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DRAWING BOARD DIARIES

Thoughts on Design, Technology, and Human Experiences

Opinion: Nuances in UX Research

4/14/2017

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With several practices of art and science, often, there are two paths to mastery. One is of the theoretical nature, involving reading texts and amassing knowledge. The other is experience, either through professional practice or personal indulgence. If textual knowledge teaches the fundamentals tenets of arts and sciences, experience takes us closer to understanding the various nuances involved within them.

This is no less true with the ever-proliferating universe of UX design and research. Maybe more so, actually. There are emergent tools and methods that have now been conventionally adopted for the several elements of UX, including user research, interaction and interface design, usability testing, and iterative research & design. At the same time, I've come to believe that UX practitioners find a niche of tools and methods that help them find those aforementioned subtler nuances. But why nuances? Because they help add a wealth of detail to the insights that guide user-centered research and design. They also help one tap those much talked-about intangible facets of UX like empathy. 
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There are several nuances to conducting UX research. Photo by David Travis on Unsplash

​In this space, I wanted to explore a few such tools and methods that I've found quite useful and effective in my UX research and design practice. The list of these tools/methods follows -
  • Shadowing - In the user research phase, the value of insights extracted from users needs no introduction, specially given the universal constraints of cost, time, and consent. As such, interviews and focus groups have always been handy tools. But shadowing, I find, has an extra edge. Job shadow programs have traditionally been adopted in industries as a useful training tool to let new employees get quickly into the shoes of their peers and superiors. Shadowing has the advantage of taking researchers into the direct physical space that users occupy when they engage with the product or service of interest. This naturally allows researchers to have a good deal of contextual understanding about their users. Context greatly influences the way users interact with products or services and this is a great way to estimate the limitations and capacities of the user's usual context, if not, the universal context. The researcher might walk away not only learning what the user's needs are but also the whys behind them. 
  • Reactions - Harking back to Sir Newton's age old law of physics, every interaction between the user and a product does invoke a reaction in the user. Of course, the way this is reflected is widely variant among the user population. I've found it a good trick to try and capture these user reactions during shadowing or any other user research and usability testing exercise. Capturing videos or audios of the exercises has always been a traditional tool and so have been tools like heat maps and eye tracking. As part of these, it simply helps to match user interactions with their reactions. This truly helps understand how a user feels when interacting with a product and helps the researcher develop empathy for the user. 
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How a user reacts while using a product is as important as how the product is used. Photo by Ana Tavares on Unsplash
  • Interpretation - I've heard and read from practitioners, in a slight foreboding note, not to take user insights quite literally. I'm sure this opens up a debate with strong contentions from either side. But it does help to keep oneself open to interpretations; for the various inputs that users provide, particularly in the user research phase. A basic way to begin doing this is to translate research findings and user expressed needs into at-least one possible need in each of the different contexts applicable to the user. This is where aforementioned methods like shadowing come in handy as one comes back with a clear estimate of these contexts.
  • Mind-mapping - As the different contexts of a user get established and the notes from research begin to emerge, I've found myself going back to mind-mapping as a consistent tool, irrespective of the research phase. This lets me lay out all the information on a drawing board, and start connecting the different pieces of data. This not only adds weight to each piece of data by giving it presence but also lets the researchers and designers obtain a systemic view of the project's constituent elements with respect to the user. Often one can get too caught up with the details and loose sight of the overall scheme of things and the relative importances of different solutions to the detailed design needs. Besides, mind-maps are beautiful networks that help in detecting patterns of evidence that throw light on a certain design need envisioned by several users; or on certain design elements that need to be retained or discarded for enhanced user experience.
  • Storytelling - Talk of patterns of evidence, networks, and contexts brings me to a method that I'd recently stumbled upon and found great use for. And I think this is definitely a very selective method applicable for a specific type of projects; ones where the users need to interact with software applications while going through a scenario, a story, or a journey. In projects like these, the onus is quite high on design research to come up with strategy, both for the content and the design, in such a way that it evokes this sense of a story, scenario, or journey. One good way to do that, my design team realized recently, would actually be to let the users being researched tell stories. Stories, that in different angles, relate to the core aspect of the need that the software application aims to address. These stories could be elaborate accounts of their journeys. They could also be little vignettes that hint at the need the app is designed for. What we've realized is that these vignettes lead to content that can be, via mind-maps, categorized and analyzed into guiding the content strategy and the interface design.

​Some of these tools might simply aid in understanding the next step during the UX design and research process. And some of them might help in handling the nuances that remain intangible. What I hope, is that these tools/methods lead to a better understanding of some much needed philosophies that UX, as a science and an art, will embrace: like Empathy.
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Usability in Photography

12/8/2016

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An appreciation of human centered design in complex cameras

When I first started taking up photography as a serious hobby, phones still had VGA cameras so buying a DSLR (or a mirrorless camera) and learning how to use one was essential. As with many amateur photographers, it took me the better part of a couple of years to master the basics of photography (i.e., getting shots that I wasn't embarrassed to show others). But this story is not about the art of photography, it is about the tools: my Nikon D5100 and D750.

