Smoke & Mirrors Review
Chuang Xuejin, U065250L
User Experience Design, NM4210
(Web) Design itself is subjective, not objective.
That is what I feel summarises the 5 articles in one line and strongly support as well.
Many web design companies rely on scientific tools based on scientific researches to use a measure when designing a “good” web site. I do agree with the author, however, that using solely on scientific tools and quantitative results to obtain a so called good design is purely not going to ENSURE a good web site design. There are many factors that affect a so called “good” design; and because it is a design, it is subjective as a result. When different people view the same web site, the experience each feel will definitely be different across. Some reasons would be because of the different backgrounds, culture, education, and current state of mind.
Example
David who is in a rush to obtain certain data over a web site on cars will want information quick when, compared to William who is casually viewing the web site at his own pace. David will scan the web page quickly for the information he really needs, thus heavily filtering information or skipping information no matter how or where information is placed. William, as the casual surfer will, rather, read through information slowly and slowly filtering out the information.
“There is a limit, I think, to what a so-called “empirical” user interface test can tell you. At some point, the results must be interpreted in order to be useful as a design tool — and interpretations can easily go wrong. They can overlook a critical objective or even reach the wrong conclusions, especially when interpreted by people without the appropriate design skills.” – Smoke & Mirrors
I do agree with the author on the statement above. People with different knowledge background can interpret the data gathered by scientific tools differently. Because data itself doesn’t tell the problem but rather needs interpretation, this often causes design conflicts or just wrong design by misinterpretation. The author’s example on Eyetools is a good example of the “usefulness” of such scientific tools. The hot spots, or red areas, on the Eyetools graph just tell us that the eye has been looking at that area more often. It does not explain why the eyes were fixated there more often.
And it is also true that a good web designer would have known the reasons for the color spots on Eyetools. In Seth’s Blog: What I learned from eye tracking, the author mentioned that eye looks for anomaly in the web page. If the web designer controls his design by adding good anomaly around his web page, he can control the eye flow of the user. That is design.
“Hell, you should probably hire a better UI designer anyway, because only a good UI designer is really qualified to interpret the results of an eyetracking study in the first place.” - Smoke & Mirrors
A web designer can produce the web design he has made based on the user testing he has made. BUT, because design is subjective, the client (hiring the designer for the web site), may have a different opinion and business agenda about the web design. This is where the author of Smoke & Mirror addresses the need for scientific tools. These scientific tools can help to prove scientifically or empirically to convince these clients that this is the PROBLEM and thus why you used this design to solve it. Clients, who run businesses such as the web site, do not want to take such risks that may lose more of their current customers unless the design is PROVEN that it is BAD for their business.
“So how does a designer or a design manager convince their boss that a good design decision is in fact a good design decision if the boss has no design instincts? What if the site won’t get redesigned at all unless the boss can be convinced that the current design stinks?” – Smoke & Mirrors
Some scientific measurements on web site design can be quite useless, as mentioned in article 4 “Research as Bullshit”. Forrester’s Brand Image Reviews Of Agency Reference Site chart is totally useless, for any web designer. Every web site has a differential business proposition that attracts its customer to their site. Thus, they will want to portray their branding differently. As such, it becomes a subjective issue. Organic’s Persona Room as a usability tool it also another of a expensive tool which can be addressed with a cheaper option. Unless the designers can completely change their characteristics and personality to the targeted persona, staying in a “persona room” does not help to achieve better knowledge of the targeted audience.
In conclusion, I strongly agree with the author that design instincts are better than scientific tools when it comes to web design. We should use scientific tools to help strengthen our background knowledge of the targeted user that shapes the foundation of our design. Cardsorting, information architecture, and performing all kinds of information gathering about all stakeholders will ensure that there is well-enough information during the design process. Performing this will be one step closer in achieve a good web site well-received and liked by the customers.
Smoke & Mirrors is very good set of article that strengthens my beliefs after taking User Experience Design module.
Beauty is the eye of the beholder
- interpreting: it is subjective -
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