Less is More is Less
I love coffee. I also love this picture of coffee. It’s beautiful. But what makes it beautiful? The simplicity of the photo. Steaming cup of coffee as the focus, with a simple wooden background. And a plant, because plants are always good.
But seriously though, if I took a picture of my coffee for you right now, I guarantee you wouldn’t find it quite as aesthetically pleasing. Here, I’ll do that for you:
My picture is way not as cool. It’s busier, and kind of disorganized. (Welcome to college — studying isn’t all that fun to look at.) But it’s still a picture of coffee. The coffee probably tastes just as good (yes, I’m a bit of a coffee snob), but it’s not so pleasing to look at.
Enter the psychology behind UX design.
Alistair Sutcliffe’s book, Designing for User Engagement searches for design process proposals in the context of the psychology of user engagement and cognition. He proposes that interactive, visual interfaces that use these principles will “promote aesthetic perception and engaging interaction” and subsequently lays out design processes and examples as guidelines (Sutcliffe).
There are plenty of social media sites that are designing/redesigning their UIs with emphasis on aesthetic simplicity. Squarespace 7 is one of my favorite examples of this. The site won a Webby last year for best visual aesthetic design, and for good reason. Its design is minimal, yet incredibly visual, and employs moving images and creative transitioning, especially for the scroll function.
Now, just a warning: my next example is that of a poorly designed website. So poorly, in fact, that if you are prone to motion sickness, I advise you not to click over to it. (I am prone to it, and I’ve been somewhat nauseous for about an hour now.) Anyway, DS+R is an interdisciplinary design studio for architecture, visual, and performing arts. You’d think their website would be fantastic, right?
Here’s a screencap for my readers who don’t want a headache.
Clearly, the site designers were aiming for an aesthetically simple design. But they failed to make it pleasing. Their use of motion was overkill if ever there was one. Slight mouse movements cause the images in the center of the screen to swim rapidly all over the screen. The header bar appears to be an afterthought, and causes even more motion on the screen. It’s a headache waiting to happen.
Sutcliffe’s principles of user engagement explain why each of these sites are successful, and not, respectively. He summarizes these handily in this flowchart:
Squarespace promotes these factors quite nicely — functional, but also has an interface that is easy to interact with, flows quite nicely, and is beautiful. On the other hand, DS+R, in trying to create the same type of site, tried to capture 3D properties, but ended up making the effects of interaction unpleasant, and evoke all the wrong emotions. I also felt they missed on functionality almost completely, because even an amateur like myself immediately had many different ideas for a better-functioning site.
I used websites here to demonstrate how important I believe Sutcliffe’s design ideas for user engagement to be. Sutcliffe efficiently complements the cognition ideas in Interaction Design: Beyond Human — Computer Interaction — the way an interface is designed can have an incredible impact on effectivity and UX (Rogers). These ideas can apply to almost any interface, and can make or break an audience’s desire for product use.
So take heed, Ling’s Cars.
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