Going by my inflated self-pride, I shunned the use of any "Auto" modes on the camera and went the manual way. Interestingly, it probably took me only a trial or two to wrap my head around the essentials of using the tool. I knew which toggles to use for better exposures, what to do to get slower or faster shots, how to take light out or put it back in, the works. Now, that said, I did have to sit down and read the owner's manual for good - the camera barely has any discernible icons or labels, all the dials, buttons, and toggles marked by myriad graphics unbeknownst to a beginner in photography. Later, as a UX Researcher, I've come to feel that having to read an owner's manual is something that ought to be considered a design failure when it comes to product usability. ​

Going Mobile

A year or so ago, like most of my peers, I got a 'state of the art' smartphone that boasted a camera to beat all smartphone cameras. It had a fixed aperture lens (f1.8, I believe), yet had decent manual control - I could change the shutter speed, the ISO, white balance, focal distances, et al. on the decently intuitive camera app. It surely is one of those cameras that was designed to end the hassles of lugging around a DSLR for photography.

Despite the portability of my smartphone, my DSLR still beat it ten counts to one in terms of number of pictures shot ever since.  The reason, a bit unpredictably, is convenience and user-friendliness. 

Decoding DSLRs

The way most modern DSLR and mirrorless cameras are designed is a great example of thorough application of research and human centered design. This really struck me when I started trying out more expensive full-frame cameras and realized they had more knobs, buttons, and toggles than my entry-level camera. For a beginner, the myriad buttons, knobs, and toggles would only be confounding: the more the murkier. However, this increased number of controls made the job easier in those cameras. 

The fact of the matter is: despite this obvious complexity, the layout, design, and setup of these cameras work precisely towards helping the photographer get the right shot at the right moment. And there is no way this would have come about without thorough understanding of the user's behavior, goals, contexts, use cases, needs, capabilities, and limitations. In short, a thorough application of human centered design. 
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The obviously complicated interface on my Nikon D750, buttons and dials galore.
Human Centered Design

Let's look at the typical scenario for shooting a picture using a DSLR. Once the hardware (camera and lens for beginners; filters, tripod, other accessories for more advanced users) is all setup and the creative aspect figured out, photography is mostly about getting the right settings (primarily: ISO, Shutter Speed, and Aperture). Irrespective of experience, the need to get the right settings always remains. So, usually, a photographer frames an image by looking through the viewfinder, adjusts the camera settings, focuses, and then clicks away.  
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In contrast, the simpler interface of my Nikon D5100, an entry level DSLR camera
Talking all this into account, camera manufacturers seem to have managed to step well into the shoes of photographers. The rectangular form factor of cameras, that has persisted for ages, allows for them to be held near the eyes with both hands near the edges. Here, all the relevant controls are provided within the reach of the two hands and their natural location, epitomizing good ergonomic design. Anything ranging from the shutter button to the dials controlling aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to the zoom and focal rings all fall within reach. Furthermore, their layout and distinctive design enables photographers to never leave sight of their subjects through the viewfinder. This directs the photographer's vision, perception, cognition, and prediction onto the subject while their hands take care of the controls. ​
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The typical form factor, hand-and-finger position, and ergonomics of a DSLR
Scalable Human Factors

This seemingly good application of Human Factors has only been bettered with the advent of interactive LCD screens that enable placing unnecessary controls and features within the GUI hierarchy while leaving necessary physical controls on the camera's body. This helps camera manufacturers design smaller, less advanced cameras without intimidating beginners. There are fewer physical controls to be hassled with, more menus in the GUI to play with at one's own leisure, with broader automation enabling easier photography while providing a solid platform to learn on. For the professionals, it's all about grabbing the camera and getting the job done, with more physical controls that enable quicker tweaking of the image settings while the eyes stay focused on the subject and the right shot.  

At the moment, photography seems to be breaking traditional boundaries what with action cameras, drone cameras, smartphones, and wearables becoming ubiquitous. Form factors, user interfaces, even work flows vary across the range of these - so do use cases and target user groups. As mentioned before, I've tried substituting my DSLR with my smartphone camera with no success. I've recently tried a DJI Osmo+, a 3 axis gimbal with a 4K camera and have already started seeing the inconveniences I have while using it to shoot images. Amidst this plethora of cameras, DSLRs (and the new wave of capable mirrorless cameras) endure, with their attention to contextual usability, user goal achievement, and better overall user experience. This is solid proof of the effectiveness of a user centered design process. ​
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