Author: Robert N

Posted on

Thoughts on Interaction Design Responses

1.

Interaction Design, according to “Thoughts on Interaction Design,” is the creation of dialogue between user and product. “Elements of User Experience” gets a bit more poetic, and calls it a dance between the two of them. In any case, this “dialogue” or “dance” is a figurative description for interaction. Although this dialogue or dance is a 2-way interaction, designers need to plan the entire choreography beforehand. This means predicting user responses and designing accordingly. Unsurprisingly, then, Interaction Design borrows substantially from psychology. Beyond that, it also borrows from the fields of industrial design, engineering, art, and business strategy. Interaction Design obviously has plenty of similarities with a plethora of other types of design, however Interaction Design focuses on humanizing the end result and making it usable and intuitive. Some of the industry’s challenges can be viewed optimistically as opportunities. As new media pervades our culture and software development becomes outsourced, the job of the Interaction Designer becomes both more difficult and more sought after by companies. In a world full of variously sized rectangles that display pretty pictures, Interaction Design can serve as an improvement and differentiation.

2.

Ethnographic tools try to understand the what and why behind users’ actions. Ethnographic tools differ from traditional surveys or interviews in that they attempt to maintain the context of the actions – instead of asking the user in a controlled setting about their opinions on themselves, these tools try to understand these qualities in action. In the case of an online banking website, these tools can give the designer insight into how and why a user would use such a site. They might uncover useful information about which features are most helpful, which are in the way, and why a user usually logs on in the first place.

A design is finished when the designers are finished designing. Depending on the company and perspective, this could happen at a variety of points. For a particular designer, it could happen as soon as he throws it over the wall to the next group of designers, never to see it again. For a certain organization, design could be done when the product goes into manufacturing. For some products, design isn’t finished until it goes through several cycles of iterative development – and for other products, continued updates and support mean that design continues well after the product has been made commercially available. Success and purpose also depend on perspective. Some designs start out to fill a business purpose – the organization needs to make money or retaliate against a competitor, for example. Or, the design might have the purpose of providing the user some benefit. Maybe even both. The design is a success if it meets its purpose.

A product family I use is breakfast cereal, and a specific brand that I used to use regularly was Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Its branding affected me quite negatively when they released an ad campaign that not only personified the cereal, but characterized it as cannibalistic. Let this be a message to all advertisers of food: When I eat food, I don’t want to think about the prospect of eating a sentient being, as you have just advertised your food to be. Secondly, having your personified breakfast meal successfully recreate a miniature version of the Hunger Games in which the contestants eat each other does not make me want your product any more. In fact, it makes me want it quite less – less enough to the point where I haven’t bought the damn thing since your ad campaign was released. On another note, I do recall choosing several technological toys and devices as a child mainly based on their looks. This served as a good learning experience for me, as later in life I became much more concerned with functionality as opposed to aesthetics in technology.

Posted on

Elements of UX Response

The main goal of Apple’s website is, like almost all businesses’ main goal, to make money. This is evidenced by the site’s structure, which emphasizes their products beneficial features and makes it convenient to purchase them. The website also has a secondary goal of postpurchase support, offered in its support section. A user who has just purchased a MacBook can find helpful information regarding troubleshooting and efficiency in this section, but might get confused and head over to the Mac section of the website first, which contains no support and only promotional material.

Facebook’s login page has the functional specifications expected of any login page. Firstly, it includes a login tab at the top for users who already have an account, prompting the user for an Email or Phone number and Password. The tab also has a “Forgot account?” link for recovery. For new users, the page also has a complete sign up section, which requires Name, Phone / Email, Password, Birthday, and Sex. This section also includes Terms and Policy links, and a link to create an account for a non-personal entity such as a business. This page also includes options for different languages, and a plethora of links to other pages such as Instagram, Help, Create an Ad, and Games.

