Impuls I
Design Declutter – A hands on guide
Sabina NB, Human Factors Research & Design
At the WUC 2023, I participated in one of the workshop led by Sabina NB about “Design Declutter – a hands on guide” The workshop focused on the use of design methodes to soptimise our lives. Sabina, is an Human-Centered Design specialist. She told us how to analyzing our digital media habits to declutter our life from stressful habits with digital media.
Based on UX design research strategies, we tried to better understand our habits with dsmartphone and social media plattforms. Questioning ourslelfe we scrutinised our relationship with our everyday habits with the smartphone from waking up until the end of the day. We oberserved our daily routine to find out about where we could improve our habits. With this observation and self-interviewing, we should be able to identify stress-inducing patterns and inefficiencies in our digital consumption.
Using the principles of human-centred design, we tried to become more conscious about the use of digital media. We understood the importance of developing solutions that are specialy designed to our individual needs to ensure that our digital activities align with our goals and our lives. She also emphasized the importance of building a team of friends to sustain the changes. A team like family or friends is often a good supporter to help you keep up the strategies for a more balanced life with digital media.
Sabina’s workshop provided a holistic insight that used UX design methodologies to gain personal development. It encouraged us to reimagine and refine our digital lifestyles. The idea was that we as designers us the tools and strategies we already have to create a more mindful interaction with digital media in our daily lives.
Impulse II
How bad UX can lead to catastrophes
Usually UX problems are just annoying and can annoy and drive customers away but in some cases bad UX is fatal. That happens when boing devloped his new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) for Boeing 737 Max for more aerodynamic stability. This system has major design flaws which led to critical problems. The system intended to prevent stalling by automatically adjusting the plane’s nose, but Boeing failed to communicate this addition to pilots effectively.
Two planes crashed due to this failure and shows the disastrous consequences of inadequate human-computer interaction in aviation. Neglecting UX design rules cost 346 lives and costs Boeing dearly.
The design flaws in the MCAS system of the Boeing 737 Max can be understood through Jakob Nielsen’s usability heuristics to see the key issues:
- Visibility of system status: Pilots were not informed about the MCAS activation or the erroneous data from the AoA sensor, lacking crucial warnings or indications. An optional AoA Disagree Alert could have aided pilots, but it wasn’t included.
- Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Pilots faced the consequences of the system’s error without any clear error messages. They needed information on what was causing the plane to dive and how to counteract it.
- User control and freedom: Pilots lacked a clear emergency exit from the situation caused by MCAS’s erroneous decision. They couldn’t easily override the system, leading to a struggle to regain control.
- Help and documentation: The aircraft manual failed to offer timely help during critical moments, forcing pilots to juggle through it without finding any helpful information. The lack of a user-friendly manual compounded the crisis.
These problems could have been addressed with a cockpit warning light for MCAS status, proper scenario testing, and an easy-to-use manual providing real-time guidance. A more comprehensive testing approach and an AI-based system capable of offering instant guidance during emergencies could have averted these disasters.
- Was Boeing 737 Max Lion Air Crash Caused by Poor UX Design? Greg Nudelman Oct 31, 2019 https://medium.com/@greg_2590/was-boeing-737-max-lion-air-crash-caused-by-poor-ux-design-aa04c7a7d285
- Deadly UX: 346 People Killed and $26.6 Billion Lost Ahmad Younis https://medium.com/@ahmayou/deadly-ux-346-people-killed-and-26-6-billion-lost-82b2db5496f1
- Fatal UX — How a poorly designed feature led the Lion and Ethiopian Airplanes to Crash Raju Verma https://medium.com/@raju.vrm2/fatal-ux-how-a-poorly-designed-feature-led-the-lion-and-ethiopian-airplanes-to-crash-dae475564c4
Impuls III
Does AI kills jobs in creative industries?
People in the creative business are worried about AI taking over their jobs. AI can generate pictures, write Stories, create logos a lot faster than humans. Ashley Still, Adobe’s senior vice president of digital media, compares AI to the invention of the camera. She believes AI won’t eliminate graphic design roles. She said that the develpoment of digital cameras has not replaced professional photographers. Adobe recently introduced new AI features, like text-to-template capabilities, across its Creative Cloud tools. They emphasized the need for design-focused people to guide AI effectively. Despite fears among people in creative industries about AI job displacement there will always be humans neccessary to supervise AI and ensure proper system functionality. But the rise of generative AI will reshape creative jobs. And will these tools support or hinder our creative evolution? Can AI really be creative?
