Natural Mapping Art 337

If I only had one more blog to pick from to write about, it would be about natural mapping.

I have a problem, that I wasn't able to explain until I took this class. I have a bad habit of turing on the wrong burners on our stove top. This has gotten a little frustrating and some times a dangerous. And I'd usually feel pretty dumb. What I've learned by reading through Design of Everyday Things is that this is not my fault!

This is an image of a stove top that I found on the internet that looks similar to ours. The big difference is that the little circles they use to indicate which burner is which are "in perspective" so all the burner icons closer to me are bigger than the ones that are farther away. So in my mind I think "big icon = big burner" so I end up turning on the small burner on accident. Which is really frustrating to me. 

I found this example as well on the internet, even though the knobs are in a bit of a unique place, the mapping. So based on this model, my accidents are not only caused by poor icons, but also by poor placement. there is no Clear indication of which knob belongs to which burners with out a label. In a way, you're just taking a chance.   

Natural mapping works because it's based on models and actions that we normally take, and conventions as well, but mostly on how we normally act. They just make sense to us. Think about which knob on your car dash board you use the most. It's probably the volume button. Your volume button probably right next to the edge of the dash and all you have to do to change the volume os lift your hand up. My car also has a volume button on my steering wheel, but I hardly ever use it because it is way more natural to me lift my arm and twist than remove my had from the steering wheel and click a button on the from of it. 

Natural mapping can prevent mistakes and also help the user experience be a lot more pleasant. 

Art 337 Goals, Intentions & Action Sequence

How many things do you do on "auto pilot"? Drive home, brush you teeth or practice scales on a violin? When we do something frequently enough, or of something feels natural enough, it becomes second nature to us.

Usually this happens when there were correct goals made by the designer. If a product is designed well, we should be able to do it with out thinking. Think about how to log in to certain web pages, if the sequence of buttons you select come second nature to you, it's probably because what you need is in a very convenient location.

Goals can be simple every day tasks, like "brushing your teeth" or "driving to the store" or even "submitting an assignment."As designers we need to be aware that goals are met with a sequence of actions. 

When something is difficult to do you have to ask what were the results of the actions you took? Did your actions meet your goal? Let's watch Waffles the cat. 

Sometimes it's the intentions that determine how a goal is met. 

A goal is something to be achieved, Waffles wanted to get off the car and on to the ledge. 

An intention is a specific action taken to reach that goal, Waffles jumped. 

In the case of Waffles, he didn't realize how far away the ledge was and probably ignored the fact that he wasn't an agile kitten anymore. His intentions didn't help him reach his goal. He probably should have found another way around. (Poor Waffles...)

If his goal was simply to get off the roof of the car, however, than he reached his goal. But based on his actions, we can assume his goal was to get on to the ledge. 

Being aware of goals and intentions is pretty critical to interaction design. They go hand in hand. A designer needs to know what the goals of the user are and then provide a product that helps them make the right actions to reach their goal, with out making them go the long way around. 

If you are going to create a web page that sells products, you shouldn't make it difficult to let your users know what the product costs and how they can order that product. They other day I saw an advertisement for a rocking chair. 

I'm not having a baby right now, but this is a cute little chair that I think I would like to have when I'm a mom. So I clicked on the picture that lead me to their web site. I wanted to know how much the product costs and if it was something local so I could sit in it before making a purchase. 

http://www.ontwerpduo.nl/en/

It's a cute little web site, you can check it out if you want to, but long story short it took me a lot of clicking to find out that this is a company based in the Netherlands and their 2 U.S. stores are on the East Coast. And I still don't know how much this chair would cost or if I could have it shipped to Idaho. If that's something they don't offer, I wish their website would explain that. 

Being aware of what your audience is looking for, even if they live on the other side of the world, can help you create a product that users will really appreciate. 

Art 337 Visibility

Have you ever heard of the expression: What you see is what you get? This expression doesn't always apply to the term visibility. Visibility is a kind of feed back, and for the most part is how users acquire information. If you can't feel or hear anything, what kind of information are you getting? Most interaction design is visual, since you can't feel more than slick glass on a phone and sometimes theres are audio responses, but not always.

Using hierarchy is one way that we can help visibility. With hierarchy, you can you can direct your users where you want to go and create a focus.

Compare the two sides of this spread, if you have a web page with hardly any visual hierarchy, the user really has no where to look first, They might start reading, but it would be safe to assume that they won't get very far or be interested in wandering your web page. Because nothing sticks out, they might not be able to find what they really need. On the right side, however, there is a texture and a flow of where the user can look. The visibility of text, images and captions seem to allow the reader to wander and they are more likely to find what they need. 