The four architectural approaches to information structure are hierarchical, matrix, sequential, and organic. An example of a hierarchical website would be a messageboard or forum, where subforums exist by category, and different threads exist underneath subforums. An example of a matrix structure would be an online shopping site such as Amazon, where items exist under multiple categories and navigation reaches out in multiple directions; while the site conceptually has a hierarchical structure, related and recommended items as well as multicategorical listings give Amazon a matrix architecture. Examples of organic websites are difficult to find – Since most websites are designed to make money and help users, an organic structure is often impractical from a functional standpoint. Organic sites are generally experimental or for entertainment value, or in some cases accidentally organic because of poor design. An example of an organic interaction would be a text adventure. In a text adventure, you can generally only navigate to those nodes that are immediately adjacent to yours – there is no hierarchy including a home button or categories. It’s an organic progression through the maze of the game. An example of a sequential system is just about any payment processing system – the one for Amazon, for example. Once you’ve proceeded to checkout, you’re on rails until the end.

Huffington Post’s index page is nearly 90% content as far as screen space goes – the majority of the space is taken up by the flagship story of the day. However, clicking on the hamburger menu at the top left flips this completely, bringing out a navigation menu that takes up nearly the whole screen depending on resolution. Google’s index page, functionally, is 100% navigation. If you take into consideration the Google Logo, and the occasional Google Doodle, this drops to around 60% – 80% navigation. Google is a search engine, and is designed to be mostly navigation. While the average Wikipedia page is almost entirely content, the index page is mostly navigation, giving language options and a search bar above the fold, with links to external sites below. Etsy’s index page has a modest navigation bar at the top, however the rest of the page is both content and navigation at once – small snippets of content that navigate to larger individual pages of that content.

The first thing you see on Landor’s landing page is what seems to be their mission statement, large, contrasting, left justified, and relatively alone. Besides the unintrusive navigation at the top and the background image, it’s the only thing above the fold. The user needs to scroll down or click on the nav to see any other content besides this statement. Scrolling down presents the user with a list of recent news articles and works, each of which takes up their own page despite being nothing but headlines and brief descriptions. Clicking on the nav / hamburger menu occupies the entire screen with uncluttered navigation – categories such as Work and About Us are presented left justified in large font and is the first thing the eye catches, whereas links to individual projects are presented right justified in small font.

Posted on

Objectified Response

For the most part, I found myself agreeing with all of the points brought up in the documentary. There were only a few instances of statements that I disagreed with or questioned. The first was a relatively unassuming quote from Karim Rashid: “You imagine, if you design a million chairs to date, or how many chairs have been done in the world, why on Earth would we have an uncomfortable chair? There’s like no excuse, whatsoever.” There’s a plethora of excuses for designing an uncomfortable chair. I believe we discussed in class how chairs are designed for the amount of time you’re intended to sit on them. If you don’t want people to sit on the chair for very long, making it uncomfortable is arguably “good” design in that case. Comfort is also quite difficult to segment, as the concept of ergonomics relates more to tailor-made products than it does mass-produced ones. For simple logistical purposes, chairs are designed with a wide range of people in mind, and can’t please everyone. Another statement from Karim that I questioned was “If the shelf life of a high-tech object is less than eleven months, it should be all 100% disposable.” While I can understand the sentiment behind the claim, and I agree that sustainability is important, I feel as though Karim’s wish is either hyperbolic or unrealistic at the present time. I don’t necessarily disagree with the statement, but I don’t think it’s realistic either.

That being said, this statement, coupled with the statements of some of the other designers in this documentary, prompted me to think quite a bit more about sustainability in everyday design. Karim’s utopian idea of a smartphone made of sugarcane might not be realistic, but it certainly makes one think. Similarly, the story that Thomas Overthun tells about stumbling over his own toothbrush on a beach led me to think more about the space an object occupies both during and after its use, geographically, mentally, and volumetrically. I also found myself thinking more about how design fits into the user’s personal story, how users feel about their own ability to understand a design, and how some designs come about from extensive group planning whilst others are moments of singular inspiration.

