In User Interaction, one of the inner bits of User eXperience, one of the tenets is the concept of separating, yet bridging the gap between how an application works on the inside, and how a user actually thinks it works. To developers, this concept is called abstraction. A great example is that of the transport controls used on all media players including iPods and Windows Media Player. The transport controls include the triangle for “play”, a square for “stop”, a pair of lines for “pause” etc. These controls, including fast forward and review, found their genesis in the old reel-to-reel tape deck days, when fast forward actually rolled the tape faster while still playing it back, pause was stopping the tape while the playback heads were still engaged. In other words, the transport control model actually fit the mechanical playback model directly; there was very little abstraction. However, today, when you hit pause or fast-forward, absolutely nothing akin to the mechanical processes of a reel-to-reel tapedeck are occuring in your iPod. This is an implementation model (how something works) being completely divorced from a mental model (how we think it works).

That’s a good thing.

If we can show our users what they think they should be seeing, while still implementing what needs to happen, behind-the-scenes, we win, as interaction designers.

Now, what brought this up? I’m currently working on a module at work where the entire problem domain was created by a SQL-happy DBA with no coding experience. I’ll leave out the details, but I’m currently faced with implementing a model that is basically cellophane: the users must be SQL experts to even get the module to work. It’s stunning.

That’s all…

An associate in the UX realm sends me this little rant:  

In a recent development meeting, I was told that our application’s Close button was unclear…

 

…and that we should add a close confirmation dialog to ask users who click it if they really want to exit. I pointed out that the button was rather clear about its purpose, perhaps insultingly so, but the response was that “I’m just thinking of the user…”. So we’ll “stop the proceedings with idiocy” [-Alan Cooper, About Face - ed.] by asking the user (who’s just clicked the Close Application button) whether they really want to close the application.

Design by Lowest Common Denominator.

This is a tough one. I can appreciate the frustration from the UX developer, but I can also see where, if you’re in a large-scale enterprise-level application, you, the user, might want to have the opportunity to say, “Ack! No, I didn’t mean to click that particular button, particularly if it means taking 20 minutes to get back to where I was…” If it were something besides application termination, I’d vote for providing an undo option rather than a confirmation dialog, but I have yet to see an implementation of a command queue pattern (undo stack) that can undo a shut-down.

Tonight I attended my first meeting of the DFW Usability Professionals Association. Joseph Paranteau, a Application Platform Solution Specialist for Microsoft spoke on the origins of the UX for Vista and Office 2007. The material was not really anything new for me, but I would have liked to have spent a little more time on how MS evaluated and consolidated the massive amounts of user interview and study information.

It’s really nice to see Microsoft actually heading in the right direction design-wise; it’s like they’ve actually been reading their Alan Cooper. However, when it comes to MS’s thoughts on persona-based development, while it’s great that they’re embracing the ideas (perhaps some kudos towards Alan, huh Bill?), all the materials I’ve seen show a serious problem with the depth of the personas. Cooper’s methodology is also called goal-driven development: meaning that the goals of users are of paramount importance and the persona development as conceived by Cooper includes a great deal of info on the goals of our amalgamized users.

In short, the MS-style personal-based development examples have:

• too many personae

• personae which are too thin (not enough info on back-story and motivation)

• personae with no goals listed.

• and, if you hold to Cooper’s approach, there is no primary persona…

So anyway, tonight’s meeting was interesting and I look forward to the next UPA meeting.

I’m currently taking a brief break from Alan Cooper’s About Face 3 to read Don Norman’s book Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. I’m only in the 3rd or 4th chapter, but had to comment on the work: I’m very impressed. Most usability or design books I read evoke a, “Yeah, I can see that” sort of response from me - good design just makes sense. But Norman, in Emotional Design, is truly breaking some new ground for me. His discussion of the 3 cognitive processes (visceral response, behavioral and reflective) and how we must design towards those processes is functioning as a real design catalyst for me. I’m seeing for myself now how one can use the visual appearance and overall UX of a software product to lead the user into the cognitive state we might desire for given tasks. When we want the user to be in a free-associative, creative, out-of-the-box state, this can be encouraged through certain design elements. Contrawise, if we wish the user to be quite focused, in problem-solving, no distractions mode, we can move towards that as well, all based on the overall design of the software. Amazing stuff, I highly recommend it.

Norman does mention Evolution more often than he does usability or design in these first few chapters, which, if you’re inclined to think that people’s physiological processes were designed rather than randomly happened open, may cause you an issue, but I can see why he stresses that point in the context. In all, the book is very good stuff so far. Enjoy.

…and welcome to The User eXperience. I’m taking the advice of some I respect and am breaking up my one blog (which contained personal items, work, rants, development, lego, etc.), and creating at least this blog, which will be specifically dedicated to the world of UX (or User eXperience). UX is the umbrella term for the entire experience a user has when interacting with digital products.