There’s something about the user experience (UX) field that fascinates me yet repulses me at the same time. It seems to be the hipster iteration (evolution? version? generation?) of traditional human-computer interaction (HCI) with the millenial’s “privileged” mindset. Privileged in the sense that the company can (a privilege) and will force design changes onto their users, often to the users’ dismay.

In the latest reading of article comments and pointers to interviews from older HCI designers (not UX designers as they seem more temperate and logical about their decisions), I have been rethinking my original thoughts on UX as being in its adolescent phase.

The Slashdot community has a strong bias against UX, which makes for interesting reading. Visiting article comments dealing with new versions of Software X will usually contain some gripe against the UI. Firefox, for example, is not immune to this since they released their new UI a couple of iterations ago with the new Australis interface.

One comment from the latest version release article: “I’ll install it when that godawful Australis interface is rolled back or replaced with something less eye-bleedingly bad.” (xeno)

Additional comments are a little more insightful: “My gripe about the new Firefox is not the Australis interface per se, but it’s an example of the core problem: Firefox removes features without giving you a choice or a way to re-enable them without plugins.” (Anonymous Coward)

And, perhaps most eye-opening: “Mozilla asks for user data and people who do not opt-into that are not contributing data…This means their data of people not using things like menu bars because they getting metrics from the most daft users of firefox.” (bussdriver) This commenter’s post actually has a wealth of tips:

• “Good designers will use metrics only as a factor not as a mindless system to think for you.”
• “Great designers also will accommodate advanced users and the large base of existing users by not arbitrarily pissing them off.”

Then, there is the article about Microsoft unifying Windows. Some commenters immediately jumped on the Metro bandwagon, assuming by unifying, that includes the UI. Other commenters tried to level out that assumption by bringing up the kernel that needs to be unified and the UI can be as disparate as it needs per device (mobile, desktop, gaming). The original article wasn’t very clear, either, other than one Windows will indeed be able to exist on any device, but there will be different versions/SKUs. Nonetheless, Metro still hits a sore spot in many users.

In a seemingly, completely unrelated article on developers having less time to code because it is spent doing managerial, planning, and learning type things, someone referenced the Law of Conservation of Complexity by Larry Tessler. This was a link to the Wikipedia article and after reading it, I was intrigued enough to go on to read the interview.

Again, my trepidation was high because I was on a domain named “designingforinteraction.com” which rings up in my head as “UX.” But, if the set of interviews I have read through so far are indicative of the approach of this book (it is a book website), it sounds less hipster I-want-to-be-cool and more experienced I-know-what-works.

Tesler’s law is quite interesting and presents something of a conundrum. In essence, there will always be an inherent amount of complexity in a system. The complexity can be moved onto two ends: the developer and/or the user. Tesler’s view is, if the developer can reduce the complexity in a week, saving x users one minute of each interaction they have with the system, it should be done. His view is based on a business and his words of wisdom are, “the customer’s time has to be more important to you than your own.” Hence, shift the complexity to the developer.

There is a counterargument by Bruce Tognazzini, who argues with his own law, the Law of Commuting. The Law of Commuting states that if the time of a commute is fixed and distance is varied, people will move further away. It is inherent in human nature to preserve some level or increasing sense of complexity in their lives (hence moving further away), regardless of attempts to simplify it. I think that is just how we are as intellectual beings. We get bored if there’s not enough to occupy our minds.

Tognazzini’s law applied to Tesler’s law suggests that, even if we simplify the user interaction, users will still find ways to make it more complex. Because it is in their nature. Is that perhaps what we’re seeing when people are complaining about today’s modern, overly simple interfaces? Or is it one factor of many, such as companies not performing diligent research work to determine better interface decisions?

Tesler and Brenda Laurel, in both of their interviews, stress the need for research via usability tests and case studies. It is always about the user, something that today’s UX designers seem to easily and quickly (and conveniently?) forget.

The last two paragraphs of Tesler’s interview are worth reading. The whole interview was interesting, but I think the last two paragraphs are most relevant for this topic because he states what he feels is the main difference between a beginner and a senior designer. It ultimately comes down to experience.

The senior designer has a larger space of potential solutions and has the experience to not get fixated on the first idea, but rather build on what might be auxiliary solutions. At the same time, he is simplifying the design, perhaps to present it as a potential solution. Tesler states that simplification should be a quick process, not something that takes months. It is a waste of time to spend that time on a complex system that might not have a chance of being a solution at all.

Laurel’s interview was more research-oriented and she stressed that it wasn’t just about the formal concept of research, but also “exploration, investigation, looking around, and finding out.” She also observed, as many others have, that there is a belief of designers believing they know what their audience wants but they don’t really know.

Laurel states that great ideas for products “do not come from research subjects.” They are just a factor. Ideas come from many disparate parts, hence the need for exploring, investigating, observing, and experimenting. This point is what bussdriver also said, that metrics should not be the end-all for “knowing the audience.”

I previously thought UX was a field in its adolescence, but I am thinking now it is a new generation of HCI. It appears that with the UX generation, a lot of the previous HCI generation’s experience has seemingly gone out the window. Maybe the problem is bigger.

Agile methodologies, which have been pushed in work places in recent times, is something that works well for programmers who have a large library of algorithms to solve common problems. But, it may not be good for the UX space because UX is more creative and art-based. Simiarly, I am not aware of agile being used in research labs/projects at universities where time and thought is needed to come up with a new solution to a problem.

UX requires actual research of users to understand their needs. The attempt to compact time in order to churn out volumes of new work (as development may depend on the decisions/solutions that UX makes) may be why there is less importance placed on diligent research work. Metrics, which experienced and paranoid users opt out of, are being allowed by novices. This data then feeds companies information biased towards those types of users, which leads to UI changes with the assumption that those users are the majority. Only to find out that many users are aliented by the offensive changes. And then the complaints rush in.

This may be an entirely naive hypothesis, but without actually following the UX space, I am left wondering why there have been so many major software releases lately getting the UI wrong. I know following Slashdot is very biased and reflects my own bias, but it’s also accepted that the Metro interface was not well received by many users. Then again, Microsoft has a tendency towards every-other-release being the “good” one. Nonetheless, “generation” may be a better view of the UX field rather than “phase.” I expect some good to come out of this generation, maybe a lot of mistakes that we learn from, but I hope what we learn are not repeats of previous lessons that we should already know.