NM4210 gave me a new perspective on User Design. I have learned about user design from an engineering point of view, but this course offered a more general approach to user design. The concepts taught were general and could be applied to all forms user design. I learned a lot about specific techniques which helped the brainstorming process and testing of ideas. Some of these techniques I found very effective and would use them in future design projects. At the end of the day though, most of these techniques simply presented new ways to organize the thought process and gather information. I always knew that interviews, user testing and evaluation were important, however these steps were done using different and sometimes less formal techniques. That is not to say that those ways were wrong and in the realm of user design, the best technique is simply the one that creates the best end experience.
One of the most valuable things in the final project was in the weekly presentations and feedback received. This advice really helped bring certain issues to light that were overlooked by the group. Again, while this feedback was not a formal technique taught, it proved to be very useful. Overall though, I think this course taught me to understand the concept of user design better. I am now more aware of the importance of design in everyday life and find myself picking out good and bad examples all of the time. When I look back at assignment 0, it would be a lot easier to do that assignment today!
Anything that one creates which involves human interaction has a user experience. It can be from software development to opening a restaurant. Understanding your user and providing a good experience is an important part of any successful product or service.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Final Project Post
The User Experience Design final project brought student’s through the design phase in order to develop an interactive product. The project allowed students to apply design methodologies learned in class and even experiment with their own techniques. User Experience Design is not an exact science and there are many ways to go about it. Sometimes, it simply takes common sense to come up with a good design.
The goal of our project was to teach financial responsibility to people, a need that was identified in the beginning of our project. This is a very realistic need and something we felt that we could address. Our original need revolved heavily around building credit for youth, however after receiving feedback from the class, it was discovered that this wasn’t a big concern amongst Singaporeans, who were our target user.
In order to address the solution effectively, it was important to research our target users which we identified as youth. While even adults are affected by lack of financial knowledge, the problem stems from teaching poor habits at a young age. By creating a solution that targeted children, the problem would be solved in the long run. An issue for our group was the apparent lack of knowledge of Singapore culture. Being from Canada, we did not fully understand how Singaporeans felt about this issue, to add to that, we did not have many local friends to ask. In order to get a better understanding of our users, we interviewed as many locals as possible to get their feelings on the need and how it could be addressed. This process helped us brainstorm solutions and identify the most effective ones. Most of our respondents felt that some form of internet solution would have been the most useful.
At this point we had decided to build an educational website which taught students through interactive lessons. However, after further feedback of our Information Architecture and concept, it was decided that we needed to do a little more to give young people incentives for use. From this feedback, we decided to present the teachings in an interactive online game format which focused on providing a fun experience while subtly teaching young people.
Our first low-fidelity prototype presented a role playing game which took users through a storyline with interactive questions which would affect the outcome of the game. This concept was developed as a paper prototype and presented to some of our users. From this feedback, it was decided that the game needed to take an even more passive approach to teaching and provide more incentive for users to continue to play.
The high fidelity prototype further improved upon our concept by offering a Jeopardy type game which was based on the concept of a multi-player game show. Users would be quizzed on financial based questions with the goal of beating their opponents. This competitive aspect added a lot more depth to the experience as users really got into the game.
Our final design brought users from the main page through to the in-game experience of just one of the games that would be offered in the final design. This allowed us to test the experience we had created to some extent. This allowed us to evaluate our design and determine where the design could be further improved. The overall feedback of our website was positive. However, I do think that improvements could be made to the overall presentation of the website in the completed design. Also, given the skills of our group, we were not able to create the best experience. If the website had been created using flash we would have been able to create a more entertaining experience. Given the feedback we received, it did seem like our product had potential to address the need.
The goal of our project was to teach financial responsibility to people, a need that was identified in the beginning of our project. This is a very realistic need and something we felt that we could address. Our original need revolved heavily around building credit for youth, however after receiving feedback from the class, it was discovered that this wasn’t a big concern amongst Singaporeans, who were our target user.
In order to address the solution effectively, it was important to research our target users which we identified as youth. While even adults are affected by lack of financial knowledge, the problem stems from teaching poor habits at a young age. By creating a solution that targeted children, the problem would be solved in the long run. An issue for our group was the apparent lack of knowledge of Singapore culture. Being from Canada, we did not fully understand how Singaporeans felt about this issue, to add to that, we did not have many local friends to ask. In order to get a better understanding of our users, we interviewed as many locals as possible to get their feelings on the need and how it could be addressed. This process helped us brainstorm solutions and identify the most effective ones. Most of our respondents felt that some form of internet solution would have been the most useful.
