The aim of interaction design….in essence, it is about developing interactive products that are easy, effective, and enjoyable to use-from the users' perspective.
---------Preece et al. (2002) Chapter1
The usability goals and user experience goals that are summarized by Preece and the co-authors are so incisive. They remind me of my own enjoyable and unsatisfied user experience as well.
My example of well-designed one: aeroplane’s online purchase experience
I once used my aeroplane points to order something online. Say, something like a gift card--Costco gold star membership card. After logging in the system, what I do is just showed in the flowchart below.
Making a purchase on the website of Aeroplane.com, the users could just click one button then be led to the next step clearly. Users can go back to the “category menu” at any time if they want to terminate the ongoing task and begin to make a new purchase from the very beginning. It is not confusing at all. I once successfully ordered two gift cards from it and received them in around one week. I felt so comfortable and convenient to use it. Below is my evaluation on the aeroplane online purchase system.
Effectiveness--The interface is capable of allowing me to carry out the purchase work efficiently, access the information I need, window-shopping the goods I want to buy and order them easily.
Efficiency—The interface lets me use single button or key presses step by step to conduct the whole order process.
Safety—The system prevents me from making serious errors. If I do make an error or if I change my mind and want to remove the item from the cart, it permits me to recover easily.
Utility--The system provides an appropriate set of functions that enables me to carry out all the purchase tasks, including keeping all my order history, all the receipts.
Learnability--The system is so easy to learn to use. What I only do a lot is spending time on making decision which items I really want to buy. For the system per se, it applies “ten- minute rule”.
Memorability--Believe it or not, I don’t have to remember how to use it. Just log in the websites and click on the buttons one by one. The only failure circumstance I could imagine is I was an illiterate.
My dissatisfied experience on weebly page editing
WEEBLY is now being used as one of the optional tools for creating personal portfolio. How many of you have come across the same problems as I did? Did you notice that when editing paragraphs or texts, there are no font options on the page features? (See the below figure ).
If you hope the texts look like more aesthetical with various fonts and sizes, you would find out that you have no other choices but just follow the default fonts and sizes provided by the system. What I usually do is to edit the text in a WORD file aforehand, which was recommended by my friends. As WORD provides us with the functions of choosing different fonts and sizes when editing, I feel comfortable to use it to edit texts. But, it is not convenient if I edit the text in WORD first, then cut and paste it on the weebly pages. It seems to be a redundant step, but it is indeed in need. Actually, the system or the interface does not indicate us what to do if we want to customize the fonts and sizes in the editing page, we have to figure out other ways for makeup by ourselves. In addition, when you use it more and more, you might find that there are no sufficient functional tools for editing text with the comparison with WORD, such as no buttons for color choices. At this point, personally, weebly page does not have very good utility. It is not easy to try to edit a customized text on it. In addition, it does not provide the Preview function before publishing the weebly. Only after publishing could the editor knows how it looks like as what other visitors see. Then the editor has to return to the “log in” and to edit pages once again. It is somewhat not very efficient.
As a user, we are more likely to hold critical thoughts on various designs, both in positive and negative. We hope the design we are interacting with looks like in the way that we expected. If so, we will be delighted, otherwise, anger will be aroused. As Norman (2005) pointed out that if the design itself is elegant, easy to use, we would praise it, or, we would blame the product. Another problem I am thinking about is how difficult it is to meet every user’s needs. Given the different using habits for different users, how will you objectively evaluate a product or a design from the feedbacks of the users? Take PC and Mac for example, I was recommended by dozens of friends that Mac’s interaction design is so neat. However, for me, I got used to the interfaces of PC and was very familiar with them. I still remember my frustration in using Mac at the first time. Thus, could I say Mac’s design is bad? Absolutely, I could not.
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