Emotional Experiences

"Emotional experiences make a profound imprint on our long-term memory." - Aarron Walter, Designing for Emotion

[emotionalexperiences]

Honda Accord Dashboard - Heating Controls

I am going to look at the 2013 version. I know things have changed since then, but some controls remain the same.

Driving a car already involves multitasking. The driver needs to look ahead, on the sides, and behind, while making sure that the car stays on the right side of the road, driving at the authorized speed, shifting gears, etc...

So since driving at its basic level involves lots of parameters to control, one would assume that for security purposes the car would not ask for any external actions to perform during the act of driving. 

On the Honda Accord 2013, changing the temperature involves two buttons. 

On the top, a button with a red up caret increases the temperature

On the botton, a button with a blue down caret decreases the temperature

While having two buttons is not the ideal choice (a dial would be so much easier to control while driving), there is no texture difference, no affordance, that allows me to know just by touching it, which button my finger is on. 

To control the volume of air, Honda decided to use the same design solution with two buttons, but this time with no color, and placed these two side by side.

When I drive, and because I don’t want to look at these controls more than a fraction of a second, I find myself always confused between the volume of air and the temperature control. And since there are four identical buttons between them, most of the time I will push the wrong one. Then I need to pay attention to these controls, which isn’t safe at all. 

I remember driving cars where those controls were all dials. While they weren’t the most reliable solutions - they would break all the time - they were at least much easier to reach and to use. 

Heating the car doesn’t affect the car itself. But it makes a difference for the person who’s driving. Although it is not an essential part of the driving experience, it makes it more confortable. 

Why Car makers/designers are not looking into solutions like the Nest Thermostat, where the person doesn’t need to do anything at all to be at the right temperature all the time?

[emotionalexperiences]

BMW Design Process

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Things business people don't do/know Qualitative Research Reframing Prototyping Critique Agile & MVP are incomplete

Nathan Shedroff @UXSTRAT

[emotionalexperiences]

Strategy is about the WHY - Should we even make it at all? Tactics is about the WHAT - How can we make the best possible (product, service...) ?

Nathan Shedroff @UXSTRAT

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Strategy is a high-level plan (for action) Design is a plan for action

Nathat Shedroff at UXSTRAT @ Atlanta

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Long detailled reports on UX do not get read by senior stakeholders.

Tim Loo, Foolproof UX Strategy Conference

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Cleveland Clinic Empathy (2013)

[adactio]

[emotionalexperiences]

[emotionalexperiences]

[nothingbutdurden-deactivated201]

“A Violinist in the Metro  A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.  Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.  A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.  A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work. The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.  In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.  No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.  Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.  This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?  One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:  If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”

[ghostisborn]

I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.

Jon Stewart (via treymis)

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D4D [Design for Delight] is our number 1 weapon in attaining growth and there is no #2

Scott Cook

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Henry Ford understood this when he remarked, "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a 'faster horse'". This is why traditional techniques such as focus groups and surveys, which in most cases simply ask people what they want, rarely yield important insights.

Tim Brown, Change By Design (2009)

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Jared Spool - The Anatomy of a Design Decision

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Melissa Matross, The Hotwire experience

5 lessons from Melissa Matross, Head of Mobile at The Hotwire Group and former Director of User Experience - MX Conference 2012.

#1. Quit complaining.

#2. Know your customer. 

#3. Look at other industries. (know your competitors and outside your industry)

#4. Know and speak the data. (understand what metrics are important in your company)

#5. Own your solutions. 

[emotionalexperiences]

#1. Turning our tools on ourselves #2. Breaking the rules #3. Being interdisciplinary until it hurts #4. Get ahead of the Duck, way ahead #5. Theory counts #6. New conceptual models & methods #7. Getting from vision to stuff #8. Oh yeah, and have Fun!!!!!

8 lessons learnt along the way, Genevieve Bell, Director of User Interaction and Experience, Intel Labs - MX Conference 2012