Readings for 1/29/19
Emotional Design Chapter 1 (Attractive Things Work Better)
I have always been interested in the aesthetic qualities of design. Making something look organized, neat and pleasing to the eye has always been an activity I enjoy doing. In middle school, I would actively help students in poster projects just for the fun of pasting the information onto the poster in an attractive way. I did not, however, make the link that the aesthetic quality of the design directly correlates with the user’s success in using a device. The calming sensation that a pleasing design provides allows the user to relax and reduce anxiety when it comes to using said device, therefore making the process of learning how to use the device easier.
Humans have evolved over time to take sensory information and respond to it accordingly. We have the visceral level, which is an automatic, thoughtless response to a stimulus. The behavioral level involves actions that we can learn to repeat, and eventual we no longer need to think to repeat the actions in response to certain stimuli. The final level is the reflective level, which is unique to humans. This level involves going back to experienced stimuli and consuming emotions about it. This third level is what allows humans to experience new, possibly frightening stimulus and take them on anyway, for the sake of feeling pride for overcoming such challenges. When we are stimulated initially from our visceral level, and then upwards, this is called a bottom-up activity. Activity triggered from the reflective level down is top-down activity.
We have to be careful to create a stimulus for users that triggers an only positive response. If a response is negative, the user’s brain will expend all its energy in being anxious or frightened and will be unable to continue to reflect or discover our device. Only with positive neurological stimulation will the creative phase begin. This means we must also be in a state of positivity when designing our own devices in the creative phase.
It is interesting to see how vital sensory information is to us when it comes to new experiences. I struggled with sensory processing disorder as a child, so some things on the pleasant stimulus list described still bothered me, and the unpleasant things still unnerve me to no end even today. We must consider that not all humans are wired the same and that some stimulus we provide may still not be pleasant to everyone. I could not enjoy amusement parks when I was younger because even though the environments created by amusement parks are usually enjoyable to all children they were not enjoyable to me.
The Design of Everyday Things (Chapter 1)
It is apparent that poor designs still make it into our regular everyday lives. A quick google searches and you can discover all sorts of things that are poorly designed. Doors are the most common example of things that don’t work. The author says that we must consider discoverability and understanding. Our designs must be easy to discover how to use, and easy to understand why it was made the way it was. Since everything is designed, we have a lot to consider. There are all kinds of forms of design, interaction design, industrial design, and experience designs are generalized categories. A lot of people, like engineers, who design technology these days do not consider the human factor, and tend to make designs that only serve their technical purpose. This is why we have a lot of everyday things, like doors, that do not work in ways that are compatible to how us humans think. The solution to these problems is engaging in a thought process called “Human Centered Design”. We discussed this principle in NMD 104, but since it was mostly just graphics and drawing, I didn’t really practice the concept very much.
Affordance: the relationship between physical objects and person.
Signifiers: Indications of where action should take place.
Notes about the two (Quoted from the book):
Affordances are the possible interactions between people and the environment. Some affordances are perceivable, others are not.
Perceived affordances often act as signifiers, but they can be ambiguous.
Signifiers signal things, in particular, what actions are possible and how they should be done. Signifiers must be perceivable, else they fail to function
Mapping: the relationship between the elements of two sets of things
Feedback: Communicating the results of an action, you can’t have too little, but definitely not too much.
Conceptual model: A typically highly simplified explanation of how something works.
Technology, although can make our everyday lives easier, can also further complicate our lives. As watches are able to contain more and more tools beyond just telling time, we must also consider how to explain all the function of a said watch to the user. The biggest challenge of design is creating something that can be easily manufactured, easily explained to the experts, all while still meeting the human-centered design process.
The Design of Everyday Things (Chapter 2)
We must consider how people perform actions in order to design a product that works in tangent with the actions that humans physically perform. People face two gulfs when they use something. The Gulf of execution is when the person figures out how something operates, and the Gulf of evaluation where they figure out what happened, or the result.
