User Experience (UX) research for understanding human desire

Author_Min Hye Yoon

Studies on user experience on product/ services have arisen since 1970s with the emphasis on the human-centred design, which became extensively prevalent as a basic design principle nowadays. The main purpose of the studies on user experience lies on understanding user’s needs and wants so that the data outcome helps informed decision-making to navigate business/design direction towards satisfying targeted users.

Schumacher(2009) tried to give a definition on user experience research with a clear mind on what it is and for which it is.

“User research is the systematic study of the goals, needs and capabilities of users so as to specify design, construction, or improvement of tools to benefit how users work and live”

In the beginning, the understanding of human-centred/ user experience design emphasised usefulness and functionality on the design products/ services to satisfy human needs with a slogan “form follow function” coined by architect, Louis Sullivan in the 20th Century, which are very strong demonstration of the functional purpose of designs (Small, 1947).  However,  in 21st Century, due to various scopes of designs and services, customers/users no longer are satisfied by usefulness and usability of the designs/ services. It does not mean that they do not count the quality of usefulness and usability as invaluable factors in user’s satisfaction, rather it is time to consider others factors to include into the range of measures in user research, so as to extend the depth and width of user’s satisfaction in product experiences.

Thus, the studies on user experience present the impact of design product, including the measures in user experience, examining how much design products can extend the quality of usefulness and usability, as well as how much they can provide pleasurable/ desirable aspects to users. Similarly, Sanders (2003) mentioned that design development processes should be for revealing latent human needs such as untold desires and dreams as well as for understanding human’s explicit needs.

In other words, user research in design development process will be a process to seek ways how to engage and motivate users to experience design products/ services in order to inspire them, and furthermore to envision their dreams and desires. Thus, researchers should input their efforts in looking into user’s motivations and emotions, considering human psychological factors in using design products/ services. If we study affective effects of designs that elucidate users’ favourable and enjoyable emotions, design experiences will yield human’s happiness and well-being.

Considering dynamic human’s emotional/ motivational status in interaction with products/ services in various context, Vermeeren, Law, Roto, Obrist, Hoonhout & Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila (2010) stated that UX should be evaluated not only ‘after’ interaction with products, but also ‘before’ and ‘during’ interaction with products. They emphasised it is imperative to observe and evaluate how user experience will evolve over time. This is because users’ value, needs and goals need be considered in the most design developmental processes so that the design development process can be reflective of user’s values and needs. 

Reference

• Sanders, E. B. N. (2003). From user-centered to participatory design approaches. In Design and the social sciences (pp. 18-25). CRC Press.
• Schumacher, R. (2009). The handbook of global user research. Morgan Kaufmann.
• Vermeeren, A. P., Law, E. L. C., Roto, V., Obrist, M., Hoonhout, J., & Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, K. (2010, October). User experience evaluation methods: current state and development needs. In Proceedings of the 6th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Extending Boundaries (pp. 521-530). ACM.