Prior to watching this documentary, I’m not sure I had a concrete definition of design, and I’m not sure if I do now having watched it either. Complete or not, the definition of design that I’ve come up with is that design is the act of creating objects or experiences that provide utility. It’s a basic definition, but it’s broad in its interpretation and application. To provide utility is essentially to make an object or experience better in some way. Even if the design is an intentionally uncomfortable chair, that chair is uncomfortable for a reason. It might not make the object or experience better for the user, but it makes it better for the entity it was designed for – for example, urban tourism in the case of defensive design. Price itself allows for a measure of utility. If people are willing to pay for a design, it must have some kind of utility.

Posted on

Week 3 Ideas

1. Long Live the King – Players are part of the royal court and work to expose one player as an assassin hellbent on the King’s life. The King is stubborn and dull, so proof plays a large part in this deduction game.

2. Taste Tester – Players are high ranking government officials, and must hire taste-testers and chefs to enjoy their meals without fear of poisoning. At the same time, they try to plant phony chefs and testers in the kitchens of the other players.

3. Hypnosis – Players are competing street performers all specializing in psychic abilities. Competition has gotten fierce, and the players are now all trying to hypnotize each other to do each other’s bidding.

4. Cookbook – Players are novice alchemists working together to craft the right potions for their customers and keep their fledgling business alive.

5. Personal Space – Players are all socially terrified freshmen trying to maintain a minimum distance of 5 feet from any other human being.

Posted on

Week 3 Reflection

Tokaido probably had the most definitive phases out of any of the games thus far. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve become more apt to noticing the phases, or if it was the game itself, but I could definitely tell when I had a definitive gameplan, and when I felt like our team was going to win. The game itself was really unique, and I found the theme to fit really well. I enjoyed trying to deduce the objectives of the other players, and think of how they interact with my objectives.

Pandemic could have been more fun if we hadn’t encountered an outbreak on both the first and second turn of the game. If I remember correctly, 3 cities started at level 3 infection, and the outbreaks both occurred in one of these cities. I looked up how many cities there were after the game and found it to be 48. Given a deck of 48 cities, there was a 3/48 * 2/47 = 0.27% chance of that happening. Frustration aside, I was able to enjoy the game for a short time. The theme and mechanics were both fairly unique, and I felt as if I was useful to the team until we inevitably lost. Dealing with 2 outbreaks in the first 2 turns is hard.

8 Minute Empire was difficult, but only because of the rules. The English translation didn’t quite specify where the starting region was, so we had to infer it as the center region (the other playgroup inferred it as the 4 corners and each player began in a separate one – I don’t know which one was correct). I also had trouble determining whether having n of a card counted for x points per card or x points total, and I never figured out why there were resource tokens (which we never took out of the box). Once I had a general idea of how the game worked, I became engaged and concerned with other player’s expansion, but I was so concerned with how to play the game that the theme didn’t even cross my mind.

Posted on

Week 1 Reflection

Out of the three games we played, I found Love Letter to be the most entertaining overall. I enjoyed the story behind it, and the game was fun and easy to learn. I felt very similarly about Hanabi in terms of story and enjoyment. Despite its simplicity, I found the rules of the game quite unique. While playing each of these games, I found myself appreciating the story especially, even thinking to myself how much less fun these games might be without one. With Love Letter and Hanabi, it’s a very smooth transition from the backstory provided by the game’s setting, and the story created by the players. The story created by the players even fits in logically with the backstory, which helps immerse the player. It’s interesting, then, that I enjoyed Flux as much as I did. The game epitomizes mechanics, and there is practically no backstory or theme – though, I suppose its lack of these attributes is the theme in and of itself.

Posted on

Week 2 Reflection

You mentioned in class that the non-munchkin version of Gloom was much more depressing and grim. Given the level of depression that this version had, I don’t think I want to see just how depressing the original is. Nonetheless, I found the game fun and I enjoyed the way that the characters progressed, both mechanically and thematically, like how the cards we stacked on characters had sentences for names ([character] [card], [holly] [was betrayed by the dice]). One thing that I didn’t entirely like about the game was how abruptly it could end. In one instance, it felt like we were just getting into phase 2 of the game when one of the automatically played cards ended the game immediately. That card seemed like more of a snowball card than a headwind card.

