Nico Macdonald will discuss what experience design is and why it is an appropriate way to think about design in an age of digital and networked products and services. He will consider this in the context of interface design on and beyond the personal computer, and the goal of creating fluidity of experience between points of contact with an organisation and between media. He will also talk about how to create positive ‘ecologies of experience’ in the context of the design of services. He will conclude with reflections on some of the contemporary barriers to creativity and innovation.

1: What is experience design?

Previous terms

Graphic design

Brand design

User interface design

User experience (term first used by Donald A. Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things). Image: DonNorman3.jpg and DesignOfEverydayThings.jpg

Web design

Interaction design: gets the closest of all the terms

Media neutrality

It doesn’t make sense to talk about design in terms of the media in which it is created

We now have more media, it is easier to create things in/across multiple media, and easier for people to move across media. Design is less and less about one medium.

Lifecycle and effect count

It makes more sense to discuss design in terms of its end result. Going beyond the individual product or service.

Look at the entire lifecycle of use of/interaction with a product/service/organisation.

Designing for experience

Not about functionality for the sake of it

Doesn’t meant that we create experiences. The Designing for User Experiences conference has the right emphasis in its name www.dux2005.org

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Image: NathanShedroff.gif Image: Shedroff ‘Experience Design’ cover ExperienceDesignCover.jpg

Image: from DUX Web site and conference

Satisfaction as much as fun

And designing for experience doesn’t just mean fun experiences, or even those of which you are aware: it can just mean satisfaction (see Lauralee Alben on satisfying and successful experiences[i])

Components of experience

In the area of digital products experience has many components

See ‘Not as other media’ Eye No 26, Vol 7, Autumn 1997[ii]

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New ways of thinking

It is not always clear to people coming from specific disciplines, eg: graphic design, how elements of digital interactions affect experience. For instance, they rarely understand the issues around interaction (with forms, for instance) and quality of experience.

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Approaches needed

Understanding the people who will use the service: ethnographic research, personas, empathy with users

Understanding the interaction story: scenarios

Evaluation: prototyping, heuristic evaluation, usability testing, body-storming

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Caveats

This approach doesn’t have to be more expensive. In fact, by identifying problems early it can save resource that would go into product development and also save the energy of the people in the team.

Experience design involvement needs to start early on in the process if the benefits are to be delivered

Is about a collaboration with other teams and learning from one another. See ‘Design as Common Ground’ keynote by Shelley Evenson at DIS2000[iii].

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Focusing on people and their experience can help avoid professional disputes and help management understand the (value of the) design solution

Who is doing it?

See definition at www.aiga.org/content.cfm?contentalias=what_is_ed

AIGA Experience Design community of interest is to “investigate, innovate and advocate the best understanding and use of design in a world in which experiences are increasingly digital and connected”. It was founded by Terry Swack and Clement Mok www.experiencedesign.org

Some other organisations take a similar approach, and they are to be encouraged

Image: TerrySwack.jpg and ClementMok.jpg

2: Beyond the PC

We are trapped in the Web

Because it is understood by users and developers, and has a large installed base

But is doesn’t support context of use, or adapt well to particular or specific uses

Or allow movement between media

The Web interface we use is very similar to the first interface created by Tim Berners-Lee in the late-80s

Image: NeXTWebBrowser.gif

Invest in innovation

Most technologies start out with limited flexibility, eg: electric motor

But quickly move to be cheap, portable, flexible, embedded, and un-noticed

This should be happening with the Internet, but we are still focused on the personal computer for Internet-based services

Image: EarlyElectricMotor.jpg

New interface issues

Exploiting knowledge of the user’s location, eg: Orange World train timetable service

New devices: interactive television (iTV) and personal video recorders (PVRs) such as TiVo, phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), information appliances (radios, ambient devices), public displays and retail environments, deliver and print models for publishing. All these devices have different interface requirements, and their design should say something about how they are to be used