Creativity, as defined by Margaret Boden in “The Creative Mind,” encompasses two human types: psychological (p-type) and historical (h-type). The P-type is about thinking of something new, even if it has been thought of before, and synchronising thoughts with others, like a child recognising the adaptability of water. The H-type is about groundbreaking thoughts that have never been conceived, like Archimedes’ “eureka” moment. Extraordinary legacies, such as Wandjina’s petroglyphs or Einstein’s work, characterise thinking. Generative AI does not fit into either category. AI lacks the neccesary connection between mind and reality to work like human creativity. AI is based on statistical data. This limits its relevance in the real world and its ability to trigger “eureka” moments. To distinguish AI-driven creativity Boden coined the term “generic” (g-like) creativity, which recognises the innovation of AI within its data constraints. It is expected that the widespread use of AI will lead to an increase in generic creativity, resulting in less cognitive diversity and cultural rigidity. This could limit creativity and social flexibility and impact everything from our living spaces to shared environments. By incorporating more and more content into AI, the results are becoming generic. While AI is good use for specialised tasks, its omnipresence brings the danger of a generic spiral that could lead to an Orwellian-like political economy. To preserve human creativity, human creativity must be prioritised over artificial creativity. Legal frameworks, especially intellectual property laws, are crucial. If AI is restricted by rights such as “fair use” of copyrighted material can change further development of the creative system. The impact of artificial intelligence on jobs, whether for high-skilled or low-skilled jobs – have often proven wrong. Historical predictions, such as those about computers in the 1950s, underestimated the long-term impact and created new job categories instead. The rise of AI raises concerns about job displacement, but predicting the exact impact remains difficult. Human imagination and creativity are benefiting from the advances of AI, and our work life will continue to be defined by our human qualities.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-wont-kill-creative-jobs-camera-didnt-kill-paintings-adobe-2023-10
https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2023/03/06/generative-ai-and-the-future-of-creative-jobs/
Impulse IV
UX Optimizations For Keyboard-Only And Assistive Technology Users with Aaron Pearlman
Aaron Pearlman´s speech is about the importance of optimizing designs for Keyboard-Only and Assistive Technology users in web applications. He introduces himself as the Principal User Experience Designer and proceeds to discuss the importance of optimizations on keyboard navigation or assistive technologies. The target users are people who use keyboards to navigate web systems. They might have problems with motoric skill or visual impairments. Therefore designers need to consider incorporating assistive technologies like screen readers or braille readers.
He explaines three major categories of optimizations:
- skip links
- modal enhancements
- focus handling
Skip links menas to allow users to skip sections of a webpage, making it easier for Keyboard-Only and Assistive Technology users to reach the main content. There are different types of skip links like displacement, overlay, and multiple skip links.
Modal optimizations means that the focus is set within within modals. Some examples of modal behavior show where focus is not properly trapped explain the significance of focusing on modal content or headers for better accessibility.
He also talks about the UX design process, discussing its discovery phase and the importance of thinking about accessibility from the beginning to throughout the whole design process. He introduces Deque’s Trane, an accessible pattern library, and how it can help create accessible web applications.
Impulse V
User Needs/User Requirements vs. User Stories
Im Alltag, wenn agile Prozesse eingesetzt werden kommt es immer wieder zu einem grundlegenden Missverständnis zwischen Product Owner, Requirements Engineer und UX Designer. Ein Hauptproblem ist oft das fehlende Verständnis für Erforschung der Bedürfnisse der Nutzer. Projektleiter auf der Kundenseite und Product Owner auf der Seite der Entwicklung stellen ihre Schlussfolgerung und damit Lösung oft einfach über die Notwendigkeit mit dem Benutzer zu sprechen. Oft ist das einfach der Bequemlichkeit geschuldet und dem Umstand, dass User Stories ausreichend sind um ein Produkt zu umschreiben und zu erstellen. Eine User Story hilft aber nicht dabei eine benutzerorientierter Lösungen zu finden. Im Gegenteil verhindert eine übereilt erstellte User Story einen passenden Lösungsansatz.
Was ist im Umfeld des UX-Designs unter Benutzerbedürfnis zu verstehen? Formal ausgedrückt heißt das: Benutzerbedürnisse sind die Dinge, die Menschen von einem Produkt oder einer Dienstleistung brauchen, um eine Aufgabe ausführen zu können.
Um die Bedürfnisse der Benutzer zu verstehen, muss man in die Erfahrung der Benutzer eintauchen und sich in ihre Probleme, Motivationen und Ziele einfühlen. Es geht darum, relevante Fragen zu stellen wie: Vor welchen Herausforderungen stehen die Nutzer? Was sind ihre Ziele? Was erwarten sie von dem Produkt oder der Dienstleistung?
Das wichtigste ist: Die Bedürfnisse der Nutzer legen keine spezifische Lösung nahe! User Stories hingegen, wie sie im agilen Entwicklungsumfeld genutzt werden, bieten eine Lösungsperspektive. Sie bescheiben, wie ein Benutzer mit einem Produkt oder einer Dienstleistung interagiert, um ein bestimmtes Ziel zu erreichen. Diese Geschichten skizzieren das “Wer”, “Was”, “Warum” und “Wie” der Benutzerinteraktion.
