Taking a step back from our example of Howard’s Kissing Machine, our evaluation(I think that’s the correct term to use here) was based on the experience of using the kissing machine. Do you think we would have different results if we performed this evaluation on the artifact itself? And as interaction designers do you think we should do this activity with either the experience of something or the thing itself? Or is there something to be learned from both? This question came up because in Shaowen’s prototyping class when we used this, I believe we focused more on the artifact itself.
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Official Class Blog of "I590: Interaction Culture" (Indiana University School of Informatics)
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January 17, 2013 at 5:10 pm
mengyao
I think since Kissing Machine is not exactly a piece of “art”, but a design product, involving the user experience when we evaluate it may be necessary. Maybe using it is one way to describe, interprete and analyze a design product?
January 17, 2013 at 9:43 pm
raynezhou
I think these are really great questions. Although I haven’t had prototyping class yet, I would like to try to answer this a little bit…
If we are really evaluating this machine based on experience, then it is possible that an evaluation for the artifact itself and an evaluation for the user should both be done in advance. That’s because experience in between the artifact and the user. It will be interesting to see whether it will drive some different conclusions or not.
I guess what all your questions are directing into is this one: Where’s the end of evaluation? Or, what’s the scale of evaluation? And these are some questions that require further discussion.
January 17, 2013 at 11:00 pm
Katie O'Donnell
Good question. HCI connect is coming up soon so I’m sure everyone in the HCI program has been working on their portfolios. What if you used this framework to evaluate your portfolios or portfolios of other professionals that you used as models?
January 18, 2013 at 9:53 pm
slouraine
Interesting question. My gut says that we need both. When you evaluate an interactive design, it’s important to take into account both the artifact itself and the interaction with it.
I am reminded of an anecdote. Matt and I upgraded our phones last week to the new iPhone, and were chatting with the guy at the AT&T store while all of our stuff was updating. Matt was playing with one of the Windows phones on display, and the guy said “don’t even think about buying that, you’ve made the right choice with the iPhone!”
We mentioned we’re interaction designers-in-training and the employee got to talking about design. The store employee was talking about all the reasons why he prefers the iPhone, and some of them were very interesting and things I’d never thought of before.
His point of view: If you buy the iPhone, you’re buying not only the software and “experience”, but also a device made of metals and glass. If you buy a Samsung phone, for instance, what you’re buying is just made of plastic; in his words, you’re basically paying $200 for the OS.
What he said made me realize that a huge part of the experience of a device is actually what the device is made of; how it feels to you (is it too heavy to hold?), how it looks and how well it weathers use. But all of those aspects are related to what it means to people, and what its experience is from a human perspective.