1、Sketching User ExperiencesThis Page Intentionally Left BlankBill BuxtonSketching User Experiencesgetting the design right and the right designAMSTERDAM BOSTON HEIDELBERG LONDON NEW YORK OXFORD PARIS SAN DIEGOSAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE SYDNEY TOKYOMorgan Kaufmann is an imprint of ElsevierPublisher: Dian
2、e CerraPublishing Services Manager: George MorrisonSenior Project Manager: Brandy LillyEditorial Assistant: Asma PalmeiroCopyeditor: Adrienne Rebello,QGHHULVWULEXWHFK6FLHQWLF,QGHLQJInterior printer: Transcontinental InterglobeCover printer: Transcontinental InterglobeBook Design: Henry Hong-Yiu Cheu
3、ngInformation Graphics: Henry Hong-Yiu CheungTypography Consultant: ArchetypeIllustrations: Adam WoodMorgan Kaufmann Publishers is an imprint of Elsevier.500 Sansome Street, Suite 400, San Francisco, CA 94111This book is printed on acid-free paper. 2007 by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Designati
4、ons used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks or registered trademarks. In all in-stances in which Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is aware of a claim, the product names appear in initial capital or all capital letters. Readers, however, should contact the appropriat
5、e companies for more complete information regarding trademarks and registration.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, scanning, or otherwisewithout prior written permission of the p
6、ublisher.Permissions may be sought directly from Elseviers Science something with behavior that is usually the result of software running on an embedded microprocessor; and something whose design needs to be grounded in the nature of that experience.The underlying premise of the book is that there a
7、re techniques and processes whereby we can put experience front and centre in design. My belief is that the basis for doing so lies in extending the traditional practice of sketching. So why should we care about any of this?Hardly a day goes by that we dont see an announcement for some new product o
8、r technology that is going to make our lives easier, solve some or all of our problems, or simply make the world a better place.However, the reality is that few of these products survive, much less deliver on their typically over-hyped promise. But are we learning from these expensive mistakes? Very
9、 little, in my opinion. Rather than rethink the underlying process that brings these prod-ucts to market, the more common strategy seems to be the old shotgun method; that is, keep blasting away in the hope that one of the pellets will eventually hit the bulls eye.Now if this is a problem, and I bel
10、ieve that it is, it shows every indication of getting worse before it gets better. The pundits, such as Weiser (1991) and Dourish (2001), as well as those contributing to Denning embracing it in ones practice is quite another. Expanding the sphere and responsibilities of design to include such exper
11、iential concerns carries with it a very real burdena whole new level of complexity, especially if we factor in the broad range of emerging technologies that are involved. It really requires a rather dierent mind-set and range of concerns than those that traditionally have driven the practice of desi
12、gn and engineering. For example, think about the introduction of texting (more properly called Short Messaging Service, or SMS) into mobile phones. The traditional object-centred ap-proach would view SMS as the design of a protocol to enable text messages to be sent between phones, and then its impl
13、ementation in hardware and software (along with the associated model for billing for the service). Yet that description does not even begin to accurately characterize the real nature of SMS. This is far more accurately reflected by activities such as voting for your favourite performer in American I
14、dol, or flirting with someone across the floor in a dance club. That is SMS, and I dont believe that you will find anyone involved in its design who would claim that they anticipated, understood, much less considered any of that when they were designing the feature. This SMS example leads us to yet
15、another dimension in which these emerging prod-ucts are becoming more complex: increasingly, the technologies that we design are not islandsthat is, they are not free-standing or complete in their own right (to the extent that they ever were, but more on that later). Rather, they are social entities
16、. As with people, they have dierent properties and capacities when viewed as a collective, within a social, and physical context, than they have when they are viewed in isolation, independent of location or context. For example, just as I behave dierently when I am alone than I do when with others (
17、among other things, I talk with them, but hopefully not to myself), so it will be with our devices. When they approach other devices, or possibly people, they will become social animals. Just like you and me, their behaviour will vary, depending on whom they are with, in the same way you and I behav
18、e dier-ently with family than we do with strangers, business colleagues, or alone. Success in this emerging world is going to depend on significant change in how we work. Nevertheless, I believe that this change can respect the best of the traditions of the pastthat is, it involves change that build
19、s on, rather than replaces, existing skills and practice. It is change that must recognize, acknowledge, and respect the im-portance and interdependence of the dierent design, engineering, management, and business disciplines involved. Each is essential, but no single one is sucient.As it is with pe
20、ople, so it is with technology. Industry also must learn to reconcile these interdependencies with the idiosyncratic propertiesand demandsof the new technologies and types of products that it is trying to bring to market. And to really succeed, these products must be reconciled to the needs and valu
21、es of the individuals, 12societies, and cultures to which they are being targeted.However, todays reality is that in this equation, the value of design is too often be-ing questioned, and the contributions of the designer are being seen as an expensive luxury. Similarly, in software products, we are
22、 seeing the notion of user interface de-sign disappearing as a professional description, too often being replaced by usability engineering, something that is ever more remote from something an industrial de-signer, for example, would recognize as design. Against this backdrop is the compelling obser
23、vation that there may never have been a time when design was more important, and the specific skills of the designer more essential. And yet, with far too few exceptions (such as Sharp, Rogers the way its capa-bilities are used is as much a matter of cultural choice and historical accident as politi
24、cs is, or fashion. (Waldrop 2001; p.469)This book is based on the premise that design is a distinct discipline. It involves unique skills that are critical to the molding of these emerging technologies into a form that serves our society, and reflects its values. Far from being a luxury, informed de
25、sign is essential from the technical, economic, and cultural perspective.A second key premise is that although design is essential, it is not sucient. Design is just onealbeit an important oneof the components requisite to the development of successful, appropriate, and responsible products.But what
