blog 4 - Janelle Velkoff

No, the user is not always correct. The user is always someone you should listen to and a starting point, but just because it comes out of a user’s mouth doesn’t meant that it is the correct thing. New features that users would like could be great, but at the same time they could be worthless. As a designer you need to remember that –you- are the designer and not completely lose focus of your vision while talking to users. The user is always correct however in telling you how they use the product and what they feel about it. That’s not up to the designer to determine.

I worked on redesigning the elliptical machines at the SRSC in project two. I would eliminate the extra specialty program buttons from the panel. They really aren’t necessary and most people don’t seem to use them because you can set the machine to do a more custom workout without them. In the case where “less is more” they are definitely not worth keeping.

Blog Assignment 4-James Berghoff

1. No, the user is not always correct. The user really only makes complaints and suggestions on issues that relate to them or on things that they feel would better work for them when using a product. This is not saying that all things that users would like to change about something is bad, some ideas are very good and taken into consideration.
2. No, the designer should only add features that they feel will benefit the overall product and its use. A feature that one user might like to have added may not be a feature that another user might like to have.
3. Yes, users always have a chance to give feedback on products and services. Companies are always concerned with customer satisfaction and have people standing by at all times to hear about users experience and anything else they have to say about a product that may or not improve or imply that these suggestions will further help users. However, whether or not all ideas or suggestions are actually taken into conisderation is unknown.

4. One thing I would eliminate from our project 2 design is all the options on the interface. Yes, it is nice to have so many options to work with, but it just seems too cluttered and allows for easy mistakes. Not that I would not like to keep the options, but maybe just come up with a different approach on how too use them and have a different style for how they are placed on the machine.

Mark Rodriguez- Blog #4

I believe that one user is not always correct, and not even a lot of users are always right. Some users make suggestions that are very trivial and would sometimes ruin the mindset of programs or websites. I don't think designers always should or do implement something a user or users want because there'd be a lot of changes and a design could be completely changed. Designers should make changes only if users suggest something that can really help the flow of a website.

On my project 2, I worked on the bike machines in the SRSC. What I didn't like about the design was that there were too many buttons. They had the numbers 0-9 on there, and thought that was too much. So we proposed 4 buttons that controlled up and down in sets of 1 and 10 to control speeds and calories. And now that i think about our redesign there seemed to be too many buttons controlling different workouts, instead I think there should be an interface to scroll through different workouts.

Steve Flockenhaus-Blog 4

Any user can never be totally conscious of all of his/her needs.  If a user is always right, what need would we have for designers?  The point of a user is to give feedback and input about their needs for a product.  The "user-centered"-ness Hoekman talks about is a compilation of user's needs.  It is not the intention of a designer to appeal to the needs of every user, the intent is to make a product easy and simple to use that can accomplish the tasks advertised.  Many times users think about how convenient one aspect would be in one situation and not about how that aspect will change other aspects of the design.

Regarding the stationary bike from project #2:

Interface surgery

(1) remove number pad so as to eliminate the cluttered look of the panel and simply use the scroll arrows

(2) change various exercise buttons to simply "select exercise" and then use arrows to navigate through various workouts

Jeff Lewis #4

The user is not always correct. There are times when an individual user wants something that would not be beneficial to the majority of the users. This is true in the instance where one or two users want more features. More features should not be added unless its what the majority of the users want or could benefit from. Too many features clutters the product and distracts you from what features are necessary. There is a larger user centered focus when designing because you want the product to benefit the majority of people.

I would redesign a few things with the interface on the workout bike. I would start by eliminating the numbers that stretch across the interface. I think that they are unnecessary and cause clutter. I would also eliminate the three buttons that are used for display settings. They could be accessed through the options button and are more unwanted clutter.