At this point we had decided to build an educational website which taught students through interactive lessons. However, after further feedback of our Information Architecture and concept, it was decided that we needed to do a little more to give young people incentives for use. From this feedback, we decided to present the teachings in an interactive online game format which focused on providing a fun experience while subtly teaching young people.
Our first low-fidelity prototype presented a role playing game which took users through a storyline with interactive questions which would affect the outcome of the game. This concept was developed as a paper prototype and presented to some of our users. From this feedback, it was decided that the game needed to take an even more passive approach to teaching and provide more incentive for users to continue to play.
The high fidelity prototype further improved upon our concept by offering a Jeopardy type game which was based on the concept of a multi-player game show. Users would be quizzed on financial based questions with the goal of beating their opponents. This competitive aspect added a lot more depth to the experience as users really got into the game.
Our final design brought users from the main page through to the in-game experience of just one of the games that would be offered in the final design. This allowed us to test the experience we had created to some extent. This allowed us to evaluate our design and determine where the design could be further improved. The overall feedback of our website was positive. However, I do think that improvements could be made to the overall presentation of the website in the completed design. Also, given the skills of our group, we were not able to create the best experience. If the website had been created using flash we would have been able to create a more entertaining experience. Given the feedback we received, it did seem like our product had potential to address the need.
User Research Smoke & Mirrors - Reflection
This series of articles focuses on the concept of research-based design. The author of the article seems to be strongly against research-based design believing that good design is simply a product of good designers.
I think that research can go a long way in terms of designing a good experience, however I feel that a lot of the techniques being used did not add a lot of value. As the author mentions, they were nice to have, but not necessary. When it comes down to research, the best methods I think are straight forward. Simply having a user test your product and offer feedback is a good way to understand the effectiveness of your product. For example, the Persona Rooms allowed designers to submerge themselves into their user’s “feet”. However, I think that a creative designer could have been able to do this without having to build an expensive environment. Also, I think that going to the actual environments of their users would have been effective and much cheaper.
In my opinion, I do feel that a lot of good user design is about having skillful designers who inherently have a good understanding of users. Even with all of the research results, conclusions must be drawn and if a designer does not interpret the results correctly, the design will not be good. The big reason why so many things offer poor user experiences is because the people that design them have tastes that don’t agree with the general user. So even if they do research, their underlying understanding of the user will still be skewed and they will not get much out of the results.
User design is an iterative process and it takes a lot of feedback to land on a good final result. A lot of the learning is done through the testing of the designs and understanding what works and what doesn’t. You can do all of the scientific research you want, but at the end of the day you need to listen to what the user says as that is the most accurate research you can do!
link to article:
http://www.graphpaper.com/2006/07-10_user-research-smoke-mirrors-part-1-design-vs-science
I think that research can go a long way in terms of designing a good experience, however I feel that a lot of the techniques being used did not add a lot of value. As the author mentions, they were nice to have, but not necessary. When it comes down to research, the best methods I think are straight forward. Simply having a user test your product and offer feedback is a good way to understand the effectiveness of your product. For example, the Persona Rooms allowed designers to submerge themselves into their user’s “feet”. However, I think that a creative designer could have been able to do this without having to build an expensive environment. Also, I think that going to the actual environments of their users would have been effective and much cheaper.
In my opinion, I do feel that a lot of good user design is about having skillful designers who inherently have a good understanding of users. Even with all of the research results, conclusions must be drawn and if a designer does not interpret the results correctly, the design will not be good. The big reason why so many things offer poor user experiences is because the people that design them have tastes that don’t agree with the general user. So even if they do research, their underlying understanding of the user will still be skewed and they will not get much out of the results.
User design is an iterative process and it takes a lot of feedback to land on a good final result. A lot of the learning is done through the testing of the designs and understanding what works and what doesn’t. You can do all of the scientific research you want, but at the end of the day you need to listen to what the user says as that is the most accurate research you can do!
link to article:
http://www.graphpaper.com/2006/07-10_user-research-smoke-mirrors-part-1-design-vs-science
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