September 2016 – iamqingg

ASSIGNMENT 7 & 8.

Part 1: Response to “Future World”

Experience design is design focusedon the level of engagement and satisfaction that a user of a product orservice experiences. A trip to the ‘Future World’ exhibition gave us an opportunity to experience what’s it like to be IN an artwork as compared to looking and understanding an artwork. It is different to me because there were instances where we were truly immersed in the environment that was designed. That allowed for deeper, more inclusive and overwhelming ways for us to be engaged. In turn, changed the way the message was brought about. It was more memorable and meaningful because instead of information being given in my face, the message felt very inclusive and real. For example, I could imagine if the experience from the exhibitions Ever Blossoming Life II and Crystal Universe were used to spread awareness of global crisis, it would truly leave an impact. Instead of just presenting data and facts, these environments teleports us to a different dimension where we truly understand and not just be overwhelmed with knowledge. Interacting with such environments or settings in a life sized scale helps me see beyond the current possibilities of design.

I think these technology and new way of engaging users will path the way to deeper communications through phenomenal experiences. Perhaps we are running out of words and images to present pressing issues and a new way of spreading such messages is to bring the environment to people, for them to not just see for themselves but feel for themselves.

Part 2: Start to work on final project proposals – prepare three ideas for a screen-based experience that you’d like to create (it can be speculative). Prepare a slide show to illustrate your ideas. The ideas can be based on any of the field trips done so far or can be something completely new.

Part 3: Find 3 examples of a product/project with thoughtfully designed user experience.

WEBSITES

Stumbled upon these few websites which are very simply and well designed. The interface is intuitive, mostly making use of the action of scrolling to tell stories and advertise their products. I feel that the user experience in these websites are well designed because they don’t serve to just provide information but they are designed from the point of view of the user to convey information in a more engaging way. They are truly made to be experienced as users scroll at a pace they are comfortable with.

I especially enjoyed scrolling through the Coin website as the animations that follows from segment to segment is very engaging and introduces the card in a way that is clear and easy to understand.

Only Coin

Cool Hunting

well designed headings
consistency in design
Page speed (dependent on us)
attractive calls to action
simplifies complicated series of products for users by asking questions from user’s POV.
Concepts makes us forget that we’re scrolling through a website

Swiss Flight

Drowning Simulator

this website simulates how it’s like to drown to increase awareness of wearing life jacket. Shows us how a change in perspective and letting users experience can bring forth a powerful marketing technique.

2. SERVICES

NLB ITEMS CHECK OUT.

3 basic steps that users from all ages and walks of life can understand.

Design understands the wide range of users that uses these check out machines. It caters to the most essential requirements of the process of borrowing items from the library instead of providing bonus features.

The placement for the card slot which also flashes to capture attention is well thought out. The slot for receipts is sheltered with a curved piece of plastic so that intuitively we would not slot our cards there (minimize confusion). The instructional photos shown on screen are also very easy to understand and help the users use the machine even if they cannot read.

Step 1: Language Selection

Step 2: Inserting membership card

Step 3: Checking out of items (all at once). Remove card to end transaction.

3. SERVICE

I feel that Uber has well designed user experience in their app. It gives instructions and feedbacks one step at a time taking the user closer and closer to getting a ride. Each step is crucial and has a logical chronological order.

choosing the type of car (give users the choice to choose what fits their needs)
start location (able to see where the car is, assuring users thatas they are waiting, their car is indeed on the way)
Estimated price given (suggests openess of the app, no overcharging)
end location
Allowed to share ETA (estimated time of arrial) and even progress of trip (safety issues?)

Part 4, Reading: CH01_Digital_Age_Goodwin.pdf

This reading talks about the process and methodologies of design. The aim of having a design process is to ensure that projects fall within time and economic constraints and that quality projects/ideas are articulated clearly to the rest of the production team.

One of the most important step in design is to understand for whom and for what we are designing for. Design is therefore heavily dependent on human senses, cognition and ergonomics.

Some of the important key takeaways from the reading:

INTERACTION DESIGN (page 5)

affects product definition (what functionality a product has)

what activities does the product or service support and how
what workflow provides the best way for users to accomplish their goals
what information do users need at each point in that process
What information does the system needs from the users
How will users move from one activity to another
How is functionality segmented and manifested?Questions for our Principles:
1. Does it help users accomplish their goals
2. Will it help users minimize work?

PATTERNS are essential in design because they are building blocks of designer’s vocabulary. Principle are rules of grammar.

I agree that the stage of research is crucial as that’s where alot of inspirations and restrictions come from. Below are a few keywords that I extracted from another source that helps to describe the process of research sort out the wide range of information that we get during the research phase.

Digging, Clarifying, Expanding, Thinking, Clustering, Analyzing, Framing, Exploring.

As we design, it is crucial for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the users and ask very meticulous, precise questions on the very problem we are resolving. I agree that different feed backs work for different context. Hence, it might be important for us to take up different personas and different point of views as we role play.

ASSIGNMENT 6.

DAY 1 – create a diary of when, why and what you use your mobile device for. Observe how others are using their mobile devices. What are the most common uses and where do you see these behaviors?

