Firstly, I would like to clarify that my title actually means reflections on design and science. Just like how you read a legal case title. That’s because I think both of them goes hand in hand. There is certain amount of cognitive science, psychology in design but yet design itself is subjective, so instead of competing with one another, i believe they should compliment instead.

Non-Scientific Results

Methodologies and empirical methods of user research does somehow influence the design, eventually it is design for users. User centric design is definitely useful and I think it is the way to go. But some of these research is evaluating something that is apparent on the first few glance, so why research? Besides being a political tool in companies, I think that’s because it is easy for people to follow. There are many who thinks that there is a certain template in the design process. Well they are just guides, they serve us a good purpose in finding our own research methods for different design product. To make full use of it, it must be carefully planed and executed. Vary some of these methods to suit your product. Non scientific research serves as the quantitative approach and can usually tell much about the product if the target users were selected carefully. It does certainly give you some insides about how popular your product will be or will be used. So designing for target audience is important? Well, not quite. Designing for a specific group or individual may lead to success as well, look at Apple’s iPod. They did not follow what is out there, they design for specific group of consumers. It is not for most people since there is a need to sync with iTunes and only iTunes. It does not work like an extra storage disk and with no radio built in. They just need to do one thing right. Play music.

To me, conducting an empirical research can be good if you interpret results correctly. It is easy to find assurance that your product is good if results are skewed towards success. However, how accurate are these methods int he first place. Take for example, survey questions, or interviews. Questions asked maybe bias towards our own perception. Interviewees might not wanted to share so much information or worst provide wrong perception of the product especially if the interview involves such reward.

Scientific Results

The eye tracking tool does not provide anymore information than what a good design will know. Spending less time on certain area does not make the content bad. interpretation of the result is most important factor in using such a device. There are also certain methods that calculate the amount of time one will take to click a button or link in a website. For example, the total amount of time to complete certain task is calculated based on researched average time. It is called the Keystroke Level Model that estimate certain specific time to do things such as reaching for the mouse. In average it takes about 0.4sec for user to reach to the mouse, the model defined it. Such a calculative method is said to used when creating a manuscript editor. It is also now being used in website usability testing. There is even a calculator that will do the job for you. Completing a task in the shortest amount of time is important and it will help to better the experience, but it should not be given much emphasis. Shortest time does not necessary means enhanced user experience. The aesthetic part of the product is important, along with many other aspects such as affective engineering, cognitive science etc to better user experience.

Design is an art, and like music it is subjective. Take music therapy, there are now neuroscientific studies to try and provide evidence of what is considered as soothing or relaxing music. It is hard to prove which is soothing music since in the first place music is subjective; it could have different meaning to some. With a mixture of both quantitative research and science, the user experience could be better if a good and seasoned designer interpret it correctly. Which brings me to my view of having both compliment one another instead of excluding any of them.