Why “Where is Home?” is a prime example of Intuitive UX
Finding your castle by looking “outside the box”
When someone asks us where our home is, chances are we won´t get just one straight answer.
It might be the house we grow up in or the people we love- it could be a sight, a specific taste or a smell.
It´s the multiplicity of said concept that Nfeatu Nnaobi seeks to explore via Instagram in her digital project “Where is home?”. Conceived as a submission to #veryveryshort, a competition sponsored by Canadian public film and interactive content producer NFB as well as the Franco-German broadcaster Arte, the piece aims to “build compassion and let everyone know that the world belongs to all of us” (Arte, 2017).
What is it?
Making use of Instagram´s iconic cube shaped layout, the Nigerian digital media producer and social justice campaigner presents the issue in simplified terms, initially relating her own story and how she feels about home before showcasing a series of short video clips featuring various people talking about their own experience and relationships with the idea of home. These POV´s are interspersed with leading questions that allow the user to engage more thoroughly with the issue and maybe consider them from a slightly different angle.
In many ways, the choice of medium, in itself, is a stroke of gold.
Choosing mobile gives it an edge
With 5 billion people expected to own a phone by 2019 and with 62,5% of the global population currently possessing one (Statista, 2018), the demand for engaging mobile content has never been stronger. Mobiles have shifted to become the entertainment device of choice, with usage behaviour traditionally set to leisurely browsing as described by renowned web usability consultant Jakob Nielsen in his book “Mobile Usability” (2013). And with the view rate of video content posted on the social media platform scoring over 80% consistently amongst users in 2017, “Where is home?” has got the potential to appeal to a wider target audience as envisioned by Nnaobi initially.
The “bare bones” of the project (=visual design) is effective
Another aspect that is spot on is the way the project makes effective use of convention in its visual design. Modeled on scraps of ripped pieces of squared and lined paper on which videos and images are placed, interspersed with handdrawn arrows and writing, the presentation of the work highlights the fact that,in some cases, a conceptual model that corresponds to reality can be highly desirable.
The scrapbook style of narration employed effectively illustrates the “relationships that objects have with each other” (Interaction Design Foundation,2016)- in other words, it´s much clearer for the user to see and understand that the quest to discover one´s home is a journey, both mentally and physically. Having the imprint of stamps on the corners of the screen as well as images presented as quick snapshots gives the whole experience the feel of a travelogue of sorts, so the user intuitively grasps what Nnaobi is trying to say-namely, that home can be many things, sometimes even simultaneously.
This is also where the title of the article comes in which asserts that “Where is Home?” is a prime example for Intuitive UX.
The term simply means that a user navigating the project can instinctively trust that, for example, clicking on an image with an icon will take him or her to a video- basically that the assumptions one has, in this case, on what a specific button means and does, actually corresponds to reality (Weinschenk,2011).
This means that…
You can relate quite well to the subject.
Early mental models of the computer failed, as designers tried to illustrate the home button by presenting users with an animated version of a home on the screen- yet, for the concept to work, subtlety is key.
Another factor that needs to be considered, according to Dr. Susan Weinschenk in “The Secret to Designing an Intuitive UX” in a 2011 edition of UX magazine, is the necessity of taking user pre-conceptions on board when designing something for them, an aspect Nnaobi is considerate of as her idea is not presented in a way that might be construed as ambivalent, especially to someone of a different cultural background.
“Where is home?” further manages to appeal to its audience on account of the fact that its presentation (or navigational architecture) is simple, clean cut and as such, easy to engage with. The structure of the piece is very sequential, transitioning smoothly from the author´s personal history and motivation for doing the project to the personal accounts of others on the issue presented. This process is further aided by a series of leading questions (“How does our idea of home change as life evolves?”, “Can home be love?” etc), as explained previously, in a way serving as section headers that structure the user´s journey through the piece.
