To disconcert shoppers as a selling tool is hardly news. Supermarkets long ago learned to put the most frequently desired items at the rear of the store, forcing buyers to pass by isles of tempting impulse purchases. Moreover, related items can be placed nearby. Do people rush to the store to buy milk? Put the milk at the rear of the store, and put cookies nearby. Do they rush in to buy beer? Put the beer next to snacks. Similarly, at the checkout counter, display the small, last-minute items people might be tempted to buy while waiting in line. Creating these “point of purchase” displays has become a big business. I can even imagine stores deliberately slowing up the checkout procedure to give customers more time to make those last-minute, impulse purchases.
Once a customer has learned the shop or shelf layout, it is time to redo it, goes this marketing philosophy. Otherwise, a shopper wanting a can of soup will simply go directly to the soup and not notice any of the other enticing items. Rearranging the store forces the shopper to explore previously unvisited aisles. Similarly, rearranging how the soups are stored prevents the shopper from buying the same type of soup each time without ever trying any other variety. So shelves get rearranged, and related items are put nearby. Stores get restructured, and the most popular items are placed at the furthest ends of the store, with impulse items placed either adjacent or at the “end caps,” the ends of the aisles where they are most visible. There is a perverse set of usability principles at play here: make it difficult to buy the most desired items, and extremely easy for the impulse items.
When these tricks are used, it is critically important that the shopper not notice. Make the store layout appear normal. Indeed, make the disorientation part of the fun. Diesel gets away with their confusion because they are famous for it, because their clothes are very popular, and because wandering through the store is part of the experience. The same philosophy would not work for a hardware store. In the supermarket, the fact that milk or beer is at the farthest end of the store doesn’t appear deliberate, it seems natural. After all, the coolers are there at the back, which is where these items are kept. Of course, no one ever asks the real question, Why are the coolers located there?
Once shoppers realize that they are being manipulated in these ways, a backlash may occur whereby shoppers desert the manipulative stores and visit the ones that make their experiences more pleasant. Stores that try to profit through confusion often enjoy a meteoric rise in sales and popularity, but suffer a similar meteoric fall as well. The staid, conventional, helpful store is more stable, with neither the great ups nor the great downs in popularity. Yes, shopping can be a sensual, emotional experience, but it can also be a negative, traumatic one. But when stores do things correctly, when they understand “The Science of Shopping,” to use the subtitle of Paco Underhill’s book, then the experience can be both a positive emotional one for the shopper and a profitable one for the seller.
Just as the scary rides of an amusement park pit the anxiety and fear of the visceral level against the calm reassurance of the intellect, the Diesel store pits the initial confusion and anxiety at both the behavioral and reflective levels against the relief and welcome of the rescuing sales person. In both cases, the initial negative affect is necessary to set up the relief and delight at the end. In the park, the ride is now safely over, and the rider can reflect upon all the positive experiences of having successfully mastered the adventure. In the store, the relieved customer reflects back upon the calm guidance and reassurance offered by the salesperson. In the store, the customer is apt to bond with the salesperson, not unlike the “Stockholm syndrome,” in which kidnap victims develop such a positive emotional bond with their captors that, after they are freed and the captors in custody, they plead for mercy for the kidnappers. (The name comes from a bank robbery in the early 1970s in Stockholm, Sweden, where a hostage developed a romantic attachment to one of her captors.) But there is a real difference between these two cases. In the amusement park, the fear and excitement is the draw. It is public, advertised. In the Diesel store, it is artificial, manipulative. One is natural, the other not. Guess which will last over time.
Design by Committee Versus by an Individual
Although reflective thought is the essence of great literature and art, films and music, web sites and products, appealing to the intellect is no guarantee of success. Many well-acclaimed serious works of art and music are relatively unintelligible to the average person. I suspect they may even be unintelligible to those who proclaim them, for in the exalted realm of literature, art, and professional criticism, it would appear that when something can be clearly understood, it is judged as flawed, whereas when something is impenetrable, it must of necessity be good. And some items convey such subtle, hidden intellectual messages, that they are lost on the average viewer or user, perhaps lost on everyone except the creator and dutiful students in universities, listening to the learned critiques from their professors.