Yong Hyun Kim - Blog Assignment #4

I’m opposed to the statement that the user is always correct. I believe that the users can be one of the most useful ways to find out useful and important information, but the users cannot provide the right ideas all the time. What I am saying here is that the users are and can be both correct and incorrect on certain situations. Each individuals have different perspective and personality, where one cannot determine that who is correct and who is incorrect. So the fact is that not everyone can have same thoughts which conclude to statement ‘correct’. Because someone can be correct, but others might think it’s not, designers shouldn’t always provide new ideas to fulfill each individual’s request. Indeed, there is a larger “user-centered” focus which Hoekman advocates. Hoekman advocates that “people should focus only on the features that are in the most demand, the ones that are most important.” For win-win situation, people should be able to see from the world of marketing which trends are being valued highly in present days. Also, Hoekman says, “simplicity makes the point clear” to support how a designer can always accept every idea from every person.

As for my project two, my partner and I chose treadmill. As for my interface surgery of redesigning my treadmill design, I noticed that relocated number pads (buttons) made the design look little messy. I might eliminate these buttons since then it would add more simplicity. Also, the number buttons can be inside the digital panel, so that number buttons are useless.
Small list of what I might eliminate:
- Number buttons: It can be moved to into the digital panel, so it can look more simple and more easy to use since the digital panel will be able to show description about what buttons do what on the screen.
- HRC picture at right side: It completely does nothing, even no description or what it stands for.

Bethany Hufford - Blog 4

Is the user always correct? Not at all. Designers should provide features to fulfill a specific need of the user. Just because one or more users asks for a feature doesn't necessarily mean that it will fulfill a necessary need. Designers also shouldn't ignore what users ask for. If the majority of a population is asking for a specific function, it may be necessary for them to complete the function your software was designed to do.

In Project 2 I redesigned on of the bikes in the SRSC. Based on the new sketch I would get rid of the audio buttons. I have never seen anyone use them and I'm not even sure what they are for. I would also get rid of some of the preprogrammed options that have their own buttons. A lot of them seem unnecessary and until you have use the bike it is very unclear as to what most of them even do.

Chris Hall - blog #4

Is the user always correct? This really depends on the situation and context. Yes the user is correct when responding for themselves and how they use the product. But the individual user is usually not correct when we focus on a larger group (say all those who use the product).

In my opinion designers should not add features just because one or more users ask for them. Users might be able to tell you what types of feature they themselves would like to hive but that does not mean that those features would be desires by all users. Having said that, it is not impossible for a user to come up with an idea for a feature that would be widely accepted by the majority of other users. It is just improbable. Designing the obvious devotes an entire section in chapter 3 to “dropping the nice to have features”. In this section Hoekman points out how several people have made the point, as Hoekman puts it, “simplicity makes the point clear”.

One could make the case that Hoekman is advocating for a more “user-centered” focus, but I think that’s quite it. I think he is pushing for “user-centered” focus by way of simplicity. Meaning that, as designers, we should make our designs more user-centered by making them simpler. We should focus on the essential tasks that the users will be doing with our design and less on all the “nice to have features” that we can cram into the design.

As for project 2, my partner and I chose to redesign a treadmill. Based on our revised sketch I would eliminate some of the pre programmed features (ones that are not often used). The second thing I would do I merge the numerical key pad with the few reaming preset button and position that collection at the bottom of the control panel. The reason I would remove the preset buttons is that most of them seem to be simple derivations of the same workout. By stripping the presets down to just the basics, we could simplify the control panel and provide more room for the displays. Even though my partner and I debated about removing the numerical keypad all together, we kept it because we realized that an occasion might arise were it would be needed. For this interface surgery I feel that moving the keypad toward the center would draw the user attention to it and might make it a more useful feature.

Week 4 Blog Kym Pagel

Of course the user isn't always correct. Sure users can come up with good ideas, but they don't necessarily know what 's best for the overall design of a product. Hokeman asserts in his book that the design is not entirely user-built, but user-centered. A designer should take note of what users say, especially if more than one asks for certain features. If a great amount of users come up with the same idea for a new feature then chances are that the feature in question is actually important. As Hoekman says "focus only on the features that are in the most demand, the ones that are most important" (72). However, the desire for a feature does not mean that a feature is useful or even needed at all. A major point in Hoekman that I cannot leave out is the need for simplicity in design. So even if these features suggested by the users are viable, that doesn't mean that they should or will be implemented. A "nice to have" is simply that: nice to have, not necessary.

