Reading response 2-- High usability

“In the ideal process, you'd first conduct competitive testing to get deep insights into user needs and behaviors with the class of functionality you're designing. Next, you'd proceed to parallel design to explore a wide range of solutions to this design problem. Finally, you'd go through many rounds of iterative design to polish your chosen solution to a high level of user experience quality."

                                                                                           -----Jakob Nielsen

I could not tell myself that how systematical and how well Nielsen summarized the design process for us as a golden guiding rule.  Back to our group project—Feed Me Well, I could not count how many times our group revised the project, although it is just a class assignment without any marketing purposes.  From brainstorming to the initial prototype, we did tons of research on why it is meaningful to the end users, how much possible it is to execute and implement the design, what kind of interfaces would meet the end users’ expectation, etc. In each phase, nearly every week, we group members usually sat together and spent at least half an hour to polish every version of the draft. Moreover, after three times of peer reviews and user testing, we refined the design ideas based on their feedbacks. I think this typical iterative design results in a positive effect and an approval from the peers, at least until now. “More iterations are better.” In the following production and evaluation phases, our group will follow the rules and keep applying them to our design, from which I am sure you could see big improvements.

“At each step, you should be sure to judge the designs based on empirical observations of real user behavior instead of your own preferences. (Repeat after me: "I am not the Audience.")

                                                                                                     ---Jakob Nielsen

Coincidently, yesterday, one of my friends talked to me about a project that she is currently responsible for. She, a curriculum developer, got a big lesson from her director. Her director, who leads the project’s development direction, did not start it based on the customers’ needs but just based on her own assumptions instead. Until in a conference meeting with the customers, they got many feedbacks from their customers, they suddenly found out that the project they designed did not meet their customers’ needs, and the customers actually did not need the project which the whole project group has been struggling for in the past half a year.  In other words, the project has never been on the right track since the very beginning due to the director’s assumption. “As a designer, we could not underestimate or overestimate customers based on our own assumption.” Concluded she, and deeply sighed.  The lesson my friend got from her director once again emphasized the importance of the user-based design, which is similar to Nielsen’s reminder that “I am not the audience”, and could not replace the audience to decide how it will be designed just depending on our own assumption.  As such, thanks to the user-based design course, I have an opportunity to deepen my understanding on it and to do more practices.

Just for fun. Below is the video about Google logo, from which you might get some inspirations in your following design phases:-)

Reading Response 1—Cautious cars and cantankerous kitchens

“Our lives are transformed both for good and for bad. This is good when the devices work as promised—and bad when they fail or when they transform productive, creative people into servants continually looking after their machines, getting them out of trouble , repairing them, and maintaining them (P16). ”

“In many cases, they (machines) will make our lives more effective, more fun, and safer. In others, however, they will frustrate us, get in our way, and even increase dangers (p34).”

Most probably, not only Norman has these concerns, but experts, even ordinary people who are interest in the relationship between human beings and technology, could not help considering the issues aroused by technology. The contradiction is just like a coin has two sides.

Once again, it reminds me of the movie Wall-E. I want to insert my critical ideas into it, which would make it more vivid and understandable. Apart from the theme of affirmative character from Wall-E, the movie also reflects a critical issue on the relationship between humans and technology. You might still remember that in the movie, all of the humans, who evacuated Earth 700 years earlier, lived in a large space cruise ship, which was far away from the earth. In the ship, everything is high-tech driven. Machines and robots with various functions are around everywhere. Humans do not need to do things, as hi-tech replaces humans to do them successfully. The people of Earth only ride around this space resort on hovering chairs which give them a constant feed of TV and video chatting. They drink all of their meals through a straw out of laziness and bone loss. Thoroughly depending on the hovering chairs, both adults and kids are so fat that they can barely move and do not know how to walk any longer. I have to admit that the labors are really free due to hi-tech. With these hi-tech, humans are indeed served very well. However, it seems the legs with humans are redundant, face-to-face communication is useless; furthermore, it seems humans cannot live without technology and the world is disordered if something is wrong with a tiny machine part. By watching this scene, I began to doubt if it is the dream world that humans have been struggling for in the hundreds of years.                 

More ironically, the auto-pilot computer in the captain’s office, which was designed to be controlled by the captain of the ship, prevents the people from returning and fights with the captain when the captain tries to command it to return back to the earth. Although there is still a good ending in the movie that people finally return back to the earth, I cannot stop thinking that how we should develop the advance tools that serve us very well, and to what extent we should develop them. Otherwise, they become the obstacles that all of us are not willing to accept it, just as Norman mentioned that “They (machines) will frustrate us, get in our way, and even increase dangers (P34).”

Do the machines or robots make humans redundant? No! It is the humans not the machines or robots who make themselves redundant. When I ponder much further, I realize that this movie actually doesn't demonize technology. It only argues that technology should be properly used to help humans cultivate their true nature – that it must be subordinate to human flourishing, and help move that along.

