Assignment 1 - Product and Emotion

Some thoughts about the first assignment. As I guessed, many of the products presented are quite familiar with us. We even had 3 classmates presenting about 1 same thing: the bench at MRT stations (guess many of us use MRT, right?). It's easy to see that bad designs are almost everywhere...

In the second lesson, we've learnt that a product can produce 3 different levels of experience, namely:
- visceral: the first stage, the first impression that strucks us
- behavioral: the second stage, when we learn about its function, usability, reliability, how well it can perform... These are the factual properties of a product
- reflective: the third stage. This is where the society has its effect. How will others think about me when I use this product? What can this product tell about me? Marketing campaigns and advertisements will help to form this in customers' minds.

Now I will need to choose a product to illustrate this...your guess? operating systems =p Sound like boring things huh?

1. Our beloved Windows:-

- visceral: well yes, windows is not tooooo eyecandy, but its graphic user interface is not that bad, right? (compare to, say, Unix which doesnt have a GUI=P)
- behavioral: you might have heard too many compaints about Windows's performance, but dont you wonder why it's still the most popular OS although ppl hate it so much? well, it's easy to use, most softwares are compatible with Windows. Even my friends who are using Mac still need to use Windows parallelly. So I think that I can say this is where Windows is strongest.
- reflective: not much to show off. Everyone has it, so you are not that special. Even worse, the Apple ads potraited PC user as boring people.

2. Mac OS: I believe that emotion for this product is most affected by marketing/ads and its loyal users. Gonna show you now.

- visceral: I'm gonna give it a 'yes', for Apple's OS is famous for its eyecatching GUI (however, I have to say sometimes, marketing/ads can also interfere what people think is beautiful. Let's say if everyone around you say "any product from this company is so cool. It's designed for style", then eventually it will affect your emotion also.)
- behavioral: I haven't used it. It's agreeable that its performance is good, but yet again, many people overrated it. I've heard people to say something like "a Mac never has any virus", and it's not true. Also, not every software is Mac compatible.
- Reflective: young, punky, ... anything related to 'cool'.

3. Linux:

- visceral: nothing special compared to Windows :P but it's not bad.
- behavioral: based on my friends' comments and reviews from internet, Linux has much less virus and much more stable. however, it does not support many softwares, and some of them are pretty popular. One of its biggest advantages is that it's free.
- reflective: it's a change from Windows. The user who use Linux may considered themselves as more computer savvy. They can also feel that they are supporting open source software, which seems to support the freely development of technology.

So that's it. Depending on users' requirement, they may choose different products for different reasons. A business man would prefer Windows, I guess, for its popularity and being easy to use, while a young student may like Mac OS for the cool factor, and finally a computer geek would rate Linux among the best.

Assignment 0: Bad design

So we are required to come up with a bad design. Before doing this assignment, I have had a look at how my fellows are doing and had some thoughts.

- I quite agree with the statement that this assignment is not quite easy as it looks. Why? Because there are TOO many bad designs that we are gradually getting familiar with them and accept them as a part of our life. I cannot count how many time I feel frustrated because of a stupid design, but when asked to tell about them in details, I get stuck.

- Good user experience design may not be the same as good usability, but good usability is a MUST for a good user experience design. The most beautiful design does not always guarantee best user experience. We have always known that Apple brand's design is considered as having most 'kool' designs, yet not all of them are usable (i'm mentioning about Apple's mouse which ppl have no idea where the button is when looking at it).

- However, I may consider the 'legendary" door knob along the Arts corridor to the canteen as the classic example of bad design. Instead of turning it downside, ppl have to turn it upside. Ridiculous, yet I dont know why and how ppl can think of such an idea. Yet I think this example is pretty popular.

Finally when I was on bus A1, I encounter this:

As all of you may have known, these are the buttons on our bus. Or are they really BUTTONS?

I dont know, because we cannot press them. Yes, they may look like buttons very much, and we thought that they are supposed to be pressed, but they are not. For this, many people have mistaken that the blue button is the "stop" button (even if they can be pressed, I cannot know all of the buttons' function beside the blue one, there's no label on them)

User's reaction:

I have seen many people tried to press the buttons many times only to discovered that the button doesnt work, and they have missed their bus stop for not being able to press the "stop" button on time. Quite confused, I can see, just like me when I first used it.

My friend felt that the buttons should be able to press. If not, then they should be removed completely, so that people will know they have to find and press another 'real' button early enough...

First post

Just to mark this is MY blog.

Welcome to the world of mine.

- Pham Thi Phuong Thao -
(signed and sealed)