As the seamless interaction with various types of devices started increasingly influencing the quality of outcomes in our daily lives and also at work, product/system interaction designers have been concerned as to how to make users obtain what they w ...
As the seamless interaction with various types of devices started increasingly influencing the quality of outcomes in our daily lives and also at work, product/system interaction designers have been concerned as to how to make users obtain what they want in an easier and faster way. Based on this perspective, many user interface (UI) design strategies and methods have been suggested to help users become familiar with the product or system operation. Helping users become familiar with product operation easily and fast is certainly expected to positively influence the quality of the problem-solving outcomes achieved by using the product. However, being proficient in using a product is not the purpose of people using the product. They use the product as a tool to achieve their purposes and values beyond them. That is, they use products to satisfy needs that are unmet in certain problem domains and obtain satisfying outcomes and experiences. If the user-product interaction is regarded as a series of operational procedures of products to obtain the result only, problem-solving knowledge in the course of deriving the outcome might isolate the results from the user experience (UX). As a result, the possibility of enriched and active user experience might be over-looked in the course of product use. UI/UX designers who design user-product interaction should concern not only the acquisition of product operation of users, but also the acquisition of problem-solving knowledge that helps users achieve the purpose of using products, in other words; satisfying outcomes and experiences.
This study is a follow-up research of the previous study (2011) suggesting the perspective that acquiring domain problem-solving knowledge can serve as an important role in achieving a high level of user experience satisfaction. Furthermore, it aims to suggest UI/UX design methodologies and cases that can support acquiring principle-based problem-solving knowledge as well as user’s proficient product operation.
In the first year of this study which was carried out for a total of three years, perspective of the research was theoretically systemized, and the necessity of the study was confirmed through the empirical research. Observatory investigation was proceeded to understand the process of utilizing and forming knowledge through user’s utilization of products/systems. The observation focused on the influence of the difference in the level of domain problem-solving knowledge of users and whether to deliver domain knowledge of UI design and methods of delivery on user experience. Through the investigation, it was confirmed that not only the procedural knowledge, which has been generally emphasized in product interaction design, required for the product operation, but also the problem-solving knowledge in the domain where the product is based upon could significantly influence the user experience.
In the second year of the study, the basic framework for UI/UX design methodology that supports the acquisition of problem-solving knowledge of users is suggested. First of all, considerations for UI/UX design that could enhance the problem-solving knowledge of users were prepared after the literature review, while suggesting the frame for methodology and process to be applied in the UI/UX design development phase. Suggested methods were made as a template so that designers could easily apply them in the actual design projects, and the entire design process including the template was organized in the form of toolkit.
The third year of the study is a phase for verifying the suggested process and methodology. Applying the toolkit, a total of two cases were developed including the case of previous UI design improvement and case of suggestion for new UI design. After manufacturing the outcomes of each design as an interactive prototype, the observatory investigation on users was conducted in order to verify the usability of the design direction suggested in this study and utilization of methodology to use the design direction in practice. It was confirmed through the observatory investigation that UI/UX design reflecting the domain problem-solving knowledge provided satisfaction to users and has high usability. In particular, the design direction was confirmed to be more useful for users with less domain knowledge.
This study was conducted based on the perspective that UI/UX design should support the user experience in achieving the preferred outcome through the usage of a product, the fundamental purpose for users to utilize products/systems, beyond focusing on allowing easy and fast product operation. UI/UX designers who design the interaction of users/products should not only focus on the method that allows users to learn how to operate products easily, but also be interested in the method that enables the acquisition of domain problem-solving knowledge so that users can achieve satisfactory results and meaningful experiences.