Human-Centered Design

David Kelley on human-centered design | Video on TED.com

In this video David Kelley mainly talks about how product design has become much less about the hardware and more about the user experience. In the last 18 years people started to focus more and more on human approach to design. Back then designer used to make 3d models or 3d renderings to communicate their ideas but nowadays they got those objects that they're designing and get them emotion showing how it will be used by making interactive prototypes that show man-machine relationship.

To demonstrate the idea of human centred design David give some examples and i think the most interesting one is the interactive system and data infrastructure designed by him for Prada New York store. So how it works is that every products displayed has a RF tags and if we see something we interested in , the staff can scan their tags and they can be displayed altogether at any screen at the store. In the dressing room there are also scanner and touch screen where we can get access to detailed information about the merchandise we are trying on. Another feature is the liquid crystal glass in the changing room that becomes opaque if we step on the button and it switches easily to transparent glass on another button so other people outside able to review the products while we try them on without we leaving the dressing room. Lastly there are also magic mirror which operates in 3 seconds delay so when we are trying cloths we can turn around and see how it looks like on the back when we turn around on the magic mirror. The design includes data infrastructure that allows all staff to develop better understanding of future costumer needs. This whole design use technological advances in order to make an interactive atmosphere between buyer and the store so the customers are having an enjoyable shopping experience.

This video reminds me that we often put too much focus on the product and pay less attention to the user itself. The idea of design is to make human life become more enjoyable and better. When we focus too much on the products, certainly technological objects, it can be say that we forget the idea of designing. It's really good nowadays human behaviour and personality has been considered more in the process of designing products. It's important for designers being reminded not to carried away with technology and make products so high tech just to make it more fancy instead of really consider human behaviour and personality as the users.

Emotional Design

Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy | Video on TED.com

Don Norman mainly talks about how emotions affects the success of a design and he also points out the idea that a good design is not just about its function and its beauty but also it has to make people feel the story about it.

To convey this idea, one of the products that Don Norman uses as an example is Philippe Starck’s lemon juicer. What’s really interesting is that Starck’s lemon juicer actually can’t be used to make a juice. In fact Don recalled that on his Starck’s gold pleated special edition lemon juicer, there’s a tag saying ‘Don’t use this juicer to make juice as the acid would ruin the gold pleating’. This product is clearly not functional but aesthetically, it’s really beautiful and it has a story that makes it still attractive. Same goes with the Mini Cooper car that Don uses as example, even though this car has lots of faults, people keep buy buying them because they are so much fun to drive.

One idea that Don tried to convey through those examples is that pleasant things work better. It reminds me that as a designer we often put too much focus on function or how a product looks like, we often forget to put some ‘emotions’ to our product, which actually is important as well. It is really challenging to design something that is creative, innovative and at the same time gives users a fun filled experience.

Lastly, from this video I also learned that when we are as consumers considering whether to buy a product or not, we go through 3 level of subconscious processing; visceral, behavioural, and reflective level. On visceral level, we tend to pay more attention to the appearance of a product; whether it has bright or dark colour, if it’s decorative enough for us to collect, et cetera. When on the middle level of processing; behavioural level; it is all about feeling in control which include usability and understanding. It’s like when we are using a neat, sharp knife; we feel the control of the cutting and it gives a satisfying feeling to the user. Finally, the last level of processing is reflective level. At this level we are more concerned about our image, less about the product. There’s ‘a little voice in our head’ watching and saying ‘it’s good, it’s bad’. For example, when we buy something expensive not because that product is better but because it will gives us a luxurious image.

Overall I found this video quite helpful as it gives me a valuable knowledge about human emotions and their correlation with the success of a design.