“The Trip”, a Webby award-winning transmedia project on the same platform, focusing on Jack Torrance, a man who supposedly orchestrated the first moon landing, does not have the same impact.
Despite making use of the grid scheme in a similar way- namely as a canvas with links to photo and video material the user can explore, the actual navigation of the experience is confusing as it plays with and subverts user expectations.
Clicking on the video or photo icon leads one to a series of multimedia content that one has to view in landscape mode, despite it being contained in the upright squares below- as such, the project tries to circumvent the affordances of the platform, that is, in this case, the physical properties inherent to it that may limit artistic freedom.
As it is, it´s a laudable attempt to be creative but threatens to alienate users who may be frustrated by the experience, a factor found on a quasi check list of a Microsoft employee blogging about what constitutes Intuitive UX (McKay,2010).
(In order to give you a taste of what I mean, I´ve chosen not to convert the next image taken from the project into landscape view.)
Equally, the overarching design simplicity observable in “Where is Home?” does not translate to this project. Despite having a clear introduction as well as a clip that constitutes an ending, the user is left to piece the details of the story together himself- this may be a ploy to emphasise the slightly fantastical subject matter of “The Trip”, (a high level conspiracy theory), but as such the experience remains fragmentary, seeing as clips are not only placed in a non-sequential order but also visibly cut.
Calls to action are not highlighted clearly either- while in “Where is Home?” colourful arrows direct the eye to videos to be watched, “The Trip” does nothing of the sort- the navigation does not follow what Kyrie Robinson, User Experience Design Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group refers to as the “Umbrella Structure” in her article “3 Keys to develop a Faster, More Intuitive User Experience” (2013). Said structure refers to an overall layout of a product or service and what it does- in a website, that would be the navigation bar.
As both projects are nested in a social media platform rather than being hosted on their own respective apps, I do not interpret this theory literally but seek to highlight that Nnaobi manages to provide the user with some form of structure in the way she arranges her subject material (from a brief history of herself to video blogs).
Coming to the end of this article, it would not be far-fetched for the majority of readers to conclude is that one project is infinitely better than the other at user intuitive design- but if that was the case, I would have titled it “Why Where is Home is the best….” rather than “Why Where is Home is a prime example…”.
Great user interface design is not primarily rooted in familiarity- it´s about providing the right mix between the familiar and the new (Ismailov, n. d.).
(Consider when Apple brought out ios7- it was mostly similar to ios6 but let viewers see the Home button, for example, in 3D.)
This is my view of what constitutes a good example of intuitive design-what´s yours?
References
Arte (2017) Very very short: 10 web-based interactive experiences. Available from https://www.arte.tv/sites/en/webproductions/very-very-short/ [accessed 12 February 2018]
Interaction Design Foundation (2016) Affordances and Design. Available from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/affordances-and-design [accessed 6 February 2018]
Ismailov,D. (n.d.) The UX paradox : Why a non-intuitive user interface creates a great user experience. TechBeacon. Available from https://techbeacon.com/why-non-intuitive-user-interface-creates-great-user-experience [accessed 14 February 2018]
McKay, E. (2010) Intuitive UI: What the heck is it?. UX DesignEdge. Available from http://www.uxdesignedge.com/2010/06/intuitive-ui-what-the-heck-is-it/ [accessed 14 February 2018]
Nielsen, J. and Budiu, R.(2013) Mobile Usability. 1st edition. Berkeley: Pearson
Robinson, K. (2013) 3 Keys to develop a Faster, More Intuitive User Experience. Openview. Available from https://labs.openviewpartners.com/intuitive-user-experience-design/#.WocUE0x2uP8 [accessed 14 February 2018]
Statista (2018) Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2013 to 2019 (in billions). Available from https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/ [accessed 6 February 2018]
Weinschenk, S. (2011) The Secret to Designing an Intuitive UX. UX Magazine. Available from https://uxmag.com/articles/the-secret-to-designing-an-intuitive-user-experience [accessed 8 February 2018]
