Topic 7

Question 1

User, task, environment

Answer 1

• Who are the users, who are we designing for
• What’s the task? What is the design brief?
• What environment or environments will the product be used in or applied to
• Deep understanding and emphasize
• The process is iterative => led by the user and developed through user-centered evaluation

Question 2

Iterative process (cycle)

Answer 2

• Research → user, task, environment, context studies, focus groups, user goals, competitors
• Concept → come up with ideas, concept models, usage scenarios, and paper prototypes
• Design → process flows, interactive prototypes, usability testing, functional specifications, product structure diagram
• Implementation → usability testing, expert evaluation, accessibility evaluation
• Launch → usability testing, expert evaluation, accessibility evaluation, focus groups, competitor comparison
• Goal: The final solution must address the whole user experience
  → fully emphasize the problem and find a solution that “solves” all parts of the problem, not just in us

Question 3

Iterative process

Answer 3

Understanding what one is designing through creating it
→ design & development

Question 4

Usability

Answer 4

= ease of use and learnability of the product

Question 5

Usability experiences

Answer 5

• Usefulness → ease of understanding and learning
• Effectiveness → ease of use, quantitatively measured by speed of performance
• Learnability → how easy it is to understand and learn
• Attitude (likeability) → user’s perceptions, feelings, and opinions of the product

Question 6

User group and activities

Answer 6

• Combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches
• Users → the client
• Activities
• Social & cultural context

Question 7

Benefits of enhanced usability

Answer 7

• Product Acceptance → It does what it says it will do
• User Experience → Responses and perceptions of the users as they use the product
• Productivity → Allows the user to be efficient with their time and resources & easy to understand
• Decreased user error → reduced with simpler interfaces and controls
• Training and support needed → If a product has a more intuitive user interface & simpler controls there is less need for training and support

Question 8

Characteristics of good user-product interfaces

Answer 8

• Good organization → Users must be able to intuitively and remember easily or else it becomes a memory burden
• Important characteristics to consider → simplicity, ease of use, intuitive logic, organization, low memory burden, visibility, feedback, affordance

Question 9

Memory burden products

Answer 9

Poor organization causes this and it also leads to the user not using full functionality of product & focusing on a limited set

Question 10

Feedback

Answer 10

= provision of information
- Product telling you it has achieved what you want or is doing it
- Related to receptors
- E.g. elevators → when you press a button it either makes a sound or lights up

Question 11

Usability experiences

Answer 11

• usefulness
• likeability
• productivity
• effectiveness

Question 12

Population stereotypes

Answer 12

Different cultural stereotypes → e.g. colour symbolizations, light buttons

Question 13

Mapping

Answer 13

Relates to the correspondence between the layout of the control and their required action
- E.g. the layout of the controls on a cooker hob

Question 14

Constraints

Answer 14

Limits the way that a product can be used
- E.g. inserting a USB in the wrong way

Question 15

User population

Answer 15

• Population = the group expected to make use of or use an item/product
• User population = the range of users for the product

Question 16

Classification of user

Answer 16

• Classified into groups depending on age, gender, and physical condition
• Physical conditions might include; children, elderly, blindness, hearing, reduced sense of feeling, Parkinson’s disease, partial paralysis, arthritis
• Users can also be classified into groups by their interests, habits, nuances, emotional responses to specific stimuli, etc.

Question 17

Personae, Secondary personae, and Anti personae

Answer 17

• Personae = Primary people whose needs must be satisfied
• Secondary personae = Not the primary target audience (last people to buy your product) but still considered & needs must be met
• Anti personae = Those for whom the product is not designed

Question 18

Why are personae created?

Answer 18

Understand the customer
Identify which group of customers needs to be valued
Improve the quality of products and services

Question 19

Use case

Answer 19

• How the user will interact with the product and its functionality
• How can it be used in different ways for different functions

Question 20

Scenario (user story)

Answer 20

• usually storyboards are used
• An imagined sequence of events in the daily life of a personae based on assumptions by researchers and designers
• How the personae will interact with the system
• Tells the designers; When users will interact with the system, why users will interact with the system, what users wish to achieve through interaction with the system

Question 21

primary research

Answer 21

• collection and analysis of original info specifically for the product or market
• E.g. user trial, user research, field trials, product analysis, observation

Question 22

Qualitative and quantitative research

Answer 22

= measuring sets of variables or quantities and their relationship to one another
- Qualitative = subjective material (words and images); concerned with how and why people behave
- Quantitative = objective data (numbers and logic) - measurable; concerned with the who, what, where, when