There are seven stages humans employ to performing an action.
Form a goal.
Plan the action.
Specify the action sequence.
Perform the action sequence.
Perceive the state of the world.
Interpret the perception.
Compare the outcome with the goal.
It is important to note that not all actions need to follow through with all seven steps.
Most human thought is subconscious, so a designer must consider the seven steps of action so that the user ultimately does not have to, and can perform actions with the device subconsciously. Conscious thoughts are slow, laborious, and controlled.
The chapter then begins to review materials in emotional design. What this introduces is that the seven levels of action also correspond with the three levels of processing.
As people, we are quick to blame ourselves for falsely interacting with poorly designed objects. It can come to life or death situations for objects as every day as a door. Over time we establish learned helplessness, which could explain why we put the blame on ourselves for being unable to use poorly designed devices. We must embrace positive psychology in our design process so that the outcome of our devices have a more positive impact on our users. We need to not put the blame on human error, and consider failures as learning experiences instead. We must remember that people are not machines, and are a rather complex delicate creature, who have their own point of views of the world and interpretations of events.
We can modify the seven stages of actions to become the seven stages of the design process (quoted from the book):
1. Discoverability. It is possible to determine what actions are possible and the current state of the device.
2. Feedback. There is full and continuous information about the results of actions and the current state of the product or service. After an action has been executed, it is easy to determine the new state.
3. Conceptual model. The design projects all the information needed to create a good conceptual model of the system, leading to understanding and a feeling of control. The conceptual model enhances both discoverability and evaluation of results.
4. Affordances. The proper affordances exist to make the desired actions possible.
5. Signifiers. Effective use of signifiers ensures discoverability and that the feedback is well communicated and intelligible.
6. Mappings. The relationship between controls and their actions follows the principles of good mapping, enhanced as much as possible through spatial layout and temporal contiguity.
7. Constraints. Providing physical, logical, semantic, and cultural constraints guides actions and eases interpretation
Some images of poor design examples:
I have always been interested in the aesthetic qualities of design. Making something look organized, neat and pleasing to the eye has always been an activity I enjoy doing. In middle school, I would actively help students in poster projects just for the fun of pasting the information onto the poster in an attractive way. I did not, however, make the link that the aesthetic quality of the design directly correlates with the user’s success in using a device. The calming sensation that a pleasing design provides allows the user to relax and reduce anxiety when it comes to using said device, therefore making the process of learning how to use the device easier.
Humans have evolved over time to take sensory information and respond to it accordingly. We have the visceral level, which is an automatic, thoughtless response to a stimulus. The behavioral level involves actions that we can learn to repeat, and eventual we no longer need to think to repeat the actions in response to certain stimuli. The final level is the reflective level, which is unique to humans. This level involves going back to experienced stimuli and consuming emotions about it. This third level is what allows humans to experience new, possibly frightening stimulus and take them on anyway, for the sake of feeling pride for overcoming such challenges. When we are stimulated initially from our visceral level, and then upwards, this is called a bottom-up activity. Activity triggered from the reflective level down is top-down activity.
We have to be careful to create a stimulus for users that triggers an only positive response. If a response is negative, the user’s brain will expend all its energy in being anxious or frightened and will be unable to continue to reflect or discover our device. Only with positive neurological stimulation will the creative phase begin. This means we must also be in a state of positivity when designing our own devices in the creative phase.
It is interesting to see how vital sensory information is to us when it comes to new experiences. I struggled with sensory processing disorder as a child, so some things on the pleasant stimulus list described still bothered me, and the unpleasant things still unnerve me to no end even today. We must consider that not all humans are wired the same and that some stimulus we provide may still not be pleasant to everyone. I could not enjoy amusement parks when I was younger because even though the environments created by amusement parks are usually enjoyable to all children they were not enjoyable to me.