In der agilen Entwicklung werden User Stories verwendet, um Funktionen und Features eines interaktiven Systems in verständlicher Sprache zu beschreiben und zu priorisieren. Die Lösung selbst ist bereits vorgegeben, ob eine vorherige UX-Phase durchlaufen wurde oder nicht.
Wikipedia: „A requirement is a formal description of a need, a user story is the informal description of a feature”
Eine User Story hat in der Regel das folgende Format: “Als [Benutzer] möchte ich [eine Aktion] durchführen, damit [ein Ergebnis] erzielt wird”. Diese Form klingt zwar nach einem Bedürfnis, wenn zuvor aber die eigentlichen Nutzerbedürfnisse nicht identifiziert werden, ist diese Formel nur eine leere Floskel. User Stories sind Beschreibungen von schon gefassten Lösungen, welche sich häufig nicht auf tatsächlich ermittelte Ziele oder Anforderungen der Benutzer im Nutzungskontext beziehen. Im Arbeitsalltag erschwert dieses Unverständnis die Zusammenarbeit zwischen PO, UI/UX Designer, Entwickler und trägt nicht zu einer benutzfreundlichen Lösung bei. Es geht bei der Entwicklung von digitalen Produkten nicht nur um die Erfüllung einer Liste an funktionalen Anforderungen, sondern darum, die Bedürfnisse des Benutzers zu verstehen um dann diese Bedürfnisse mit dem Produkt zu erfüllen. Wie diese Lösung aussieht soll im UX-Prozess und vom UX Designer ermittelt werden, erst danach formuliert man die User Story für die Umsetzung.
https://www.procontext.de/aktuelles/2019/04/user-stories-sind-keine-user-requirements.html
Impulse VI
Aarron Walter, Design for Emotion
Aaron Walter’s Book “Design for Emotion” deals with the integration of emotional elements into the design to provide better user experiences. TIn his book, he writes about the important role that emotions play in the design of products, services and digital interfaces. He highlights the big part emotions hold in the interaction of individuals and technology. Emotions like joy, surprise, sadness, or fear should be used to create a connection between users and the product
To integrate emotions or evoke them with the design can have a huge impact tof the perception of a product. He explains that while usability and functionality are crucial, they alone might not be responible for customer loyalty and bond with the product.
Walters also presents approaches, methodologies, and real-life case studies. These are guiding principles for designers, and show how to embed emotion into the design process.
Human emotions intertwine with cognitive processes, leaving an imprint on the memory. Emotions, generated and stored within the limbic system of the brain, are very strong and determine our perceptions and responses for a product. By evoking positive emotions, designers can steer users to overlook imperfections and errors, provide guidance and lead them on to to things. There was a study that people tent to overlook bad usability when the UI is beautifully made. Still a lack of functionality, reliability, or usability, will damage the envisioned positive experience and could lead to user frustration.
Our perception of beauty often reflects our innate ability to extract meaning from forms. The human mind identifys patterns and shapes. If a design is flooded with elements it can overwhelm users and lead to cluttered design, lacking clarity and comprehension. Therefore design shoudn´t be merely ornamental. but neglecting aesthetics undermines the overall impact of functionality. Personal objects mean more to people and creates deeper connections. Therefore design should be able to adjust and better be adjustable. Personalisation is a good way to better user experience. Emotional design should help human-to-human communication. Its is not essential to create a good connection with the computer. Nevertheless the design needs to understand and follow real-life interactions. Emotional design isn’t only about aesthetics. It is about integrating emotions into the every part of the design, enriching user experiences through profound and engaging interactions.
https://uxplanet.org/design-for-emotion-expert-tips-by-aarron-walter-2f847e75a962
Impulse VII
Does UX industry faces challanges in the future?
As technology evolves and user behaviors changes, there are always new challenges for the UX industry. Some articles of UX designers claim UX is on the decline, but is that true? There are some arguments that might lead our perception into that direction:
The massiv interest and hype in UX design led to a market saturation and overcrowded market. The result is that there are fewer entry-level opportunities for newcomer. They often find it challanging to get a good position and start their UX career. This over-saturation represents a significant challenge. Bad circumstances, like economic stagnation or declinement can withhold technological or any investments and growth. That means that there are reduced budgets, layoffs, or a slowdown in innovative projects, which affects UX within the industry. With the opularity of UX careers, there came the self-learning and consulting businesses. Numerous educational programs and bootcamps evolved, but not all have high-quality standards, which produces underqualified professionals. People often struggle with real life circumstances like what they had been taught and what is needed in a project. A big thing is that for some jobs you need design skills. Making visually appealing interfaces with optimal functionality is a challenge. Providing that balance ensures a good user experience. Not every UX Designer is also a good UI Designer. Also meeting diverse user needs is a challenge. Accommodating various user groups requires a deeper understanding of diverse needs. This includes considerations for accessibility, cultural differences, and varying user expectations. And of course a good understanding of all stakeholders and keeping the budget in mind. Good teamwork with diverse stakeholders is crucial. It is a priority to keep good communication and relationship with all stakeholders.