I work in the Financial Aid office on campus and at the start of every semester we deal with the SAME issue. Our office gets very busy with students, usually new students, with the same general questions. It's not uncommon that 3 out of every 5 students have the same exact question. And usually it's information that they could have found on our website. So, at the beginning of the fall semester, we decided to make the information they were looking for more visible to students. 

It seemed a little cheesy, but according to our Analytics, it was very successful.  It became the 3rd most viewed page on our website and the statistics showed that people would come, spend about a minute on that page and then about 75% of those viewers would leave our site. That told us that people came, looked for the information they needed, and then left. And our office reflected that as well. It was much less busy than prior semesters and the office staff all expressed that it was one of the least stressful semesters they had experienced, and Fall is usually the most BUSY semester in the school year. 

All we did was make the information more visible to students. all the information on the ASK ME page could have been easily found on our web page, if they knew where to look. Most new students, however, didn't know where to look. So we made it obvious. 

Art 337 Constraints

Constraints, simply put, are limitations and restrictions. Why on earth would you ever what to restrict a user? Well, there are many reasons, safety, idiot proofing, product limitations, preventing mistakes, ect.

Donald Norman suggest that there are 4 categories of restraints.
1) Physical , which constrain possible options. For example, your key to your car. If it's not the right key. your car will not start.

2) Semantic, which is based on your knowledge. And if you are working with a product you've never used before, you determine what you do with that product on clues it gives you.

3) Cultural, you do certain things based on different situations. Think about how you act when you're hanging out with your friends compared to if you were to have a lunch meeting with your employer.

4) Logical constraints, if you were to put a puzzle together, logic would tell you that all the pieces need to be used.

With interaction design, there are lots of contraints that we could create. If it is a web site of app with secure information you may consider making a log - in screen, with will prevent unwanted readers from viewing private information. You can eliminate confusion by eliminating options. From the Library web page project I learned a lot about constraints. There were SO many options that people didn't know what to do. There were two search bars and that confused some people, even though they were labeled and in different places. Sine most of those links on those web pages were not for students anyway, it is simply easier for the student if they weren't there.

If there are too many buttons and not enough clarity or reason for the button, people may become confused or stuck on a particular web page and forget what the original goal was. By creating contraints, you can ultimately create a flow or pattern. This will make everyones lives a little bit easier.

Arrt 337 Feedback

It's about time I had a journaling marathon.

The book we were supposed to read for the semester, Design of Everyday Things is littered with information on feedback. That should tell you something about how important it is to interaction design, or product, really. Most of us have heard the word "feedback" before and usually relate it to radio or sound waves, or can recall a time when a microphone squealed. Feedback in a design sense is similar, but in most cases it is less painful to your ears.

According to Donald A Norman, feedback is the information about what action has actually been done, or what the user has accomplished. This can be related to thousand of everyday things. You can turn the door knob and the click will indicate that you can push the door an it will open. Electronics give off feedback as well. Shut your dishwasher and twist a dial and the machine wiring to life indicates that it has started. Imagine every reaction that you have experienced because of an action you have made. This is feedback.

Donald Norman also spends a little time explaining that sounds are also a for of feedback. It's a clue that something has happened. The elevator, the toilet, most computer and video games have some sort of audio feed back. Even though you are seeing what it happening, audio feedback is just as important.

There are many different types of feedback, and really all you need to do is think about the 5 senses.  Visual, audio, tactile, I don't know the formal names for smelling or tasting, but you get the idea.  

If a user does not hear a sound or have some sort of feedback, they will usually assume that nothing happens. In class we watched the video "A day made of glass" and there are lots of pros and cons to the ideas expressed in the video. And one of the cons about having a world made of glass is that there is no tactile feedback. Our hands are full of nerves and senesces so many things. Through our hands we can feel weight, surface texture and so on. Think about what we wouldn't know if we didn't touch anything?


Visual feedback is important to interaction design because that's basically the only thing we've got to work with. Imagine that you are searching and the internet is being particularly slow. As you page is loading there is usually some work of "loading" page or at the very least your mouse changes. If you didn't see that change, or some sort of spinning wheel, you would begin to wonder if you page was even loading! So as UX designers, we need to be thinking about what changes or indications we need to make so the users will know that they are doing the right things, or anything at all.