26、 is the role of the designer? How does design fit in among all the other components of the process? For example, how does design fit in with engineering, marketing, or the corporate plan and executive objectives? If I am an architect, indus-trial designer, environmental graphic designer, or software
27、 developer, what is my role? What skills do I need to cultivate? How can they best be deployed? If I am an educator, what should I be teaching so as to prepare my students for what is coming, rather than how things have been done in the past? If I am an investor, businessperson, or manager who aspir
28、es to bring new products to market, how do I sta my teams? What kind of process should I put in place? These are the types of questions that motivated me to write this book. For over thirteen years, but especially in the past four or five, I have had the pleasure and privi-lege to work with some of
29、the worlds most outstanding designers, from almost all Sketching User ExperiencesPreface13disciplines. I was a willing student, and they were generous teachers. Having come from a background in the arts (music) and technology (computer science), as well as some experience as an executive of a mid-si
30、zed company, I have been lucky. I was in an unusual position to see things from a unique and privileged perspective. My hope is that what I have written here is respectful of those who were my teachers, and worthy of the confidence that they placed in me.Ultimately, this book is about product design
31、, with an emphasis on products that have dynamic behaviour due to the incorporation of embedded digital technology. It tries to address the topic while looking in a few dierent directions: outward, to other parts of the overall organization that is trying develop the product; further out, to the use
32、rs and even culture within which the product is destined; and inward, to the sta, techniques, and methods of the design team itself.My approach is built largely around case studies and examples, supplemented by a discussion of the underlying issues. Hopefully, along the way, I will shed light on som
33、e of the key questions that might help us innovate eectively in this ever more techno-logically complex environment. What are some of the core skills that one should expect in a modern design team? What should be taught in design programs, and how? What are some of the issues of managing a modern de
34、sign team compared to engineering?This is a start. It is a rough sketch. The best that I can hope is that its timeliness will in some way compensate for its broad strokes. After all, isnt that what sketching is all about? AudienceTo have the intended impact, this book must address multiple audiences
35、. No matter how well one group performs, it is unlikely that the overall job will be done successfully unless the rest of the organization is working in concert. For this to happen, everyone has to be singing from the same song sheet. In order to help bring this about, I have tried to speak to the f
36、ollowing key groups:User interface designers: people who have primarily a software and/or psychol-ogy background, and who have traditionally dealt with things like icons, naviga-tion, menus, search, etc.Industrial designers: people who largely studied at a design school, and whose specialty is produ
37、ct design.Related design professionals: people who have studied architecture, environ-mental graphic design, illustration, film making, etc.; that is, those who make up part of the ever-richer mosaic of the new experience design team.Software engineers: people who are hard-core computer scientists,
38、who have the responsi-bility to build shipping code that is robust, maintainable and meets specification.Usability engineers: people who test and evaluate products during their development in order to ensure that they are fit for human consumption and that there are no unexpected negative surprises
39、for the user.Product managers: people who typically come from marketing or an MBA type of back-ground, who have to perform like the conductor of an orchestra of disparate instruments. Executives: the people at the top of organizations who ultimately own responsibility for providing both leadership a
40、s well as a physical, intellectual, and organizational ecology in which design and innovation can thrive.That is a start, at least. I know that I have left o some, but the list is already daunting, if not fool-hardy. And, just to make things more complicated, my hope is to write something that speak
41、s to each of these groups, regardless of how you slice the pie among the following categories:StudentTeacherPractitionerResearcherSo although this is not a textbook, it should be of use to teachers and students. It is not a recipe book that you can throw at a product development team and say, “Go an
42、d implement this.” But it should help companies understand how to improve their performance.I have tried to provide examples and ideas that will help all readers in the practice of their day-to-day profession. But what is foremost in my mind is to paint a larger, holistic picture. My overarching goa
43、l is to help this diverse cast of characters better understand their role in the larger intertwined performance that constitutes our companies, schools, and practices. In this I have attempted to find a balance between going into sucient depth in any topic so as to have relevance to the specialist,
44、while still sustaining comprehensibility and interest for others.Sketching User Experiences14Preface15OverviewThe rest of this book is structured in two parts.Part I lays the foundation. It talks about the current state of design, as well as much of the underlying belief system that drives my though
45、ts on experience design. Much of the focus is on software product design. Initially, this may seem remote, or not too relevant to an industrial designer, for example. However, I think it is important for someone from the traditional design professions to understand the state of software design.There
46、 are two reasons for this. First, it will probably remove any lingering delusions that the software industry will come in with some magic bullet and solve all our current problems. The second reason is that there is nothing even vaguely resembling a “design process” in software, at least not in the
47、way that an industrial designer would understand that term.I realize that this is both a contentious and provocative statement, and in making it I am not trying to denigrate software developers. Rather, the exercise that I am trying to bring about is for them to look more deeply into the skills and
48、practice of design professionals, and compare, contrast, and understand these with their own. Neither design nor engineering is sucient for the task at hand, and both are essential. What is required is a new relationship involving an ad-aptation of both skill sets that reflects the demands of the ne
49、w design challenges.Part II is about methods. It moves to a more pragmatic realm. It is primarily made up of a number of case studies and examples. If we bump up a level, it is about techniques for bringing design thinking to the design of interactive products and the experiences that they engender. It is also a bit of a history lesson. It is intended to provide some exercises and examples that one can work through in order to help build a base literacy around the problems of designing in this new