I really enjoyed Dominion for the brief time I played it, and I was really disappointed that it ended early. It was really fun trying to remember what people’s decks consisted of (including my own), seeing what kind of strategies people were going for, and how everyone adapted to each other. For example, Desmond went for Militia’s early on and the other players started to grab Moats in response. I grabbed a lot of Villages to start, and when the pile was getting low, the other players tried to buy some Villages before they were gone. The theme wasn’t really ingrained in the gameplay, but just mechanically the game was a lot of fun.

Posted on

Week 2 Ideas

1. [Courier] 3 players. A standard game of chess, except checkmate results in victory for both standard players. The idea is that these two kingdoms have important information for the opposing king that would surely prevent a looming war. There is a third player, an assassin, who controls a single queen. Their objective is to mate either king before another player does, preventing them from receiving the information and ensuring war. The queen has a set number of lives, and respawns after a set number of turns.

2. [Rubix Board] 2 players. Standard Chess or Checkers, but played on checkerboard Rubix Cubes. Given the constraints of developing a checkerboard pattern on a cube, only one face of the cube would be “playable” at any given time. Each player gets one move of the cube and one move of a piece per turn.

3. [Spiral] 2 players. Player 1 controls 4 pawns, positioned on the edge of the board. By rolling dice, they move their pawns around the board and in a spiral pattern towards the center. Player 2 controls a set of Bishops that attempt to destroy the pawns before reaching the center. Pawns may destroy bishops, Pawns win when 1 pawn reaches a set distance into the board.

4. [BattleChess] 2 players. The same as Chess, however each player is able to call in an aerial strike on any square on the board. The strike takes 3 turns to arrive, and renders the affected square unplayable for the rest of the game. It can not be moved through or landed on. Only one strike per player may be in progress at a time, and both players are aware of which squares are being hit.

5. [Oops All Kings! / Game of Thrones] 2,4,6,8 players. Using normal chess rules, each player controls 1 king placed equidistant from each other near the center of the board. Last man standing wins.

Bonus Game: [EA Chess] 2 players. The classic game of chess is “improved” with microtransactions, allowing players to purchase additional pieces during gameplay.

Posted on

Week 1 Ideas

1. [Love Triangle] 3 to n players. Each player attempts to confess their love to the person to their left. The first person to confess wins. In order to confess, you must have a certain level of confidence, your love must have a certain level of trust, and you both must have a certain level of charisma. These stats can be altered by cards.
2. [Pawn] ~4 players. Players need to meet a certain gang quota, and do so by “robbing” the deck and each other. Some cards are item cards to be pawned at the end of each round, and some cards are action cards that interact with item cards. Not meeting the quota at the end of a round, or being caught by police, results in elimination. Item cards have certain characteristics that makes them easier/harder to hide or worth more/less. Winner is last person standing.
3. [Math] 2-6 players. Players attempt to simple solve math equations that they themselves create with a deck of standard playing cards. Each player plays 1 card per turn, in a line following previous cards. If the card can be considered the “solution” to the previous cards, the player wins all cards on the table. A solution means that the previous cards can add or subtract to equal that card, and the player chooses the operators and order of operation. Whoever wins the most cards at the end wins.
4. [Witness Protection] 3-6 players. Players work together to find and kill the witness card. An entire deck of action cards are dealt, then a smaller deck of characters are dealt. One character is the “witness,” and whoever is dealt the witness is secretly the “rat.” Each player keeps their hand in order. Action cards are used to deduce the contents of players hands, to shuffle hands, and to kill characters. The “mobsters” win when the witness is killed. The “rat” after x turns or too many non-witnesses are killed.
5. [Crossroads] 3-6 players. Players use their devilish charm to bid on items and souls. Auction cards trigger a round of bidding for something. Action cards can steal other’s items/souls and impact the outcome of an auction. The player who acquires the most souls at the end of the game becomes the crossroads king, winning the game.