Day: 15 Sep (0700 – 2300)

I saw people using their phones EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME. Most commonly they were using it to:

Communicate (Through Whatsapp, Telegram, SMS etc. )
Gaming
Watch videos (mainly tv dramas)
Social Media (facebook, instagram, snapchat)

Majority of the people I observed were giving undivided attention to their phones. Those watching videos had their phones in landscape position and a ear piece plugged in. But everyone observed were very engaged and concentrated, seemingly clueless about what’s going on around them. What’s irritating was that they were still in this deep level of engagement with the phone even when they were walking – they would just walk in their own pace and not bother if they were in the way of other people.

I’m shocked to realize that the need and desire of being constantly engaged with the phone was so great. I’ve seen one person just scrolling the home page of his phone (probably because he had no internet connection). I’ve seen a few more others scrolling through Facebook at such great speed that you know they weren’t reading but just letting the Facebook posts pass them by.

DAY 2 – Do not use your phone, computer or electronic device for 24 hours. Create a diary documenting and describing the difference in your behavior patterns. How did you do the things you would normally do with your phone? What other alternative behaviors did you develop? What else did you notice about the difference in behavior?

The difference was that there were less distractions but also alot more inconvenience. But I realized the things I depended on my phone for could actually be replaced with alternatives. The internet was very dearly missed in this 24 hours. At the end of the day when I checked my phone and looked through the messages, there were ALOT of them. But only 2 -3 chats concerned me directly. I felt like I gave myself more attention through this experiment because I wasn’t distracting myself with my phone but had to face my bored thoughts and manage them. I also became way more observant and curious about the things around me.

READING:

Good design of digital artifacts balances SPEED and USABILITY. It also takes into consideration the expectations and requirements from the user, societal laws and ideological considerations. It is also a continual and long term process. It is difficult to pinpoint if a given design (solution) is good in a short term as these designs should continually be worked on and pushed for greater outcome.

Since design is unique, ethical, aesthetical, political and ideological…

This statement that the author made allowed me to reflect on the true power of great design and the responsibility that a designer has. It is not easy to understand other’s peoples concerns and point of view and yet not compromise on my own values. It is increasingly difficult to come up with good design because things are changing constantly and also because it is extremely difficult to take into considerations all the other designs that will interact with my design and how it will work out. This is to say that users experience design not as isolated objects but they are experiencing it as they experience other designs as well.

To summarize, if design is all about people it brings us to a higher moral level because we’re no longer just consumed with ourselves, we want to better the lives of others.

Came across this video the other day. He shared about how design thinking changed with changes in the world. A few key things i picked up:

Design is human centered even if it integrates technology and economics. (we understand culture and context before we have ideas)
Prototypes speed up the process of innovation (putting our ideas out in the world helps us understand its strengths and weaknesses)
Design thinking explores potential of participation (from profit driven to a place where people experiences are meaningful, productive and profitable)

And I’d like to suggest that if we take a different view of design, and focus less on the object and more on design thinking as an approach, that we actually might see the result in a bigger impact. In the case of design, that means balancing desirability, what humans need, with technical feasibility, and economic viability.

– Tim Brown

ASSIGNMENT 5.

PART 1: Reading Response

The four drivers – security, convenience, reliability and peace of mind which the author listed out as the fundamentals on which we decide what to carry in our bags is essentially what majority of the urbanites would base their daily decisions on as well. For example, where to stay or what to eat. Most people would want to stay in a well connected area with low crime rate and established with shops or marketplaces. When it comes to food, we generally want food that would not poison us and would not require us to run after chickens for their meat. Hence, the four drivers are very applicable and useful to help us understand the user’s point of view in the design of any product or service.

How does

range of distribution (distance that people are willing to let physical objects stray)
owner’s sense of object value (project or protect it)
centers of gravity
point of reflection
redundant compensation

influence the way we design things that are meant to be portable? These are carrying behaviors that differ for different objects. By observing and understanding the thought behind how people treat different objects, we can design to change messy behaviors or cater the design to fit into such behaviors so that it becomes inclusive and more people would use it.

Something that caught my attention was when the author said,

Now, just because you can easily fit all those things in your pocket doesn’t mean you constantly need them … … And simply because you can reduce them to bytes doesn’t mean you’re ready to get rid of their tangible forms.

I feel that when it comes to decision on what we carry or own, emotional values that we attribute to that object plays a significant role as well. Even when we refer to what’s digitalis-ed like phone applications, I’m sure there are some applications in our phones that we don’t use as often but just leave it there. However, when it comes to cloud storage, the emotional values attributed to what we upload might be diminished. This is because the storage space available seems infinite, we won’t need to weigh, compare and choose what we want to keep anymore, just dump everything online. In this way, the frequency where we think about what we really need decreases and we just keep everything.

Question 1: Are emotional values attributed to things subjective? What are ways in which we can influence it?

Question 2: Will we be able to accurately and efficiently predict and expect user behavior online if users are spammed with an even greater amount of choices? (they could just be mindlessly clicking instead of really thinking about what is it they want)

PART 2: Place, Location and Ubiquitous technology

solar FREAKIN roadways.

The way the guy speaks is really quite annoying.

But the thought of having smart roads is really exciting. These roads will be able to take care of themselves (melting snow and ice, alerting us if there are damages, customized to transform into a new space and improve visibility and safety). If made from recycled materials, it will really help us resolve to a great extent what we could with the plastics that we can’t get rid of.

LUNA: smart mattress

I really liked this one because I’m going to wake up at the right side of the bed every morning with coffee waiting for me. I think it encompass very nicely what ubiquitous technology is about – everyday objects communicating with each other, without a need for us to interfere and improving our lives.