Constant technological development makes it neccessary to know new devices, platforms, and interaction tools. Designers have to constantly keep up with this fast evolving tech landscape. Staying ahead of the changes and designing flexible experiences is key to success.An important part of UX is also the ROI and impact of UX improvements on the business which is always challenging. Demonstrating the value of UX in terms of user satisfaction and business success requires ongoing reasearch and analyses. This challenge is about effectively presenting the tangible results of UX efforts. Exept for the first problem with the market situation those are ongoing, problems but are there some real future challenges we are not aware of yet? Of course the evolution of technologies like AR, VR, AI, and IoT creates new challenges. To integrating and work with these technologies requires not just an understanding of the experience those technologies offer but also a technical understanding. Designers have to learn this new technologies. With globalization comes also challenges. We need to understand diverse user perspectives and cultural differences. As the world becomes more interconnected, knowing about cultural differences in design becomes a crucial factor for a product´s success. Designers are also very responsible for maintaining thical standards in design practices, privacy, accessibility, and responsible AI use.
And what about AI, will it be a helpful tool or replace designers?
AI often raises questions and concerns about its impact on job roles and the future of designers. While AI definitly provides opportunities to enhance and make certain aspects of UX design more effitient, its will not replace the designers.AI can be a helpful tool by automating repetitive tasks such as data analysis, pattern recognition, and generating design iterations based on user feedback. It enables designers to focus on more creative and strategic aspects of their work. AI can help with personalization based on data-driven insights, predicting user preferences for bespoken experiences. Also it could assist with prototyping and design generation. What AI can not provide is the Human-centric aspect like understanding human emotions, motivations, and behaviors. AI is not able to solve complex problems, as it has to take different perspectives, cultural nuances and ethical considerations into account. These are areas where AI lacks contextual understanding. The technology will always struggle with ethical and moral decisions, also emotional design, creating experiences that deeply connect with users, remains a strength of human designers.
https://www.elixel.co.uk/blog/is-ux-really-dead
https://uxdesign.cc/the-many-deaths-of-ux-design-85a255e3676f
https://www.ironhack.com/gb/blog/the-role-of-artificial-intelligence-in-ux-ui-design
Impulse VIII
How to craft immersive experience in XR – Mia Guo
The masterclass is from Mia Guo, a Senior UX Designer at Magic Leap and a Harvard alumna. She is crafting immersive experiences in Extended Reality (XR). Mia explains how to build compelling XR experiences, emphasizing three design principles that define the user experience: Information Hierarchy & Density, Context, and Usability.
Understanding the context off an XR product is very important. You have to understand the setting in which the product will be used and how various factors might impact the UX. Mia categorizes XR applications into four main pillars: XR Training and Simulations, XR Gaming, XR Workspace, and XR Communication and Social Interaction. Each of these areas presents unique challenges and requirements. For instance, in XR Training, replicating real-world scenarios for professionals like firefighters. They need the most authentic environment to improve real-life skills. XR Gaming requires considerations of gameplay mechanics that make use of the interactive capabilities of the XR technology. In XR Workspaces, enhancing efficiency while ensuring security and integrating the app with existing systems is crucial. Safety measures in noisy or hazardous environments, such as manufacturing facilities, have to be consider. In XR Communication and Social Interaction, it is important that users can personalize the app and to offer emotional feedback and expressions within the XR environment.
Usability is a very important factor for a good immersive experience. XR apps can be very complex and hard to learn, therefore the onboarding process becomes a critical aspect. Users need guidance on navigating XR interfaces, including learning how to use controllers and accessing tutorials easily within the app.
Information Hierarchy & Density is also an important point for user navigation and the overall user experience. Designers need to reduce the cognitive load, improve task efficiency, and enhance safety and contextual awareness. This means prioritizing important elements in the XR interface through size, color, positioning, and effectively organizing information to minimize visual clutter. In XR this is even more important than in normal UI/UX Design.
There are also some other things to consider like technical limitations, including motion sickness, tracking accuracy, and glitches. Overcoming these problems is essential, because the user retention rate because of discomfort and complexity is very high.
https://www.interaction-design.org/master-classes/how-to-craft-immersive-experiences-in-xr/recording
