Reflection User Experience Evaluation vs. Usability Evaluation

One important dimension of the User Experience Evaluation is that of emotions that users show towards using the product. Some of the emotions might have objective grounds, but many of them will be subjective and based on previous experiences with similar products in similar situations or just experience of dealing on their own with the problem that the product is trying to address.

Usability Evaluation can sometimes be done through an expert analysis and even exclude the implication of users in the actual evaluation of the design. It depends, of course, on the product and its design. It is sometimes the case that analyzing similar products and taking into account existing bibliography on the research subject can be considered sufficient. Checking that available design patterns are used and comparing to similar products are the grounds for telling if the product is usable. My opinion is that referring to studies that even include results from User Experience Evaluations still doesn’t cross the borders of Usability Evaluation, as long as the studies don’t refer to this exact product.

User Experience Evaluation, on the other hand, is not possible without the implication of users. How they feel about the product and the experience of using the product is, in that case, the actual goal of the evaluation.

 

Principles and Practices

This subject is somewhat connected to the reflections we made regarding how to ensure ethical thinking within Universal Design (UD) and Disability Research. My personal conclusion on that topic was that design guidelines would at least facilitate ethical thinking within these areas, if not ensuring it. After getting to know about formalized principles and practices within UD, I came to realize that they are quite similar to the design guidelines I reflected upon previously. And I do like the idea of having principles and practices to guide the process of UD, since this is a way of ensuring a certain level of design quality. Moreover, principles and practices address the issues of stigmatization and normality, by minimizing the former and broadening the latter.

Essentially, UD is about changing the environment we live in to make it usable by all humans. Molly Follette Story explained this quite well in the article Maximizing Usability: The Principles of Universal Design when describing different ways of enhancing an individual’s capabilities. By changing the environment, as opposed to changing the individual or providing the individual with tools, the individual will become as autonomous as possible without having to change daily routines. And although it might not always be feasible to change the environment, principles and practices are design frameworks that will at least bring designers into the proper mindset of conducting UD in an optimal manner, provided that the principles and practices are standardized and communicated to designers doing UD throughout the world. I do however have one point of criticism to this article, and that is how the author describes the benefits of UD from a supplier-consumer perspective: “The most significant benefit to the proliferation of universal design practice is that all consumers will have more products to choose from that are more usable, more readily available, and more affordable.” In my opinion, the most significant benefit to the proliferation of UD is that less people are excluded from society by changing the environment to be suitable for all. How this affects attributes regarding usable products on the market is a secondary result.

Finally, a small remark to the suggested process of UD by Sheryl Burgstahler in the article Universal Design: Process Principles and Applications. Step 2 in the process is about describing the overall population that will use the service being designed. I generally prefer the idea of non-exluding design over inclusive design, and I believe that this step focuses more on including people than not excluding anyone. But then again, some products or services might be specialized to a certain extent that they are just not suitable for everyone. And that raises the question of whether or not we can have only one set of standardized principles and practices for UD, or if we need several sets depending on the aim and purpose of our design.

Reflection on Principles and Practices Lecture

I really liked the idea of having a standard process that designers can use in order to reach an adequate solution to a problem. But it is important to consider that the process suggestion is not usable in all situations, and it is important to measure the usability of this process before using it. Another thing that I personally liked is how the article “Universal Design: Process, Principles and Applications” states how making a product accessible to people with disabilities often benefits others. This might be another motivation for designers to design a product in a way that would be simple and useful for everyone, without excluding anyone. One thing that I felt was missing from the Universal Design Principles is the cost. Cost plays a great role in the design principles, as designing something useful by everyone without excluding anyone is great, but we need to consider that everyone should be able to afford it in some sense. According to the UN, 85% of people with disabilities live in developed countries, and therefore are doubly disadvantaged by poverty and disability. This is not  something that should hinder the creativity or usability of a design, but still it needs to be considered as well.In this lecture, one of the things that caught my attention is that I started thinking that the ATM and many more machines are not made to be used for the blind, and why is that? The guy in the video clearly shows how difficult it was for him to put the headset inside the headset jack. Wouldn’t it be better if the designers of such ATMs added a tangible obvious object that can easily be found by the blind person in order to direct him or her where to put the plug? This person had an extreme difficulty in dealing with the ATM, and that’s just sad to be honest. As the interface that’s specified for the blind shouldn’t be complex and intricate, it should be direct and simple.

Regarding the Ramps video, I was quite surprised with the dangerous ramps that can be found everywhere. These can seriously cause a great damage to those who use their wheelchairs on them. It is very vital that architects, engineers and designers consider the needs of disabled people like a person on a wheel chair, as it’s not only about designing something that does the job, it’s goes far beyond that.

I don’t want to go off topic but reading this lecture made me think about my country, Jordan. Despite the fact that Jordan is considered as a leader among Arab countries for recognizing people with disabilities, what I notice there is that when it comes to disabled people, the major problem that exists in Jordan is how people view them, people view people with certain impairments not being able to study, work or do anything. And frankly, this is a major problem. For instance, Maha Barghouti, a 50 year old woman who won three medals in the wheelchair table tennis constantly hears the words “poor lady” when she uses her wheel chair outside.