The Design of Everyday Things (Chapter 1)
It is apparent that poor designs still make it into our regular everyday lives. A quick google searches and you can discover all sorts of things that are poorly designed. Doors are the most common example of things that don’t work. The author says that we must consider discoverability and understanding. Our designs must be easy to discover how to use, and easy to understand why it was made the way it was. Since everything is designed, we have a lot to consider. There are all kinds of forms of design, interaction design, industrial design, and experience designs are generalized categories. A lot of people, like engineers, who design technology these days do not consider the human factor, and tend to make designs that only serve their technical purpose. This is why we have a lot of everyday things, like doors, that do not work in ways that are compatible to how us humans think. The solution to these problems is engaging in a thought process called “Human Centered Design”. We discussed this principle in NMD 104, but since it was mostly just graphics and drawing, I didn’t really practice the concept very much.
Affordance: the relationship between physical objects and person.
Signifiers: Indications of where action should take place.
Notes about the two (Quoted from the book):
Affordances are the possible interactions between people and the environment. Some affordances are perceivable, others are not.
Perceived affordances often act as signifiers, but they can be ambiguous.
Signifiers signal things, in particular, what actions are possible and how they should be done. Signifiers must be perceivable, else they fail to function
Mapping: the relationship between the elements of two sets of things
Feedback: Communicating the results of an action, you can’t have too little, but definitely not too much.
Conceptual model: A typically highly simplified explanation of how something works.
Technology, although can make our everyday lives easier, can also further complicate our lives. As watches are able to contain more and more tools beyond just telling time, we must also consider how to explain all the function of a said watch to the user. The biggest challenge of design is creating something that can be easily manufactured, easily explained to the experts, all while still meeting the human-centered design process.
The Design of Everyday Things (Chapter 2)
We must consider how people perform actions in order to design a product that works in tangent with the actions that humans physically perform. People face two gulfs when they use something. The Gulf of execution is when the person figures out how something operates, and the Gulf of evaluation where they figure out what happened, or the result.
There are seven stages humans employ to performing an action.
Form a goal.
Plan the action.
Specify the action sequence.
Perform the action sequence.
Perceive the state of the world.
Interpret the perception.
Compare the outcome with the goal.
It is important to note that not all actions need to follow through with all seven steps.
Most human thought is subconscious, so a designer must consider the seven steps of action so that the user ultimately does not have to, and can perform actions with the device subconsciously. Conscious thoughts are slow, laborious, and controlled.
The chapter then begins to review materials in emotional design. What this introduces is that the seven levels of action also correspond with the three levels of processing.
As people, we are quick to blame ourselves for falsely interacting with poorly designed objects. It can come to life or death situations for objects as every day as a door. Over time we establish learned helplessness, which could explain why we put the blame on ourselves for being unable to use poorly designed devices. We must embrace positive psychology in our design process so that the outcome of our devices have a more positive impact on our users. We need to not put the blame on human error, and consider failures as learning experiences instead. We must remember that people are not machines, and are a rather complex delicate creature, who have their own point of views of the world and interpretations of events.
We can modify the seven stages of actions to become the seven stages of the design process (quoted from the book):
1. Discoverability. It is possible to determine what actions are possible and the current state of the device.
2. Feedback. There is full and continuous information about the results of actions and the current state of the product or service. After an action has been executed, it is easy to determine the new state.
3. Conceptual model. The design projects all the information needed to create a good conceptual model of the system, leading to understanding and a feeling of control. The conceptual model enhances both discoverability and evaluation of results.
4. Affordances. The proper affordances exist to make the desired actions possible.
5. Signifiers. Effective use of signifiers ensures discoverability and that the feedback is well communicated and intelligible.
6. Mappings. The relationship between controls and their actions follows the principles of good mapping, enhanced as much as possible through spatial layout and temporal contiguity.
7. Constraints. Providing physical, logical, semantic, and cultural constraints guides actions and eases interpretation
Some images of poor design examples:
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