Analytical Design

Personal notes from reading Designing for Interaction Creating Smart Applications and Cleaver Devices by Dan Saffer

Good design addresses the following adjectives to a certain degree. In some cases certain adjectives are not as relevant as others.

Trustworthy
We tend to make judgments about how trustworthy a product of service is within seconds of being exposed to it. If we trust in something we are much more likely to engage with the product and maybe even take some risks.

Appropriate
Solutions must fit in with the culture, situation and the context for which they are meant to solve.

Products and services can be designed for different cultures by addressing the characteristics of that culture:

1. Power distance - how well will members of a culture tolerate inequities in power among themselves.
2. Individualism vs. collectivism - Do members of a culture tend to congregate, associate and identify themselves with groups or do they see themselves more as individuals.
3. Masculinity vs. femininity - What kind of influence does gender play in that culture?
4. Uncertainty avoidance - is ambiguity accepted/tolerated in the culture? A culture that places a high value on this would prefer limited choice to a product that had several different models to choose from.

To be considered appropriate for the situation the design should abide by cultural, emotional and technical constraints.

Smart
Products and services need to do things that we are not good at like:

• memorizing data
• detecting complicated patterns
• repeat functions over and over without variation or mistakes
• compute complex equations

Basically the design needs to off load the tasks that we as humans don’t like and give us more time for the things we do enjoy.

Responsive
We need feedback. We want to know that the product or service is listening to us and taking action.

Levels of responsiveness:

1. Immediate - (< .01 sec) push a key - system reacts instantly.
2. Stammer - (.01 - 1 sec) slight delay - if frequent could become frustrating otherwise it will most likely be overlooked.
3. Interruption - (> 1 sec) attention could move from task to the product. Several interruptions could lead to a disruption.
4. Disruption - (> 10 sec) could lead to the user dropping out of the process.

Cleaver
Designed to predict what it is we want to do and then execute our desires in ways that lead to delight in using the product or service.

Ludic - “playful”
Good design would set an environment that allows one to explore without fear of failure or at least knowing you could recover.

Pleasurable
aesthetics as well as functional - We tend to perceive that products that look good work better, but only if it also pleasing functionally to a certain degree.

Interaction design is an applied art that is contextual. It solves specific problems for a particular set of circumstances and is meant to foster communication.

Currently a user centered design process is in vogue. You create a prototype and test it, modify, test it and repeat. But this is being challenged. - Microsoft who preforms countless user testing sessions vs. Apple, known for innovative interaction design, but does almost no testing.

Patterns are generally made up of high level recommendations that are identified, documented for later use and reviewed periodically.

Writing a Pattern:

• Problem - what does the user want?
• Solution - how to meet the user’s needs.
• Context - when to use the pattern
• Examples - pictures, links, example code, etc.
• Name it - as a pattern library grows naming a pattern becomes more important for findability.
• Rating - see below.

A pattern is not a visual specification, only a high level description. A pattern should have links to visual specs like schematics or style guide entries.

Rating System for Patterns

( recommendation )

• Level 1 - Working Solution: Recommended starting point for the new design. The designer/project team may adapt the pattern as needed to fit the requirements of the project.
• Level 2 - Best Practice: Strongly recommend - should require some type of management permission to deviate from the documented pattern.
• Level 3 - The “Company” way: Mandatory - should require a high level permission to deviate from the documented pattern.

Personas are good for:

1. Helping the project team get into the target audience’s mindset - creating empathy.
2. Communicate why and how decisions where made with people outside the project team.

Drawbacks:

1. A persona is an amalgamation of traits from a larger group that get funneled into one entity. And by giving the persona a name and a picture it is hard not to think of the persona as an individual instead of a group.
2. Personas do not create passion for the project. Having passion for what you’re doing and putting all of your energy into it is more important than having certain artifacts for a project.

Interesting Thoughts:

“The proper way to design is not to target an individual type of customer. You want 100 million customers.” - Don Norman

In other words, don’t target a demographic type, rather an activity.

You don’t necessarily need personas to create a great design. It really depends on who you are working with/for and whether or not you have passion for the project.

Reference:

1. Fear and Loathing in Las Personas - adaptivepath.com
2. Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself - bokardo.com
3. That Computer Is So You - BusinessWeek.com

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