by Joseph on December 28, 2009
As you may have seen from many of my other posts here, I’m a big Star Trek fan. Big Big fan. When I got the DVD of the new Trek movie last week, I immediately dived into the extras to see how the producers had pulled the rabbit out of the hat and saved the franchise. One of my favorite special features was on Ben Burtt (formerly of Lucasfilm) and his sound design for the movie. This segment repeatedly emphasized how important sound was to add subtext and reinforce key moments of the film.
Burtt also noted that the churps and beeps in the original series when the characters did something (like open a communicator or lay in a course) were always friendly and musical in tone and that alerts and warnings were almost always guttural and sharp tones. So, of course, being a user experience guy, I started thinking out applying this to my own work.
Even though I design applications for the web, I see there is obvious value in using sounds to add a layer of alerting and/or confirmation for the users. And, interestingly, the major computer operating systems follow the same design principles that Burtt noted that the original Star Trek did.
Both Windows and Macintosh operating systems have audio cues and alerts, but it is interesting to see how different the designer’s approaches are. Microsoft is much more aggressive in their use of sound, while the UI designers at Apple tend to be more minimalistic about sound design. Also, Apple’s sounds tend to be more melodic in tone and Microsoft’s more… well, the best word I can think of is “guttural” with harsh DONK sounds accompanying errors.
No judging, just observing.
I noted previously the future has already arrived, it’s just not the future we expected. If you look at the future of experience design, I think that music and sound is an important thing that we should begin to consider part of our responsibilities. In other words, when designing experiences, we need to think beyond the screen and keep sound in mind.
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by Joseph on December 25, 2009
by Joseph on December 20, 2009
Since I have been traveling quite a bit lately I have started reading more, to fill flight time. I have always been fond of biographies because they provide interesting “behind the scenes” perspectives, and I usually focus on biographies of actors and moviemakers because, well, I’m a geek. I just finished one biography and am working on another, and wanted to post my quick thoughts on both.
The View from the Bridge by writer/director Nicholas Meyer is a great look at his career, from writing the great Holmes novel The Seven Percent Solution all the way through his writing and directing of the Best Star Trek Movie Ever, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and the subsequent sequel Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Anytime you hear someone say “only even-numbered Star Trek movies are good,” you can point to Nick Meyer as the main reason for that (he also co-wrote Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
Meyer is witty, self-deprecating and tells some great yarns about his career (his segment on how to direct Shatner is worth the price of the book in and of itself). If you are a Trek fan, or a fan of Meyer’s work outside of Trek (his Time After Time is an underrated classic), you need to get this book. Highly recommended.
Roger Moore has put out a great biography, My Word is my Bond, and if you know anything about the witty and charming Moore then you will know that all that brilliance is on display in his bio. From his early days as a contract player, all the way through the Saint and (of course) James Bond, Moore covers it all and is also very very funny. Buy it if you can.
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by Joseph on December 19, 2009
by Joseph on December 9, 2009
One of the many things I am paying close attention to is the demographic group called “Tweens.” These are young people, aged 11 to 14, who grew up in a world where Internet access and mobile devices are ever-present. These aren’t the future users, in many instances they are already users of the solutions that professional user experience designers like myself create.
So how do you support these users, both now and when they are buyers of technology (not just consumers)? What interaction models will they be comfortable with? To answer these questions, I recommend you start playing with, and looking at, the UI designs found in game systems.
No, this is not because all kids these days play video games (though a majority have or do) – it is because quite often the menu design and control mechanisms found in said game platforms are incredibly innovative and well done.
All the major systems – the Wii, the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3 – have a well-designed and throughout menu structure, allowing for contextual options to be presented in the appropriate places. While none of them are perfect, it is obvious that a lot of thought was applied to to the information architecture.
Additionally, all feature some degree of 3-dimensional menuing which allows for the content provider to expand the options available to the users both “horizontally” and “vertically” – which in turn allows for an extensible experience that can evolve over time. The design was forward-thinking, understanding that new options (like social media plug-ins) can and will appear. This extensibility should be appreciated and, where applicable, emulated.
Finally, the controllers used to browse these designs provide limited input, the limits of the hardware has encouraged additional focus on ergonomics and simplicity – two keys to affective design.
So, is it crazy to play games to do design research? Nope – the next great design idea you may have may have its origins in a good game of Call of Duty.
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by Joseph on December 3, 2009
Everything is designed.
That basic insight is something I realized many years ago – and, while the idea that someone, somewhere, created the designs of everything around you, wherever you are maybe is an obvious fact, embracing that idea should excite anyone who does experience design.
Think about it. Your desk, your pen, that chair you sit on. At some point someone sat in front of a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen and made an idea EXIST. Made it real.
Which means that if someone designed all that, you can design stuff like that too.
Excited yet?
So, if your a UX designer, or an aspiring designer, why does this matter? It matters because we have case studies on good and bad design all around us. As was famously written in the seminal book Don Norman The Design of Everyday Things, we can learn from this.
I have read interviews with many very award-winning authors where they have basically stated that if you want to become a good writer you need to be a good and/or voracious reader. Beyond just writing (and doing it every day), writers need input – different voices?they can appreciate and use to hone their own work.
Like writing, UX Design is equal parts skill and art. Expose yourself to the experiences all around you – architecture, industrial design, marketing, packaging, what-have-you. Interact with different devices beyond your current mobile device or computer. Increase your input.
Finally, don’t be a design snob – no matter what you think about a particular company, don’t let that stop you from trying out their products and exposing yourself to their designs (most obvious example: Apple fanboys, play with Windows 7… There’s some interesting stuff in there).
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