During my Erasmus stay in Ireland I had a subject called HCI - Human-Computer Interaction. There was a lot of theoretical information to learn but I would like to write about the more fun part. We were supposed to gather examples of good and bad designs of everyday objects as well as suggest interesting materials discovered on the web. Evaluation can happen on a variety of levels. Does form follow function or is it the other way around? Are the devices that we use on a daily basis, like phones and computers, a seamless extension of us and enable us to get things done?
Don Norman on good design. (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlQEoJaLQRA)
Don Norman recognises three levels of processing: visceral, behavioural and reflective.
Visceral is the initial, subconscious reaction we get from something. Is it scary or not? Is it tasty? Thanks to the visceral feeling, we can become more focused on the task at hand or more creative at other times. It’s very easy to find moments in our lives where a shift of emotion occurred. Stress just before an important test is one such moment. We isolate ourselves and solve the problems presented on a sheet of paper. In terms of design, visceral would mean the visual appearance. The New York Museum of Modern Art (http://www.moma.org/) has some very pretty exhibits and many people would buy the objects shown just to place them somewhere visible inside the house. Even if they were frustrating to use or expensive.
Behavioural is also subconscious. This one is about usability. Using a well designed object produces a feeling of being in control, getting the right result. Nowadays, many user interfaces are heavily based on this idea. Facebook redesigned its mobile app entirely to make it faster and easier for their users. It created separate versions for different operating systems to utilise behaviour common to all applications running on those platforms. It is therefore recognisable, natural to use, predictable.
Reflective represents the owner and his beliefs. We like having prestigious objects, ones that attract a lot of attention. Sometimes we buy food that is packed in paper instead of plastic because we care about the environment. We make a decision based on our own preferences.
Shorter version of an Apple presentation. (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijm570jj_J0)
What do the customers consider first when buying an iPad (or any other Apple product): the visceral, behavioural or reflective side? Apple tries to cater for all of these aspects. It shows off the device from all angles, letting the audience experience the simplicity and perfect fitting of each part. Later, they perform various tasks on it. The easiness and intuitive approach is stressed to the limits. The usefulness is mentioned boldly in every step. Environmentally friendly materials are highlighted whenever Apple can achieve appropriate standards (they made a few devices that didn’t pass the tests). They tell you to picture yourself holding the device, using and enjoying it because the quality is there as usual. By holding on to this approach, Apple tries to make everybody happy. People, like products, want to achieve different goals. Some are more visceral. Others behavioural or reflective.
The iPad: beautiful, functional and made by Apple. (source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/the-apple-ipad/)
Nabaztag - smart rabbit, developed by Violet. (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pov6Csqr-bg/)
On the other side, there are products that lack some of the characteristics mentioned. Seth Godin made a good presentation about it. He divided the bad designs he found into seven categories. It’s less about placing a design against a checklist and deciding whether it passes or not. It is more about the functional aspect and how the author felt after encountering these objects in real life.
Examples of bad design. (source: http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_this_is_broken_1.html)
Which side are you on? More visceral, behavioural or reflective?
Comments
About web design, everything too much become the same by become similar to Facebook. Of course it’s functional, but nothing else, design is common without visual attract (I’m telling here about Windows 8) and I even dare to state that this design is repulsive. Maybe some of designers are already empty from ideas last time or don't listening customers suggestions.
Worth a read: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/
I believe there's no magic recipe for a design that would be liked by all of us, so I'd welcome more diversity in creating new ones. Unfortunately, it seems like all manufacturers (or ui designers for software/web) tend to just average commonly accepted design patterns and all their outcome products looks mostly the same and are quite indifferent in perception. Windows 8 is nothing innovatory here - they just took already existing concept and embedded it in totally not suitable environment.
As for all of you saying that all software and hardware ale very similar nowadays. That’s true but look at this from the developers point of view. Is something works fine, why change that. Changes always cause a risk of failure so it is much safer to copy tested ideas. Making up something new that works as good as the old solutions makes the development process much longer and much more expensive. Only a few companies can afford that, but that’s what makes them different from another. But they are not always successful in populating these new ideas, and not many companies can afford to take risk of spending large amounts of money with no guarantee of success.
I've never thought about design in such way, but I cannot disagree with you. People usualy like if things from first touch are predictible and easy to learn how to use. We often read manuals if someting is broken already, and they we learn we've used it in wrong way. If it goes to IT offten "normal" people just want to use their phones, pc and even TV without second thinking how someting is working and they are just frustraited if something is not working as they think it should. For example drag and drop which is "natural" in the OS were for majority of time not present in the web browser. We (programmers) can understand it, but by many people it was considered as bug, because they cannot use browser as they think they would.
The market for software and hardware is so big that people can expect nothing less than the best. It doesn't matter if the product costs 10$ or 100 times more.
As consumers, with so many different products to choose from, we find it hard to choose at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM
When I choose a product to buy, I think, I’m more a visceral and reflective type. I like to keep my things in tune with a particular style. Not only the look is important to me but I also pay attention to how the products were made. They should be eco-friendly and not tasted on animals. I guess, I’m less a behavioral type, because product simplicity is not so important to me. In my opinion, you can learn how to use everything. You just need to read an instruction or watch a tutorial, generally spend some time to figure it out. I take care whether functionalities of a product will meet my expectations. Nowadays more products are designed to be attractive from visceral, behavioral and reflective types, so they can be sold to as many people as possible.
That said I also believe that design is a very important and hard thing, because good functionalities need to have a clear interface, whether it's a web page, smartphone or just a toy. I think that the looks of things should make usage as simple and clear to the end user as possible.
Thank for such a topic :)
People usualy like, if things they buy/own are predictible and easy to learn.I beleive that the looks of all those things/devices/buildings are very important nowadays. People often heavily depend on the image of the product rather than funcionality, but still.... Have You tried to buy any electric device? Their manual is like 400 pages long. You have to remember, that the GUI is the first thing that the customer sees and touches when buying ne device and that first impression is the key to success.