After the exploration, design process and exhibition, this chapter contains the feedback, discussion of process and potential found during the project. With the discussion, we hope to evoke other different thinking and help those who are doing the similar works.
5.1 Others factors of user experience
Although the exploration process was conducted first to realize the factors of user experience, but sometimes users still fail to get the user experience which was designed. In order to find out others factors of user experience, the design process is examined again from the beginning.
Besides, the new exploration structure would be proposed in the end of section.
The final design works of this project are attending the exhibition in National Chiao Tung University for a month. We expect people could get the specific user experience while using those designs. But sometimes they could not feel the user experience which was designed previously. For example, the money box allows people to input the saving goal by punching the box to experience the feeling of determination. Although the exploration process was conducted before design, but there are still few people could not get that feeling successfully. In order to figure out the reasons why people could not get the specific user experience, the design process is examined again from the beginning. According to the pre-experiment, we assume the user experience is affected by following three factors: object, movements and perception. But after reviewing the project, there are more two factors include context and user’s background.
First is the factor of context, the user experience design is not like product design which focus on aesthetic appeal and function terms, it often deals with question of context (Jesse James Garrett, 1996). The context is obviously associated with user experience. We just consider this factor in the application and design section but not in the beginning and exploration section. For instance, in the user interview, we just asked user to input the number, but didn’t give them any context such as input money account or input the time. Therefore, the results of exploration would be influenced by the context of product which is designed finally.
The secondly key Influence factor is user’s background. The one of characteristic of user experience is subjective (Effie L-C.Law, Virpi Roto et al., 2009) that means the user experience would be affected by personal characteristics such as memory and past experience. It indicates that the exploration results might not properly apply to every user. For instance, while user revolves one of prototype in user interview section, we found the related user experience reaction is accurate because of the manipulation evoke images of safe lock. But this result might not properly apply to young people since they maybe not have the relevant experience of security safe.
In order to consider the effect of those new factors, the design process is modified to improve the design of user experience. In this project, the designed products are to be decided after
exploration. But the context of products and related potential users are also important factors of forming user experience. Therefore, the design process becomes different sequence which decides the design products first, considers the related using context and potential users. Then go
explorations next.
5.2 The level of user experience
In the process of exploration, sometimes the different user experience reaction might be caused by the same reasons. For example, user might feel the emotion of expecting something or being careful through the slowly manipulation. We are wondering that why different emotion reactions would be evoked by the same reason? Are there having any levels between different emotions or influence on each other?
According to Mark Pettinelli (2009) perspective, he categorized emotions into three orders. The first order emotions are classified as being bodily such as appetite and satisfaction. Then the second order emotions are evoked by images in mind such as anxiety. Finally, the third order emotions such as depression, hate and love are going to be even more complicated. It take longer period of time and contains many factors even include second order emotions.
Thus, the third order emotions might not the emotion we want to create in this project. Since one of characteristics of third order emotions is long period of time, but the period of manipulating interface is usually very short. But it’s not means the third order emotions have to be abandoned once caught in exploration process. The component of third order emotions is very complex and even include the emotions of others levels. Therefore, while getting the third order emotions, we could discuss first for finding their related component. In the other hands, if we want to create third order emotions like love, we could design series of related emotions to make people feel
this kind of complex emotion.
Back to the question of beginning, there are two different emotion reactions including expecting something and being careful which are caused by the same manipulation. Is one of them the third order emotions which might be affected by another? By the categories of Silvano Arieti, they are belonging to second order emotions and independent of each other. That situation might be caused by others factors such as personal experience.
5.3 Take advantage of negative user experience
In the field of human computer interaction, people almost discuss with positive user experience such as hedonic or satisfaction. It is easy to understand that no one wants to have bad or negative feelings such as scare or anxiety while using the product.
During the user experience design process, there are two ways found to develop the user experience design. First is providing the proper feelings according to their context. Second is providing specific feelings to help achieved final goals.
For instance, the weight machine provides the function of showing user’s weight. In the first thinking, we could make users feel proper user experience such as trustworthy or accurate while using. But in the second thinking, we could make users feel specific user experience such as scare or anxiety. Although they are all negative feelings, but helpful to alert and remind people to care their weight and then achieve the goal of losing weight.
Therefore, we should not ignore the negative feelings during the exploration process. They may not mean the bad user experience. Besides, sometimes it even could help us to achieve the specific design goal.
5.4 Applied to daily life context
In this project, some inputting interfaces are designed from the perspective of user experience.
But those designs could really be applied to our life? Or even in place of keyboard?
After collecting the feedbacks from exhibition, we found there are still two main problems to be considered and overcome to realize the vision of applying those user-experience-based inputting interface to daily life.
First is imprecision of inputting numbers. In this project, the numbers is input by manipulating movements such as punching, pulling and lifting up. It just represents the concept of relative amount but not the precise number. However, in our life, some numbers are important to people such as money amount or blood pressure values. It requires precise number to avoid mistakes and serious consequence. Besides, inputting numbers in imprecise ways might cost more time to fix the results. Sometimes people don’t have enough time and patience to use it slowly.
Second is unfamiliar user interface. In order to create different user experience, there are many different interface concepts and related manipulations. That means users might face the
unfamiliar user environment while using the products or interfaces. For instance, one visitor in the exhibition claim that he has no idea about how to manipulate the product because of lacking of similar experience and proper metaphor to guide probable manipulation.