For Project #2 I redesigned one of those exercise bikes, and in retrospect I could and should have removed a lot more of the extraneous options. I left the level select screen in there when it could easily have been integrated into the display and inputted using the number pad. The current setup is necessary it just takes up too much space. I didn't edit the selections for exercise type (warmup, manual, hill, alpine pass, etc). At this point it looks like I could have just omitted those selections entirely. It might be nice to have these options available but they are simply excess and taking up too much space. These options also increase the amount of text that the user has to look at when they first see the equipment. I am not sure if the users actually use the fan very much, but most (if not all) of the exercise rooms I've ever been in I think have large powerful fans at the front of the room. So, if this accurate, then the fan can be removed. This takes out not only a little panel on front display but some hardware as well.

Enrique Pérez Blog #4

In chapter 3 of Designing the Obvious, Hoekman does not assert users are wrong or right. Users have needs. Designers work to develop programs or what have you to meet users needs. However, meeting users needs is difficult. If a designer tries to meet all users needs, their design(s) will undoubtedly fail because they are too complex, often leading to frustrated users because a desired task cannot be carried out easily. Design should be task focused not feature focused. A designer should design what is most important for the largest percentage of the user population and maintain a simple and focused design, or as communicated in the chapter, design 20 percent of the features to meet 80 percent of users needs. Therefore, most users needs will be met and be easy to use.

Project 2: "Interface surgery" for "less is more"

- Remove the numerical key pad

Clutters interface with unnecessary buttons

- Remove prompt and smaller display screens

Clutters interface with displays that could be integrated into one

- Remove time button

Clutters display and is available in options

Blog Assignment #3

Last time I chose to use Google.com as my reference site. I believe that shadowing would be the most beneficial technique that could be used in order to improve this site because it takes a handful of users and has them interact as they normally would with it. In this way, the designers could get a better understanding of how people use it, and because one person could technically use google.com in a different way than another, it would be beneficial to see all the different things its used for and then could be adapted to better fit a broader range of users.

Week 04 Blog Assignment

Chapter 3 of Designing the Obvious may appear to be contradicting what we’ve been saying about users and paying attention to user needs. Is the user always correct? Should the designer always provide new features because one or more users ask for them? Is there a larger “user-centered” focus that Hoekman advocates? Address these questions in your own words. There are many good ways to address these questions.

Then think about Project #2 (the project where you needed to redesign the work-out machine). Perform “interface surgery” on that device. What might you eliminate and why? Do not re-sketch the device, just provide a small list of what you might eliminate and justify your list in light of the guidelines presented in chapter 3, where “less is more.”

[Addition: Focus on your redesign vs. the original design. That is, say what you would eliminate from your redesign.]

Blog 3 - Bethany Hufford

In my previous blog, I discussed the obvious design of IU's Umail login page. I think the best way to gain insight on any improvements to be made would be to survey users. A quick survey could reach a very large number of students and faculty that use umail. A website such as SurveyMonkey could help find out if students are satisfied with the way the website works and if there are any changes they would like to see.

Mark Rodriguez- Blog #3

I used pricewatch.com last week for my blog assignment #2. I think contextual Inquiry is one of the best ways they could find out how to make the site better. It is when the user, or customer, take control of the site and the web developer would be sort of an apprentice and be being taught how to use the website.

The site is already simple to use, but some users might want to show that they don't know how to utilize some of the search methods for their web-site. It really seems like the most rational and logical way to get a better design to a web-site, especially if some usability tests are made to better understand certain aspects of their site.

