“Kids ask a ton of questions, and sometimes we find out we just don’t have the right answers. We say, ‘Son, that’s just the way the world works.’ So the more we’re exposed to something, the more we get used to it. But kids haven’t been around long enough to get used to those things. And so when they run into problems, they immediately try to solve them, and sometimes find a better way, and that way really is better.”
— Tony Faddell, TED Talk: The First Secret of Design is … Noticing
As a parent of two young children, I too am exposed to the innocence and innovation of a child’s mind. The imaginative solutions they construct can be silly at times, however, like Faddell said, they “sometimes find a better way.” Their unbiased view of the world allows them to tap into an awareness that has the potential to fade in adulthood. This understanding and awareness was a key theme I noticed and connected with during week one of our course.
The User Experience and the UX Professional Presentation by KSU UXD, communicated that we need to, “Design better systems by understanding user’s tasks and overall goals, what context they will use the system in and how they currently do the job that an application is designed to support and so on.”
This is so true.
We need to clear our minds and focus on what the user wants to experience, and advocate for that in the design process. The user needs to be motivated to learn something new, and that something new needs to not only accomplish the user’s goals, but also aid in their productivity, through an easy-to-learn process. The timeframe on this process, however, is tightening. In the People and Patterns presentation by KSU UXD, a prominent challenge was expressed, “People’s expectations have risen at the same time as their time and attention have decreased.”
This short timeframe is why it is so important during the observation process, such as usability testing, to “…trust what people do, not what they say. We need to observe and analyze participants’ actual behavior, rather than their attitudes, to guide and improve the design,” (The Elements of User Experience).
Faddell went on to say, “We need to see products through the eyes of our customers.” Knowing your end user is a number one priority, no matter what age they are.