Design + Science
Validating designs is and always will be scientific.
As a product designer who recently graduated college with a Bachelors in Science, it’s pretty clear to me that there’s a strong connection between UX design and scientific logic. I never questioned the relationship until I came across Emily Stevens’ piece, Is UX Design A Science?, which lays out arguments for and against relating the two. Although user experience is derived from cognitive science, many designers believe the two should not be too closely aligned. They think scientists are problem-focused while designers are solution-focused, and that aligning too closely with a scientific method will provide cookie cutter results. Personally, there is no doubt that every designer follows a process that is scientific in nature.
Think back to your first middle school science course. Your teacher (hopefully) introduced the class to the scientific method — an ever-changing process designed “to collect measurable empirical evidence in an experiment related to a hypothesis.” This ultimately provides a “result aiming to support or contradict a theory.” The scientific method allows you to create a question based on developing a deep understanding of the subject. Based on the question a hypothesis is formed. You create experiments (iterations) to test that hypothesis and analyze the results to confirm or disprove your theory.
Proxy Showings, for example, shows how the process works in practice. The app for real estate agents started as a Venture project at Underbelly, which gives two team members a chance to turn their best idea into reality by supporting their efforts for increments of three months. Designer Jeff Smith gained a deep understanding of real estate through his personal experiences, and derived a solution to save real estate agents time by automatically booking home showings for them. Seeing the iterations it took to test his hypothesis and prove/disprove his theories show the iterative scientific process it takes to validate designs. View the Proxy case study here.
In Stevens’ article, she offers two arguments against relating design processes and scientific methods. She quotes designer Jeff Mueller saying,
“Designers have been forced to view their profession through the lens of science … As we’ve been asked to justify every decision through reasoned logic, analytical proof, and evidence, designers feel less compelled to rely on instinct. Instead we apply established paradigms or use inane ‘data’ to make choices. At best, it provides bland cookie cutter results. At worst it leads to bogus interpretation of bogus data … It leads to poor choices and bad design.”
As designers gain a deeper understanding of users and develop a question, they hypothesize based on instinct. This intuition is defined through research and empathizing with your user to avoid these cookie cutter results.
Stevens also quotes Professor Nigel Cross saying to avoid confusion between design and science:
“The solution is not simply lying there among the data, like the dog among the spots in the well-known perceptual puzzle; it has to be actively constructed by the designer’s own effort.”
Relying on data collected does not do your research justice. To get the most out of data collected you must use it to iterate on the successes and flaws within your experiment/test until you’ve reached a point where the product is viable for the user.
No matter how you spin it, there’s no way to escape the scientific nature of user experience design. The methods lay out, theorize, test, and validate your designs to create an ideal product for the user. Design is objective in nature so as our projects change, so do the processes we use to find answers to our questions. This holds true for the scientific method, which has been constantly amended to fit the times since it was developed centuries ago.
We would love to hear your take on whether you think UX design is a science or not. Comment below or join us on Twitter to share your opinion!
