work towards that target of giving students an interesting and pleasurable learning experience for every lecture.
1. Students’ level of concentration in lectures - deals mainly with the physical and emotional state of students
2. Students’ ability to comprehend lectures, or both – deals mainly with the cognitive aspects of learning
We also defined what a good learning experience would be.
In terms of methodology, every group had different sets of frameworks and data collection methods. Our group used field observations, interviews, questionaires and laddering while some other groups also included surveys, some form of cultural probes as well as environmental inference (Feng Shui).
In terms of frameworks, we oriented our questions towards fundamental questions of "What the students thought", "What they want", "How they reacted and Hidden reasons for their responses". As for analysing the data, we looked mainly at the factors that influence an experience: Environment, Time, Place, Other peoples’ interpretation and Previous experience. Some other groups brought in a modified version of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs to be applied to the situation which was quite interesting. Some groups also tried to adapt the "Four pleasures" framework for this case. However, we felt that this was a case of force-fitting since the framework's purpose is to analyse one's sources of pleasure and the LT learning experience in itself cannot be assuming to be inherently pleasurable to begin with, at least for most people.
Our observations and results were structured to look at both the humanistic and technological factors that influence students' level of concentration as well as the effect of different lecturer styles on students' ability to comprehend lessons. Our findings pointed towards comfort levels as a major determinant to level of concentration. From poorly designed furniture, over-enthusiastic air-conditioning, overly early/late lectures to the LT location, a myriad of different complaints were suggested. Many distrations also occured due to the misbehaviour of other students. As for presentation style, students generally disliked lecturers that read off slides and many cited unintelligible lecturers as a major concern. Other problems identified included the lack of equipment and organisational proficiency.
Most groups bought up many of the same problems highlighted, including the lack of legroom in some lecture theaters, the poorly designed tables, lecturers with poor communication skills and so on. These common issues are probably the most obvious to all of us as students and thus become the most salient.
While most groups were able to come up with numerous recommendations to overcome hardware flaws such as increasing legrooms, or installing padded seats and rubber padded doors, most would agree that disturbances from other students were difficult to stop. Through our observations, disturbances from students were extremely common, ranging from chitchats to food consumption. Although rules are made regarding student behaviours in lecture theatres, they are conveniently ignored. The most potentially viable recommendations, however, was to have teachers make better lesson deliveries. Some of the groups have brought up the same issue of conducting more interesting lessons (such as having a lecturer with a good sense of humour) to make the learning experience a pleasurable one. Our interviews and surveys reveal that students prefer lessons with value added extras such as multimedia presentations of videos, audios, interactive software and images, rather than just powerpoints and transparencies. Other elements such as animations can also help students understand difficult concepts better than just verbal explanations. Students have reflected that ‘if the lecturer is good, even if the LT is bad, at least the lecture can be made interesting.’ Our recommendation is thus to have enrichment classes for lecturers, so as to work towards that target of giving students an interesting and pleasurable learning experience for every lecture.
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