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User Experience: Usability and Aesthetics May 1st, 2009

John Moffitt

John Moffitt

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User centered design is the main tenet of the user experience profession. It has become a mainstream concept that seems simple, but underlying this simplicity are layers of complexity.

Layer 1: What Does the User Want?

A common saying you hear around user experience circles is a quote from Henry Ford, "If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse." This statement starts to address the concept of how user centered design is not as simple as it might sound. The ability to study the users’ behavior and decipher what the “real” needs are is an important step in any user centered design. This is where good project requirements come into play.

In a user-centered design process, project requirements focus on the needs of the user while incorporating the organization’s business goals and technology challenges. Good user centered design strikes a balance so that the goals of the marketing department or the challenges of the backend technologies don’t take priority over the users’ goals. Often project requirements need to distill what the user “needs” from what the user “wants.” A user might think they want a sports car, but they actually need a mini-van.

Good design should take input from many sources and then balance them against a vision. In the book “Emotional Design” by Donald Norman, there is an example of a social experiment where an art exhibition was created from inputs by a large number of people. The survey’s goal was to create an art exhibit that appealed to a wide audience. In the end the art exhibition was a failure because no one liked the art — it was too average. This example of designing by survey is extended when the author draws parallels to the movie industry. Often movie endings are determined by focus groups and this often leads to a lack luster or uninspired ending.

In user experience design there needs to be someone who acts as the director who ensures the vision is maintained. The director must also understand the inputs from the user and business and translate those things into requirements and functionality. If there is no director or ability to translate the inputs, you can end up with a design by committee scenario, where the final product lacks a common vision or goal. User centered design is not just about asking what the user wants or taking the results of a user survey — and executing their specifications exactly. It has to do with analyzing those inputs and considering them within the context of the larger picture.

Layer 2: Aesthetics

An additional layer of complexity in user centered design is that of aesthetics. The aesthetics of a product can greatly affect the success of it. Aesthetics can support a user’s trust in the product as well as the initial appeal. Apple Computer made this point many times inrecent years with the first iMac and other popular products that are heavily focused on “style.” A popular case of aesthetics causing the failure of a product is the AMC Pacer, a car built in the 1970s. The AMC Pacer underwent extensive user research and usability considerations, but in the end the failure of the car has been associated with its unattractive appearance.

Aesthetics go beyond whether an object is attractive. There are many Human Computer Interaction studies that have examined how a person’s reaction to aesthetics can influence the user’s perception of how “usable” the product is. Web sites are no different than any other product in this respect. The user tends to think the Web site is more useful if they have a positive aesthetic reaction to it. This could be because if the user has a positive aesthetic reaction they are more lenient when judging the other features of the product. More generally, it is no secret that aesthetics play a major role in any initial attraction. So the temptation is to think if a Web site looks good it will be successful, but that is a too simplistic conclusion.

The problem is having an attractive Web site alone does not guarantee long term usage. Many popular Web sites are not necessarily well styled, but are still popular because they are fulfilling another important user need. Depending on the user’s task, the importance of the aesthetic experience will vary. The core problem in judging aesthetics is that they are always “subjective,” affected by cultural or personal bias.

So it seems that predicting aesthetic appeal is less quantifiable and less predictable than one might initially think. Donald Norman describes this challenge by describing product design in multiple layers of appeal in the book “Emotional Design:” visceral, behavioral, and reflective. Visceral is defined as the visual attributes that make up the appearance of the object. An element of visceral design has to do with “sensations” that are rooted in a biological reaction to the object. These reactions are often unconscious “gut” reactions. They are focused on the initial visual stimulation of the look and feel of the object. The behavioral layer is the pleasure and effectiveness of using the object. This could include both elements of usability as well as elements of playfulness that might bring pleasure while using the product. Information and interaction design are important contributors to this layer. And finally reflective design is about the thoughtfulness of the object. An element of a reflective design might appeal to someone’s sense of cleverness or might appeal to a memory in the person’s past. Reflective design appeals to a deeper cognitive reaction of the user. Because people are fulfilled differently, it is difficult to have an object that pleases everyone equally. If the product does score high with these all these design layers, then it is more likely that the user develops a stronger relationship with the product, beyond the initial attraction.

Layer 3: Interdependencies and Collaboration

There are many factors that go into building a user experience. These factors include the content and its organization, the functionality and features, the information and interaction design, as well as the visual design. The collection of all of these elements together result in the "user experience". A successful user experience accounts for and optimizes all these elements.

Because there is interdependency, there is also a need to have collaboration between multiple disciplines. One of the hallmarks of the “Waterfall” software development process is the lack of collaboration, which could be a reason Agile software development has gained such momentum in recent years. The lack of collaboration in the “waterfall” process can result in “silo’d” product development where teams have little understanding of what the other considerations, challenges, or goals are. In silo’d development, teams have to protect their territory and focus on challenges, goals, and success within their area. and are not encouraged to see the project as a whole. When this happens the overall project’s success suffers. Good user experience design requires collaboration and sharing.

It’s All About the Layers

Creating a superior user experience is about user-centered design, but it is also about designing for more than one layer of the user experience. It is important to know your user and what layers are important to them. The design team must appreciate how each of the layers impacts your particular audience and evaluate all the inputs in light of the product’s goals and the user’s needs.

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