Understanding User Experience (UX) parameters during praxis design process for tangible & intangible product solutions and their relative overlaps.
Background
With my past experience catering to Tangible tactile products (appliances, lifestyle, automobile) as well as intangible products (software applications & tools for hand held & web based), I was intrigued with the fascinating perspective of this subject.
This work is a part of my self initiated research to understand how the specifics of the commonness & differences between the influence & significance of common design parameters in Tangible UX design v/s Intangible UX design process.
Research Abstract
In today’s fast paced industry context, the term ‘user experience’ is predominantly miss-associated with intangible product solutions like software or application designs. Here ‘Tangible product design’ is understood as a solution in form of a physical tactile interaction with user, whereas, ‘Intangible product solution’ is understood as a product solution that is a software interface, and does not demand dominant physical interaction between user & product solution; however considering the fact that it can be extended to tangible user-product interaction of graphical user interface touch screens with voice and gesture interfaces, or only voice or only gesture interfaces.
Due to the variation of the tactile nature of the product solution and the product-user interface, the product solutions primarily can be classified into two distinct forms – a) physical or tactile user-product interaction & b) non-physical or intangible user-product interaction. With this phenomenon, it is also distinctly realised, that the architecture material build of the product solution also varies respectively from hard physical product solution to a software product solution. This article shall term this as the ‘nature of the product solution’. Due to these distinctive differences in the architectural material build and the product-user interface of the resultant product solution, the possibilities & intensities of volatility, experimentality and feasibility vary extensively at different stages of the design & development process of the product solution. Also, the difference in the ‘nature of the product solution’ also gives rise to the extent of demand of cognitive memory load or physical work load by the product solution. Hence, this research focuses on the identification of impact of the varied nature of the design solution on the user experience design framework at different stages of the design & development process.
The research aims at retrospection of Praxis of user experience design process in tangible & intangible ‘nature of product solution’ and opportunities thereby to enhance the efficiency of the existing process. The research plans to encompasses more than 25 designers for either of the ‘nature of product solution’. The research encompasses the various common phases in creative process models i.e. Analysis phase, Generation phase, Evaluation phase, Communication / implementation phase, with respect to the praxis creative models of ‘Helmholtz, Dewey, Wallas, Kris, Polya, Guilford, Buhl, Osborn, Parnes, Jones, Barron and Harrington, Isaksen, Couger, Shneiderman, Basadur, Kryssanov’. (Design Studies Vol 29 No. 2 March 2008)
Below figures show the overlaps of design parameters and process stages with respect to the ‘nature of product solution’. The below data is derived from this research on basis of studied creative models as well as industry praxis and simple perceptions of industry experts of product design & development in manufacturing and information technology industries.
References
Per, Kristav, Anders Warell, and Lena Sperling (2012), “Remote Assesment of Intangible Product Experiences – Challenges and Implications,” International Journal of Product Development, 16 (Fall), 243-262.
Theodore, L. (1981). “Marketing intangible products and product intangibles,” Harvard Business Review, 59(3).
Veryzer, Robert W. and Brigitte de Mozota (2005), “The Impact of User-Oriented Design on New Product Development: An Examination of Fundamental Relationships,” Journal of Product Innovation Management, 22, 128-143.
T. J. Howard, S. J. CulleyandE. Dekoninck, Innovative ManufacturingResearch Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, United Kingdom Design Studies Vol 29 No. 2 March 2008