Fundamentals of user experience

Fundamentals of user experience

The design of everyday things by don Norman

I’ve started looking into the theory and practice of user experience design starting with analysing methods from don Norman whose field of work has been in cognitive science and usability engineering, he also coined the term ‘user experience design’, in his words he explains “…i invented the term because I thought Human Interface and usability were too narrow: I wanted to cover all aspects of the person’s experience with a system, including industrial design, graphics, the interface, the physical interaction, and the manual.” – Don Norman

His work on creating user centred design and the core focus to be the user’s cognitive load and to make a pleasurable and understandable experience for the human mind, his views on the psychology of user experience has helped bring technology and design together seamlessly by informing the stakeholders of the end user’s needs through the whole design process.

Normans book ‘the design of everyday things’ gives meaning to things like affordances, signifiers, skeuomorphism and other core design principles created as a guideline to creating a good product and a comprehensive experience, i have used elements from the book to analyse and explain my understanding of don normans design principles and look at his methods of critiquing and analysing everyday objects.

Affordances Norman explains “…the term affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. […] Affordances provide strong clues to the operations of things. Plates are for pushing. Knobs are for turning. Slots are for inserting things into. Balls are for throwing or bouncing. When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed.” (Norman 1988, p.9)

Norman uses a glass door as an example in his book and how people process the idea of opening a door that doesn’t pull or push but rather the door slides sideways, this can make the end user feel as if they are the problem if they pull or push and the door doesn’t open then there are problems perceiving the action because there aren’t any affordances or signs to inform the user of what action to make. Norman states that the designer is at fault instead of the end user if a door doesn’t work due to the way it’s designed, it’s the designer’s job to make sure there is no cognitive load from misusing the door in case the building is busy or if there is an emergency.

Signifiers A natural way to use signifiers is to inform the user by using signs, going back to the example with the door, It is more commonly used to pull/push or slide right or left, if the perceived action wasn’t picked up the user or they are familiar with an existing system, signifiers can be a clear way of directing the user. Norman claims the user’s frustration should be applied to the designer for not considering the end user at the beginning of the design process because an interaction experience should be thoughtless regardless of its medium.

Skeuomorphism A concept based on representing real world objects in design fields like user interface design, web design, architecture, interior design and other forms of design. The purpose is to make the interaction feel seamless with the real world by creating real life counterparts in design form.

Observation Don Norman expressed the importance of observation and its relevance to design, he makes a case of watching and observing users as they interact with the products so the details can be passed to different members of the stakeholders and the people involved in the design process.

Visibility

The interface or mapping of the product design must give us the right visual cues to create a thoughtless experience. Norman explains the importance of making things visible so the user can know what to do next or how to continue with the task at hand.

If features aren’t accessible it can create a bad user experience and the addition of the function would be deemed useless if the products feature was out of sight.

Mapping Mapping is a key element of a product and experience that relates to the product being comprehensible to the user, it’s considered good practice for artefacts to have good mapping because the basic controls and the actions need to be fully understood in order to create full fledged product. Bad mapping can lead to confusion which can lead to the end user not returning.

Consistency The motion of creating a consistent and easy to use experience related to all the design elements should have a sense of familiarity or relatable style, this will help the user recognise operations and automatic understandability in terms of creating a quick thoughtless experience, if a good product has a bad interface and inconsistent design it can cause confusion and make the user feel feel at fault, Norman explains that this is related to bad design as opposed to the user being at fault for not comprehending the products design because of the inconsistent nature of the design.

Constraints Constraints can be a good way to create borders and restrictions in design to make sure there aren’t loose ends or recurrent errors, they can also help keep the concept of the product within the required time limit towards a product’s design process, not having constraints can lead to additional elements being added and more work that can lead to bad time management and deter from the core features of a product to compete with another product or rushed features.

Feedback User testing and feedback from stakeholders is an important process for creating a design experience, continuous testing and evaluating feedback can be useful towards the products development in all phases and should continue after the product is finished to make sure every element is updated through the user’s feedback. There are many ways of receiving feedback varying from visual and audio recordings to watching and asking the user directly about the activity and action of possibilities from the beginning to the end of the process of the product’s development cycle.

I found Norman’s principles very informative towards my practice, his process is clear and concise and i feel the principles can be applied to all products in and outside of interaction design, the design of everyday things clarifies the usefulness of noticing simple solutions that go unnoticed because people blame themselves towards mistakes within everyday products and they find themselves to blame because the designer did not consider the end user properly at the inception of the product.

I’ve been very interesting in understanding the practice of user experience and i found the best starting point was to inquire into the fundamentals of user experience and how don Norman has been actively promoting and enhancing the methods related to how the end user should be considered towards every element of the a design process, rather than the stereotypical market research testing where it may be too late to change core elements of a product if the its development process is close to being finished.

Don Norman’s principles of design appear to have very good reasoning behind them because designers can overlook the end users needs to create a something that may have complications or design flaws which can lead to a good product with bad design, leading to the potential failure or bad public perception of the brands image.

I’ve been inspired to further research into the practice of interaction design and user experience to gain a more in depth look into how the process of designing with the end user through every process can be beneficial to the stakeholders and the success of the product.

References

NORMAN, D. A. The design of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2013.

Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H. (2002), Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, New York: Wiley, p.21