Blog 3 - Stephen Miller

In order to better understand the users of www.bikely.com and be able to take the users' opinions and improve the site, I would recommend the use of surveys to the site administrators. Bikely.com's users vary widely in location, ability, interest, and style. This renders techniques like shadowing and contextual inquiry impotent. A survey would be an effective way to gather up disparate data into a context in which it could be useful.

Surveys for www.bikely.com would be most effective if they included questions addressing the individual cycling habits of those surveyed. Also, it would be beneficial to learn more about how users interact with bikely.com. Do they know about all of the nifty search helpers present on the site? Or do they just struggle through the general search box? Is the map/route information easy to understand and use? All of these questions would provide useful information to the administrators of bikely.com. I am certain that the use of surveys would provide useful information to www.bikely.com's administrators and help them to improve the user experience for the many already happy users.

Blog 3 - Janelle Velkoff

The site that I chose to look at last week was tumblr, in my opinion the best technique for understanding the users of this site is a use survey. This method would be a quick and easy way to see what people are really using the site for the most and what they want to get out of it. I personally post photos for the most part, but there a lot of different things that you can put on tumblr and a use survey would show what users find to be the most important for them. By asking even just a few questions, a lot of feedback could be gained about what users like and dislike about the website. SurveyMonkey makes it very simple to create a short survey that could really help designers see what aspects of the site are the most important. If you don’t understand your users then ultimately your site will fail and this is an easy way to see what people are really thinking.

Jeff Lewis - Blog 3

The website that I wrote about last week was www.lids.com. I believe that the easiest way to gain information about this site would be to use a survey. I chose this technique because the website is pretty simple and by using a survey I would get answers such as what the user liked the best and least about their experience with the website. I think the best way to go about conducting the survey would be through SurveyMonkey.com. After someone would make a purchase I would ask them to take a quick survey for an additional percentage off of their purchase. This would get a definite response from the users I believe.

Week 3 Blog - Ryan Cortese

In my previous post I discussed the properties of www.liog.org a Dave Matthews Band streaming music website. I think that in order to further improve the design of the website I would propose using surveys to gain information on the tendencies of the visitors and members of the website. By having a faithful following of users to the website, it would be easy to convince them to take a short survey and find out using the data the desires of what they want out of the page. This would be able to help design the page putting the most popular aspects in very easy to find places. For this reason I believe the survey would be a very profitable technique to the website.

Evan Samuels - Blog post #3

The site that I analyzed for blog 2 was www.bobdylan.com. In blog 2, I talked about everything on the site, from searching music to getting news updates and and exploring media content on Bob Dylan.

In order to focus my analysis of this site, I would create two different personas to guide me. One persona would be a young college age person who is just discovering the music and the name of Bob Dylan. For this persona, the music would need to be the focus (this is the main goal of the site), but there also needs to be some room to explore Bob Dlyan as a person. I could do this through media clips, a biography page, a timeline page of Bob's life and music, and links to other sites.

My second persona would be for the older crowd who grew up with Bob Dylan in the 60's and has known and loved him ever since. Again, the focus here is the music, but there is a more historic aspect here. To accomplish this, a timeline and links page would be helpful.

To get some information from my users, I would set up a usability session where they would explore the site for themselves to add to my own judgements. I would first allow them to explore on their own and see what features they liked and disliked. I would then ask them which of my features (time line, links, media clips) they would think as useful and interesting only after they are familiar with the site. This usability test can be done in person as a contextual inquiry or remotely, depending on my schedule and the users' schedules.

Week 03 Blog Assignment

https://cas.iu.edu/cas/login?cassvc=IU&casurl=https://umail.iu.edu/CasLogin.aspx?ReturnUrl=/Login/Default.aspx

For my week 02 blog I described the simple design of the Umail login page. To better get a grasp on the redesign ideas, I feel the use of a survey would work really well. Through the use of survey monkey, I could send out a survey to all students and faculty asking questions based on there attitude toward the umail login page and what they would and would not change in terms of redesigning in order to better fit the needs of the users.