Integrating User Experience Research into Industrial Design Education: The Interaction Design Program at Purdue

The new generation of innovative technologies, such as ubiquitous computing, personal informatics, tangible interaction, and internet-based systems, blurs the boundaries between objects and services. Purdue University’s interaction design program is its latest addition to the Industrial Design area within the Department of Art and Design. The goal of this program is to arm students with the necessary knowledge and tools to prepare them for the integration of physical interaction and digital interaction. This paper focuses on introducing several education approaches to fit user experience research into the context of industrial design, which has led to several new interaction design courses. We also discuss the experiences we have gained from teaching these courses, along with potential improvements we envision. Differing from traditional human-computer interaction courses in the computer science, we try to weave real-world projects into the courses, study related cognitive and social systems to inform knowledge, employ research methodologies to evaluate and improve the design, and adopt innovative technologies to better accommodate human experience. Introduction With today’s increasing computing power, miniaturized chips, and the advent of the internet, the meaning of traditional product design has been altered. Traditional industrial design focuses on how people interact with things, designing for a product’s form factor and considering ergonomics and psychonomics. Computing and networked technologies introduce a new dimension of interactivity beyond the product’s physical form. Some computing technology may be invisible (Norman 1998), but aware of it or not, we are surrounded by products with complex digital interaction and control logic. For example, modern versions of traditional products such as toasters and shavers now commonly have digital interfaces. Household appliances have been equipped with multi-level digital control panels. Mobile phones have been extended to include an alarm, a MP3/MP4 player, a camera, GPS, and even a computer. Today, more and more industrial designers are being asked to design products and systems that incorporate interactive components. For example, some Korean product designers explored the possibilities of gesture recognition technology while designing a gesture-based TV remote control (Kim et al. 2004). In order to design a tangible toy, a group of European designers manipulated electronics placement, insightfully analyzed child behavior, and conducted tests to search for a better solution (Johansson 2009). Blevis et al. (2007) stated that “interaction design, as a necessity, has been embedded with luxury and sustainability as a contemporary product design critical framework.” Since the level of complexity increases exponentially as a product gains more digital intelligence, a new kind of developmental expertise is needed. Due to the incredible increase in both product and system complexity that the use of advanced technology enables, it is more important than ever for industrial designers to engage directly with interaction design, a design discipline focused on the design of the interaction between products, systems, and humans (Malouf 2010). What should an industrial designer create in the information and digital age? How should industrial designers innovate for the new breed of products? From an educational perspective, how can we improve on industrial design education to establish a new generation of designers better prepared for their future careers? As has been recommended and supported by our industrial partner, the Whirlpool Corporation, the Interaction Design (IXD) program was established at Purdue in 2010. IXD is a graduate program where students and faculty aim to explore interaction design approaches and possibilities in the context of industrial design. During the program’s development, we encountered problems and also learned from our explorations. This paper gives a glimpse of the journey we have taken and plan to pursue. PE ER -R EV IE W ED P A PE R 2 © N CI IA 2 01 0 Unique Problem Set Computing and networked products introduce a new dimension of interactivity beyond the product’s physical form. IXD not only refers to complex human interactions, but also encompasses enhanced usability and user experience issues. For a designer, being able to merely design interaction is a good skill, but being able to control, amplify, and support the human-product interaction is even more desirable. The field of interaction design is in its early infancy and has only been around for the past decade or so. Most related theories and methodologies are comparably young or under construction. Therefore, how to teach industrial design students about interaction design and user experience becomes the big challenge. There are three major problems: in essence, gaps which repeatedly arise between design and cognitive science, design and evaluation research methods, and design and information technology. Design is essentially a creative process to plan something that does not exist. On the other hand, cognitive science, research methodologies, and information technology are all focused on what does exist. We must recognize and bridge the gaps. Gap between design and cognitive science The role ergonomics plays in improving productivity and quality has been well recognized in the domain of industrial design. However, another important aspect among human factors, cognition, has not been widely introduced into design education. Cognition refers to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension, including thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning--mental faculties which are essentially interdependent. Attention guides both perception and memory; language and reasoning are similarly closely connected. All of these are closely related to the interface and interaction design of products. There are many models and theories of cognition to describe different ways by which thinking takes place. Some established models, illustrated with engaging examples, are quite ready for integration into design education. For example, Donald Norman makes the distinction between experiential cognition and reflective cognition in describing human thinking processes (Norman 1993). Benyon et al. (2005) use the information-processing paradigm to illustrate the functions of brain. Sohn et al. (2009) identified four attributes of unconscious human behaviors (reaction, adaptation, conformity, and signal) to inspire eco-friendly interaction design. Contemporary product designers have to deal with the related cognitive issues so that they are not only able to predict how users will hold the products, but also perceive how users will communicate with the products. Unfortunately, cognition is usually still a missing piece in design education. Gap between design and evaluation methods Usability is a quality that many products possess, but many more lack. What makes something usable is the absence of frustration in the actual use of that object. To be usable, a product or service should be useful, efficient, effective, satisfying, learnable, and accessible (Rubin 2008). Designing useful products is definitely the goal for every industrial and interaction designer, but how to ensure product usability is a challenge. Traditionally, systematic evaluation methods have not been a focus of the design domain. Nowadays, designers should learn how to conduct evaluation studies from scientists or researchers in other domains. In the domain of user-centered interaction design (UCD), researchers emphasize three basic principles: early focus on users and their tasks, evaluation of product usage, and iterated design. A common lesson learned the hard way in the UCD industry is that it costs 100 times more to make a change in the next release of a product than it would cost to make that change at the beginning of the project development cycle (Nielsen 2000). As a result, techniques (such as ethnographic research, participatory design, focus group research, etc.) for building in usability in human computer interaction are preferable for industrial design as well. Gap between design and information technology Traditional products are mainly physical in nature and design constraints are governed by the principles of physics, mechanics, and human factors. Today, many products are equipped with microcomputers with a high computing capability and increasing processing speed. Products become hybrid in nature with both hardware and software components. Furthermore, with the advent of the internet, products can be networked and digital information stored in products can be transferred, shared, analyzed, and represented. However, there is a gap between traditional design training and information technology. First, designers are not programmers; they haven’t been trained to understand programming. The training of programming is a systematic process, distinctively different from design education. Second, even if the designers purportedly understand the coding process, a number of researchers will argue that this fact might still raise issues. “If the designer implements his own design, he is beholden to two different goals: clean code and great user experience. The two goals contradict each other and in many cases he may make premature decisions and compromise” (Mathis 2009). Many industrial design students are very curious about the fascinating effects some simple codes can produce. Whenever they can see some new technologies from research, they are excited to track the information down. But such students are often not ambitious enough to consider integrating the new technology into their current design plans directly. These students design buttons, but then can’t get engaged in a critical discussion of the buttons’ particular functions. For the project itself, separating the interface design and interaction design is a problematic approach. Interaction Design Education for Industrial Design Although gaps between traditional industrial design education and contemporary user-centered interaction design do exist, we believe these gaps are not insurmountable. These two areas can come together, and we have gained a lot of support and collaboration inside Purdue University.