Likewise, I don’t want to demonize technology. On the contrary, I am looking forward to the smooth interaction between people and those intelligent devices. And, the key to achieve it is, I think Norman has already given us the answer, “we must design our technologies for the way people actually behave, not the way we would like them to behave (p12).” Hopefully, a graceful symbiosis of people and technology will become highly true in 700 years, which the movie Wall-E has shown to us---humans and robots are working alongside each other to renew the Earth during the end credits.

Reading Response 8—The future lives with technology

If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

                                                                                       ----Norman, P227

The time has come to concentrate on making the world a Human-tech Revolution could have a profound impact on modern times. Technology that has a close affinity with human nature is capable of creating tremendous social changes, on a global scale. It could radically improve our lives and those of our children and grandchildren.

                                                                                        ----Vicente, P305

Finishing reading the last chapters of both Norman’s and Vicente’s book, I could not help imaging our future lives filled with emotional design and a Human-tech revolution. What will our lives look like? Perhaps, one day, all of the following imaginations will be turned into reality. We don’t need to be upset for the errors or accidents caused by the inconsiderate ill-designs, as human-tech make an optimization for human beings. We don’t need to worry about the traffic jams in a rush hour, as all of us drive our own air vehicles, something like the combination of a mini-couper and a helicopter. We don’t have to take time for boring chores, as our robot housekeepers are responsible for them without our reminders, so on and so forth.

You might tease me that the dream is too big to be true, but, can those people living in 1970s imagine the development of computer technology, such as internet, dramatically changes the world as we are currently experiencing? No matter which technology of industry that was talked about in Norman’s and Vicent’s book, it is the design matters. The purpose for any design or technology is to have better lives for human beings. We are all designers, every of us can make a difference for the world, not only those engineers who grasp advanced technology on software and hardware can design and produce objects, but we, as a ordinary custom, can make each ready-made object personalization and customization.

Certainly, as for the development of a certain technology and its application, to a large extent, it is the manufacturers, organizations, governments and a country to make the final decision. However, as citizens, we absolutely have rights to call for the well-design filled with consideration of human-tech, as “we may not have any control over the design of the many objects we purchase, we do control which we select and how, where, and when they are to be used (Norman, P224). ” In other words, our decisions have a great impact on the marketing, which greatly affect designer’s ideas and behaviours. In return, their designs fit us and benefit human beings.

We can try to do our best to make a difference for our future lives. Below is a video clip for the future lives in 2050. It visions nearly all the aspect of our future lives. That’s so cool. With well-designed technology, it is not just a dream!  

Reading Response 7—Emotional Machines

Intrigued by the title of the chapter--“Emotional machines”, I cannot help starting with the journey of imagination that what on earth was those machines with emotions that are only described for human-beings. Guided by some fancy ideas, I was led by these main questions explicitly demonstrated by Norman.

• Why do robots have to have emotions?
• What emotions will a robot need to have?
• How can robots show their emotions and then interactive with us?

According to Norman, machines, specifically Robots, should indeed both have and display emotions so that we human-beings can better interact with them. In addition, they can continuously deal with more complex and sophisticate situations and works when there is no assistance from people. Like human-beings, facial expressions and body motions are indispensable parts of robots to show their pleasure, anger, surprise, frustration, etc., although it is still a difficulty for nowadays technology to allow them to display full facial emotions. Interestingly, however, we have already had Eliza, Kismet, and Sony robot dogs, which are computer-driven machines or robots with certain emotions. They benefit us a lot and enrich our lives.   

And, another questions was also raised by Norman which need to be further explored and examined in the future research: How do robots detect human-beings’ emotions and how to determine the most appropriate way of responding? In other words, while we struggle to determine how to make machines respond appropriately to signs of emotions, people aren’t particularly good at it either, as it is so common for people to be insensitive to emotional states of others, even to misunderstand their own friends. Back to me, I sometimes misunderstood my friends and could not figure it out caused by culture issues. Therefore, it is a huge challenge to allow robots to respond us properly and perfect. But, I still dream big and I am definitely optimistic to the future development of science and technology.

Personally, Norman’s robots recall me of Wall-E, an adorable robot as the leading character in Disney movie “Wall-E” of 2008. He is dutiful, optimistic, compassionate and righteous. He not only has a feeling with a seedling plant, but falls in love with another female robot, which usually happened in human-beings. Obviously, the filmmaker applied an image of robot to represent human-beings as well as to express our dreams. From Wall-E, we saw ourselves. From this movie, I could also see that emotions make everything possible. With high-tech development, who can deny that there will be a real Wall-E with us in future?

I am not a fan of science fiction, but one day, I still wish I had my own robot, somewhat akin to man Friday. She could be a good housekeeper in my house, meanwhile, she could emotionally interact with me and provide me with assistance like a buddy. Frankly, I don’t like the look of Kismet at all, which is showed in Figure 6.6, p192. It is not cute and lovely, to some extent, a bit ugly. I prefer my robot looks like a fancy doll, at least looks like Wall-E—Oh, sorry, it is my own emotional interpretation.