Question 23

Field research

Answer 23

Are the products really that good? Who’s actualy buying the products?
- Best option is going to field and observing customers or people in retail store, etc.
- Field research is good when redesigning → customers might be frustrated with something & they can just go and see for themselves
- Disadvantage = the cost – very expensive

Question 24

Method of extremes

Answer 24

= defining the range of a user population
- Samples are selected to define the extremes of the user populations
5th, 50th, 95th percentile → if you pick the right one 95% of people will be able to use the product

Question 25

Observation

Answer 25

= user trial
- Observation of people using a product and collecting their feedback and thoughts
- User trials are often quantitative data
- Advantages: cheap, users might carry out tests in unexpected ways (bring in perspective), gives feedback
- Disadvantages: number of products need to be produced to be tested, interpretation of data might be difficult, trials may give contradictory results, may delay product going into market

Question 26

Focus groups & Interviews

Answer 26

• FG: Used for testing products to get user responses and obtain ideas on preferences
• Int: Useful in creating design brief & figuring out target audience

Question 27

Affinity diagramming

Answer 27

= graphic tool designed to help organize loose, unstructured ideas generated in brainstorming or problem-solving meetings
1. Identify a general theme
2. Collect facts, opinions, and ideas
3. Enter data in a common format → sticky walls, cards on a table (ideas should be able to be moved around)
4. Identify the groups/clusters → target audience
5. Cluster the data/info pieces
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for super groups/clusters
7. Present the result → an organized set of facts, opinions, and ideas that make sense

Question 28

Participatory design

Answer 28

• Aims to include/involve the intended users in the research, concept, design, or production
• E.g. when user interacts with a paper version of product

Question 29

Paper prototype and usability testing sessions

Answer 29

• Participatory design
• Low fidelity prototypes → there are usability issues, missing functional requirements, priorities for which features are a must to include
  Roles:
  1. Facilitator → explain purpose of session and how to interact with prototype + make sure the users aren’t stressed out
  2. User → represents target market
  3. Computer → a person that manipulates the paper prototype how the computer program would
• Advantages: paper = cheap, quickly and easily modified, developed quicker

Question 30

Four-Pleasure framework

Answer 30

• Socio-pleasure
• Physio-pleasure
• Psycho-pleasure
• Ideo-pleasure

Question 31

Socio-pleasure

Answer 31

Pleasure from relationships with others or with a c community when related to status and self-image
- E.g. email, the internet, and mobile phones facilitate communication between people
- Facebook → a took that enables people to have a greater sense of community and involvement with one another.

Question 32

Physio-pleasure

Answer 32

= sensual pleasure derived from touching, smelling, hearing, and tasting something (sensory organs)
- Satisfaction that comes from the effectiveness of a product in enabling an action to be performed

Question 33

Psycho-pleasure

Answer 33

= pleasures derived from cognition, discovery, and knowledge that satisfy the intellect.
- The cognitive demands of using a product and the emotional reaction through the experience of using it
- E.g. rubix cube

Question 34

Ideo-pleasure

Answer 34

= pleasures linked to our ideals, aesthetically, and culturally and satisfy people’s tastes, values, and aspirations
- E.g. products made from recycled materials will appeal to environmentally friendly customers

Question 35

Design for emotion

Answer 35

= visceral, behavioral & reflective design
- increases user engagement, loyalty, and satisfaction with a product by incorporating emotion and personality into product design
- Aesthetically pleasing objects appear to be more effective to the user
- Visceral → evokes our inner instincts and human drives (e.g. your first thought is “I want it” before knowing what it does)
- Behavioral → about the use of the product (looks are less irrelevant)
- Reflective → how we see the product reflecting our self-image and aspirations to others (to show others they have a specific taste)

Question 36

Attract-converse-transact (ATC) model

Answer 36

= a framework for creating designs that improve the relations of users with products and trigger emotional responses
- Attract = aesthetic, converse = interaction, transact = function
- When all three aspects are addresses product becomes desirable, useful, and usable

Question 37

User-centered design

Answer 37

= process where needs, wants, and limitations of users of a product are considered during each stage of the design process
Talking directly to users during each key stage to get feedback
Analysis → design <–> evaluation <–> implementation

Question 38

Multidisciplinary teams

Answer 38

Significant people;
- Anthropologists = understanding how people behave - Why things happen
- Ethnographers = human culture, societies, values - Has direct interactions with people
- Psychologists = human behavior and thought process - Assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders