Smoke & Mirrors

I had a lot of fun reading this article – it voiced a few misgivings I had about trying to quantify experience. I felt that that Jesse James Garret summed it up nicely, when he said:

It’s a lot easier to defend science than it is to defend opinion, even when that opinion is informed by experience and professional judgment. But what’s going on here is not really science at all — it’s pseudoscience. Dressing our opinions in the trappings of research does not make them scientific.

That’s exactly it! I can’t explain why I like something, even if the design isn’t fantastic, it’s not something you can quantify, and it’s different for every person. No matter how much research or effort you put into trying to figure out what makes it tick, it will not certainly yield 100% user satisfaction – You can’t =make= someone love your product, they just will.

That aside, I don’t think it’s irrelevant. If anything, it made me think more about what the user thinks, as a receiver, instead of what I want to publish, by way of information organization. The novelist analogy perfectly conveyed the spirit of the work:

The impact and value of this kind of research is analogous in a way to the work a novelist does when researching her characters, historical events, and locations in preparation for their novel. The research is important, it helps the novelist create a stronger and deeper world — but ultimately the novelist’s real work is when she makes stuff up from her own imagination.

It’s precisely how, with research, you can provie the platform for which all this is built upon, but it’s the users which use their imagination to create their experience. Just like novelists, not all types of work produced finds resonance within the person experiencing the work – A book may be fantastic, but not everyone loves it. It is, after all, subjective.

This is particularly poignant when Zeldman brings up the point:

A user can miss everything you put in his path, and call you on it, and the user is never wrong, even if there is nothing more you could have done to help him understand. The user is never wrong because experience is experience, not fact.

I love Zeldman. I feel what he says – not just in this article, but in his ezine and books as well – fills… a huge design hole. Often we are so focused on what is technically correct, judging things from the objective point of view (This, I feel, is a fault of the industrial revolution, where we are constantly trying to find technical quick-fixes to what may actually be social/people problems) that we lose the point of having the product – for people to use!

Learning Experiences

We conducted our ethnographical study through our own observations in our lectures, surveying our lecture-mates, and reflecting upon our own personal experiences.

We divided our findings according to human factors and environmental/technical factors. Human factors contained social behavior, individual behavior, and lecturer behavior. We noted things which seemed like a distraction, or at least, noticeable at all, which translated into something we concentrated on other than the lecture. Our findings were as such:

HUMAN FACTORS

Social Behavior:

There was a tendency for students to reserve seats for friends, which took up more places than actually were required. This caused some students, with a phobia of sitting up front, to sit on the steps behind, rather than move forward. Students in the back also tended to talk among themselves during the lecture. Chitchat levels, however, reached its peak after announcements, or whenever the lecturer revealed a particularly intriguing fact (Like Dr. Perry revealing that the sun is actually green). Students also had a tendency to become fidgety and talkative after approximately an hour, if no break is given. They do, however, pay more attention to jokes and examples (like short videos), but pay far less attention to guest lecturers.

There is also a general decrease in attendence if a lecture is webcast, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Individual Behavior:

Usage of handphones is pervasive throughout the lecture theatre, whether it be to SMS under tables, or talk whilst hidden behind their notes. Even handphones on vibrate make noise. Students with laptops spread their attention between MSNing, surfing, playing games, and just maybe listening to the lecture. Students seated towards the back also have a tendency to fall asleep.

Something that largely can’t be avoided though, is the noise paper makes when the lecture notes are flipped. It helps wake students up, and keep those with wandering attentions on track, but it’s also a little disruptive.

Lecturer Behavior:

Ideally, all lectures should have notes or outlines distributed beforehand for students to annotate. The notes should not be wordy.

When the lecturers walk around the room, asking questions (”arrowing”), it makes students uneasy, even those that have been paying attention. Most people felt that the anxiety it causes outweighs making students pay attention.

However, without such pressures (including repeated probing), there is little incentive for students to respond to questions fielded by the lecturer. There are a few reasons for this: It’s particularly true in large LTs – some prefer it because it allows them to hide and avoid “arrowing”, others feel that the environment is too intimidating and choose not to answer. There don’t seem to be any incentives for answering questions, either, but this may be due to cultural factors, or the type of questions asked.

NON-HUMAN FACTORS

Some of the social factors are exacerbated by the physical structure of the LT, such as having chairs too far back, or the lecture theatre being too big for the number of students. Creaking lecture doors, when latecomers arrive, are also a distraction.

The structure of the LT though, does have a direct impact on the students’ learning experiences. Seats too close to the front can cause neck strain, and technical problems, like muffled sound or microphones constantly relaying feedback make it hard to understand the lecturer. Too-cold airconditioning makes the experience miserable for frozen students. Small tables also make it difficult to write, or sometimes the tables are not secure, and lead to the upending of its contents onto the LT floor.

Standardisation of tables also affects student’s concentration as not all students are equal in size. Tall students may find the tables too cramped, left-handed students may not be as comfortable as their right-handed counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

Ultimately, how well a person learns is up to the individual student (and the willingness of the lecturer), and all we can do is to minimize annoyances which may distract a student from experiencing “flow” during lecture.

SOLUTIONS

There are direct solutions to each problem, for example, changing social behavior – early arrivals moving to the front, latecomers coming a little earlier and not sitting on the steps, or lowering the temperature of the airconditioning.

However, our group had 2 proposals as to how to reduce as many distractions as possible with one solution.

The first: Tablet tables

If we replaced or incorporated tablet PCs into LT tables, we will minimise noise made by flipping pages, and aid in desemination of lecture materials. Students, using the headphones, will be able to hear the lecturer equally and reduce environmental noise (Creaky doors, chitchatting students, sounds of typing). The stylus aids reduces bias between left and right handers.

The Second: Webcast all lectures

Admittedly, attendence decreases when lectures are webcast, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Class size decreases, reducing the amount of distractions caused by individual students, and the lecturer is able to interact better with a smaller class. The small class size helps students who do attend to focus on the lecture, and that they are there in the first place shows that they do want to attend the lecture. It’s a matter of choice, if the student wishes to be present to be able to ask questions and interact with the lecturer.

Students can also pause to take notes, skip breaks in the lecture, increase the speed, and basically have more control over the lecture to suit it to their needs.

Meet Gabriella

(Why Gabriella? I have no idea. I just watched High School Musical, which was better than I expected, and this was the first pseudo-classy name which popped into my head.)

Who is Gabriella? She’s a 33 year old business executive living in Singapore. She’s been clawing her way up the ladder in a large corporation, despite graduating with top honors from an overseas university. This isn’t her first job, though. She was poached a few years back, and thought that this company would have afforded her better opportunities for advancement, but the bigwigs are still rather set in their ways. At least the pay is better, although the organisational culture is one that leaves much to be desired.

Still, if she leaves, who would take her? Despite her qualifications, she’d be relegated to ‘Office Lady’ work. Working in her current situation has left her rather jaded and bitter about the whole concept of ‘equal opportunity’. She still puts in effort though, thinking that one day, someone will notice, and she will finally receive her due, either in the company or out of it.

Her life, as a result, is devoted to her work, and the occasional night out socialising with old friends or the few colleagues she can call friends. She prefers to socialise with women – her working environment has left her disillusioned about the opposite sex.

Sure, she was young and impressionable once, but after being in a number of bad relationships with men who just wanted to be with her for her status and not who she actually is, she’s decided to stop chasing after idealistic goals, and is dating someone whom society would expect of her – an airline pilot. It suits her well. Their work is dissimilar enough not to be competitive, and his infrequent and erratic visits home affords her time to concentrate on her work. She’s in no rush to get married – for her, being perceived as a successful career woman is at the top of her list. If she got married, for now, it would be just for show.

When her boyfriend is home she spends evenings with him, having dinner, watching shows, going to parties. She also feels obligated to look the part of a feminine trendsetter when he’s around (thus the leopard-print party dress). Of course, all the parties she attends are those where she is relatively sure her colleagues won’t be around – parties held by her boyfriend’s friends, or friends from college. At work she needs to keep up an invincible front.