We also need adaptive/adaptable interfaces and devices that people can fit to their lives

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New audiences

Already seen in phones, iTV, and games which are used by millions of ordinary people

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3: Fluid experiences

It is important to create fluidity of experience between elements of contact and between media

Moving between media

For instance, reading a newspaper article in print, go to the newspaper Web site and finding the article, adding information about it to your notes, then emailing a friend about it, who may print out a version from the Web site

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Moving between organisational touch points

For instance one might email an organisation, then get in contact by phone, then review the status of ones enquiry on the Web, then receive a letter from the organisation, and reply by email

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But there are problems with fragmented and incompatible systems which makes it difficult to implement experience design in these situations

However, as design has a role across organisations it can sometimes help management to see problems and opportunities

4: Positive ecologies of experience: Music downloading

It is important to consider and create positive ecologies of experience, as seen in the iPod, iTunes/Music Store environment

Innovation in one particular area is rarely sufficient to create a market, and innovations generally build on existing developments

Partly because services are underpinned by many interaction points

Finding/acquiring/managing/playing

The success of Apple’s iPod, iTunes/Music Store is based on designing the entire ecology of music finding/acquiring/managing/playing

Image: iPodMini.jpg

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Recommendations and sharing

This includes recommendations based on what other people are buying (and collaborative filtering) and allowing enough sharing rights (at the level of use of sharing typical with traditional music forms)

Image: iTMS_AlsoBought.jpg

Integration and adaptability

Also includes integrating with existing infrastructure: Airport Express/AirTunes and HiFi allow music to be played from a computer over and existing amplifier and speaker setup elsewhere in the home (and which will also be better quality). This is one example of creating an adaptable platform.

Image: AirportExpress.jpg

Branding

There is also a direct brand element of the iPod: the very recognisable white headphones. And its advertising and marketing (the silhouetted dancing figures is distinctive and appropriate).

Image: iPodWithHeadphones.jpg

5: Barriers to innovation

There are a number of contemporary barriers to creativity and innovation. Unless these are addressed the power of experience design won’t be effectively realised.

Failure to invest

Businesses are failing to invest properly in new products and services. (See the ‘Beyond the PC’ discussion.)

Reaction to hubris

To an extent this approach is endorsed by the post-Internet bubble reaction to hubris…

Underestimating people

… And the focus on usability which implies an underestimation of people’s abilities

Questioning of legitimacy of people’s needs

Should designers seek to satisfy people’s needs and desires, or to change them?

In recent years the debate about the role of people in the design process has moved away from unequivocal satisfaction of their needs and desires towards questioning their legitimacy. We ask whether they should eat what they eat, if they should smoke, and whether they should drive large cars.

Image: McDonald’s burger

Image: Lucky Strike cigarette box LuckyStrikeAd.jpg

Image: Ford Escape sports utility vehicle FordEscapeInTown.jpg

Focus on non-human factors

This has arisen from a greater concern with sustainability and the environment, and perceptions of safety and risk. The abstract idea of the environment is often considered to be more important than the read needs of people.

Image: low cost airline easyJet aeroplane Easyjet.jpg

Importance of humanism

It is important that we realise that people are worthy of good design and of better lives. We need to be empathetic to them, and appreciate that they are active subjects and not passive objects.

Thank you – Any questions?

[i] ‘Quality of experience: Defining the criteria for effective interaction design’ Lauralee Alben, interactions, volume III3, may + june 1996, pp. 11-15

[ii] ‘Not as other media’ Eye No 26, Vol 7, Autumn 1997. Originally written as a critique of design awards, but became a proposal for how design awards might evaluate interaction design work on the Web. It rightly identified the importance of also taking into account as users the people who will maintain a Web site. writing.spy.co.uk/Articles/Eye/NotAsOtherMedia/

[iii] ‘Design as Common Ground’ Shelley Evenson, DIS2000, New York doi.acm.org/10.1145/347642.347650