                                                                                                                            

Reading Response 6--Management Matters

Designing an effective new organizational structure to enable an entire safety-critical industry to learn from experience, foresee and prevent accidents and prevent needless deaths was a huge challenge.

                                                      -------Vicente Chapter 7, P 200

Regarding technology design, before I read this chapter, in my mind, I had no very clear idea that “The design of technology and the management of technology aren’t two separate things (p 190). ” I did not realize that they correlate each other as Vicente elaborated in this chapter.

Enlightened by the true stories he showed to us, when I recalled my Olympic experience to respond Vicente’s opinion, what I could say and respond in my mind is Yes! Yes! And Yes! As a supervisor, I once worked at the Arrival and Departures Desk in the Olympic village during the Games time. Apart from supervising the daily issues running by this desk, one of my main responsibilities was to create daily operational reports for the direct manager. Even though there was no unexpected incident, I was still required to create the daily report as usual, including any suggestions, details of solved problems, to make sure information was shared smoothly and everything was on the right track. I indeed remembered how we encountered and solved an urgent issue that a sensitive delegation arriving in Beijing international airport at midnight without providing their final arrival information, so that there were no arranged vehicles by us to deliver them to the Olympic village, which made them detained in the airport for nearly two hours. Unfortunately, the chef of Mission was annoyed by it and complained it to their country’s Embassy in China. Although it was not concerned with the fatal accidents like medical errors or aviation failures mentioned by Vicente, it was something to do with the reputation of this kind of international event, as diplomacy is no small matter. This incident was absolutely reported in the daily report and was well-known widespread in the inner functional departments in Olympic village. “The goal is to find out what’s to blame, not who’s to blame (P 201). ” It did give us a lesson to pay attention to develop our plans with contingencies as well as provide us valuable experience from it. How helpful and useful the daily report is! And how great it is to make a reasonable and usable management design. We could not imagine how many of these similar incidents would occur again in the village if we did not share this lesson with all, and namely, we were not able to count how many of these similar or worse incidents were avoided by this important sharing.  

As Vicente claimed that all the well-tailored design might go down the drain if organizational considerations aren’t also dealt with effectively, organizational decisions, such as information flow, allocation of functions, reward structures and staffing decisions can have a significant impact, not just on a single individual or a single team of individuals, but on all of the individuals in an organization (P 227).

Designing an organizational structure that allows its members to learn from experience, that lays emphasis on the receiving and communication of information that would help prevent errors, is closer to being realized than ever before (P 222). Certainly, there is still a huge challenge to make a satisfying management design in different originations due to various concerns, such as marketing competition, budget, etc. Even the design is already made, implementation issue might lead it to the opposite direction which is out of our expectations. However, we still wish as Vicente wishes that “Tomorrow, like today, we will be human. The remedy is in changing systems of work. The remedy is in design. ” (p 220)

Reading Response 5- "Staying on the same page" by design

The stories concerning Cockpit (Crew) Resource Management (CRM) in aviation and health care in Vicente’s “Staying on the Same Page” are so interesting, readable and remarkable. These vivid CRM success stories strongly show us the importance of designing the technological systems to fit people working at a team level. In return, how crucial the effective Human-tech systems play a role to improve team collaboration! Moreover, from designer’s perspective, these CRM examples enlighten us how to create effective Human-tech systems that foster team collaboration.

Last year, I once coincidently visited the alike simulation rooms for undergraduate nursing students, which were then located in the professional building at the U of C (See the right picture). The settings I saw in those rooms were fabulously similar as what Vicente described in his book. My eyes were cheated by the dummy lying on the bed in the simulated ward. I took it for granted that “she” should be a real patient until I was close to the bed then I realized how incredible it was. I only thought this kind of simulation was for students’ health care skills practice, but I had never considered it as one of the functionalities to improve team collaboration capability.

How many times have you noticed and complained that the more people work on the same thing, the worse result it gets. Just as Norman (2005) mentioned that “the more people that check on something, the less carefully each person performs the task.” (p145) Not only Vicente but Norman emphasize the great role of CRM on decreasing the problems that raised in team collaboration, though their elaborations are a little bit different. Both of their thoughts are based on human factors—crew members’ psychology and characteristic, more specifically, the CRM system’s target users’ characteristics.

Users’ characteristics—these “softer” factors are more likely to be ignored by designers, but interestingly, they are also the invisible criteria to evaluate how the design or product is, sometimes, it indirectly results in whether the thing assisted by the design succeed or not. Both Norman and Vicente have examined a lot about how effective Human-tech systems benefit us. That is why user’s characteristics, as a very important human factor, we should usually keep it in mind when creating and developing our design.

Once again, Vicente’s (2006) Chapter 6 deepens my understanding on the connotation of user-centered design. No matter how sophisticated it is, designers should try to help people “stay on the same page” by design (p180), furthermore, to satisfy our human or societal needs by tailoring the design of the system to fit human realities (p163).  

                                                                                                      

Reading Response 4

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.