Gabriella’s parents are proud of their daughter, if a little concerned about the way she’s running her life. As their only child, she can do no wrong, but they can’t help but wonder where her life is headed. They came from humble backgrounds with little education (they are newspaper distributors), but managed to put enough together to send their daughter to Australia to complete her degree. Gabriella is fond enough of them, albeit a little ashamed to let anyone know who her parents are, but is nevertheless a dutiful and loving daughter, when she can take her mind off work to pay them a visit.

As a result of her work-focused-ness, Gabriella does few things in her spare time, save the occasional trips to the gym. She used to play the piano, and thought of being a music major, but pragmaticism won out in the end. She misses it though. She was also thinking of taking up painting, but thinking of it rationally – the costs, and the time it requires – makes her put it off again and again. Once in a while though, she doesn’t mind pampering herself – going to a spa and having the works – a bath, facial, scrubs, wraps, and massage. It is a special treat though, one which she rarely permits herself to have.

Four Pleasure Analysis

Physio-Pleasure

Her job is physically undemanding, but she goes to the gym, so she does show some concern about her health (Need Pleasure). She also enjoys going to the spa, once in a while (Appreciation pleasure).

Socio-Pleasure

Her social needs are almost non-existent. What’s important to her is to appear ‘perfect’, as though she doesn’t need others. She does, however, enjoy the relationships where she does not have to pretend to appear invincible – thus she lets her guard down with her parents and old school friends (Appreciation Pleasure). She’s particularly wary of colleagues, who appear as competition.

She doesn’t seem to mind the glamorous, trend-setting lifestyle (purchasing the leopard-print dress), but will only spend in moderation (Appreciation Pleasure). She rarely permits herself treats.

Psycho-Pleasure

Her job may not be demanding and stressful, but she lets it be. It rankles her to have nothing to do. Her interest in the arts indicates that she is interested in artistic expression and achievement, but her pragmaticism sometimes wins her over and prevents her from indulging in these areas.

Ideo-Pleasure

She wants to appear as the woman-who-has-it-all, so she likes to appear sophisticated (Need Pleasure). Her artistic inclinations are a sign of reasonably good taste, and her pragmaticism means that she definitely won’t buy a piece just because it’s in fashion. Also, because of her humble upbringing, she feels a need to appear as though she’s ‘made it’ in life (Need Pleasure).

She wants to be seen as the perfect career woman, and her long term goals are also to achieve even more career success (Need Pleasure). She doesn’t quite care for religion, despite gentle urgings from friends and parents, but has a nagging feeling that something is missing in her life, and sometimes she wonders what it is (Need Pleasure).

Product Benefit Specifications

For a handphone, Gabriella will probably need something that is sleek and stylish – the more bells and whistles, the better. She’d like the latest communications technologies – one which lets her check her email in Antartica, with video conferencing to boot. It helps her keep in touch with what’s going on in the office, and her pilot boyfriend. Having an MP3 player built in would be nice, so that she can listen to it in the gym or when she’s soaking in a jacuzzi. If it looked fancy-schmancy, it’s be nice – it’d boost her image of a successful woman. It should also be subtly feminine – perhaps, with surreptituous swirls, or themed software so that she can change the skin/display to fit her silent, repressed artistic side. It definitely should have good sound quality – as a would-have-been music major, it’d be something she’d pick up on immediately.

Speaking of software – she probably doesn’t need very many. Perhaps an alarm clock, a calculator, a dictionary? She isn’t one for games. She may like a horoscope though, to balance a possible religious lack in her life.

If we could develop a way to type emails quickly – without the use of a stylus, perhaps in a manner similar to SMS, then she probably could use one with big, easy-to-press buttons, and a decently large interface. The whole contraption shouldn’t be overly big though – it’d look ridiculous on such a petite, innately-feminine frame. Overall, though, it must be aesthetically appealing and decidedly distinctive – and should be priced fairly high.