Consider the fate of Fritz Lang’s classic film “Metropolis,” “a wildly ambitious, hugely expensive science fiction allegory of filial revolt, romantic love, alienated labor and dehumanizing technology.” It was first shown in Berlin in 1926 but the American distributor, Paramount Films, complained that it was unintelligible. They hired Channing Pollock, a playwright, to reedit the film. Pollock complained that “symbolism ran such riot that people who saw it couldn’t tell what the picture was all about.” Whether or not one agrees with Pollock’s criticism, there is no doubt that too much intellectualism can certainly get in the way of pleasure and enjoyment. (Which, of course, is often beside the point: The purpose of a serious essay, movie, or piece of art is to educate and inform, not to amuse.)
There is a fundamental conflict between the preferences of the popular audience and the desires of the intellectual and artistic community. The case is most easily made with respect to movies, but also applies to all design as well as to serious music, art, literature, drama, and television.
Making a movie is a complex process. Hundreds of people are ultimately involved, with layers of producers, directors, screenwriters, cameramen, editors, and studio executives all having some legitimate say in the end product. Artistic integrity, a cohesive thematic approach, and deep substance seldom come from committees. The best designs come from following a cohesive theme throughout, with a clear vision and focus. Usually, such designs are driven by the vision of one person.
You may think that I am contradicting one of my standard design rules: test and redesign, test and redesign. I have long championed human-centered design, where a product undergoes continual revision based upon tests with potential users of the product. This is a time-tested, effective method for producing usable products whose end result fits the needs of the largest number of people. Why do I now claim that a single designer who has a clear model of the end product and ensures that it gets developed can be superior to that cautious design cycle of design, test, and then redesign?
The difference is that all my previous work focused upon behavioral design. I still maintain that an iterative, human-centered approach works well for behavioral design, but it is not necessarily appropriate for either the visceral or the reflective side. When it comes to these levels, the iterative method is design by compromise, by committee, and by consensus. This guarantees a result that is safe and effective, but invariably dull.
This is what happens with movies. Movie studio executives often subject movies to screen tests, where a film is shown to a test audience and their reactions gauged. As a result, scenes are deleted, story lines changed. Frequently an ending is changed to make it more comfortable to the viewers. All of this is done to increase the popularity and sales of the movie. The problem is that the director, cameramen, and writers are apt to feel that the changes have destroyed the soul of the film. Who to believe? I suspect both the test results and the opinions of the creative crew are valid.
Films are judged by a variety of standards. On the one hand, even an “inexpensive” film can cost milli
ons of dollars to produce, while an expensive one can cost hundreds of millions. A film can be both a major business investment and an artistic statement.
Business versus art or literature: the debate is real and appropriate. In the end, the decision is whether one wishes to be an artist making a statement, in which case profits are irrelevant, or a business person, changing the film or product to make it appeal to as many people as possible, even at the cost of artistic merit. Want a popular film, one that appeals to the masses? Show the film to test audiences and revise. Want an artistic masterpiece? Hire a great creative crew that you can trust.
Henry Lieberman, a research scientist at the MIT Media Laboratory has described the case against “design by committee” most eloquently, so let me simply repeat his words here:The brilliant conceptual artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid conducted surveys asking people questions like, What’s your favorite color? Do you prefer landscapes to portraits? Then they produced exhibitions of perfectly “user-centered art.” The results were profoundly disturbing. The works were completely lacking in innovation or finesse of craftsmanship, disliked even by the very same survey respondents. Good art is not an optimal point in a multidimensional space; that was, of course, their point. Perfectly “user-centered design” would be disturbing as well, precisely because it would lack that artistry.
One thing is certain, this debate is fundamental: it will continue as long as the creators of art, music, and performance are not the same people as those who must pay to get them distributed to the world. If you want a successful product, test and revise. If you want a great product, one that can change the world, let it be driven by someone with a clear vision. The latter presents more financial risk, but it is the only path to greatness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Fun and Games
PROFESSOR HIROSHI ISHII of the MIT Media Laboratory runs back and forth, eager to show me all his exhibits. “Pick up a bottle,” he says, standing in front of a colorfully lit stand of glass bottles. I do so and am rewarded by a playful tune. I pick up a second bottle and another instrument joins in, playing in harmony with the first. Pick up the third bottle, and the instrumental trio is complete. Put down one of the bottles and the instrument associated with it stops. I’m intrigued, but Hiroshi is anxious for me to experience more. “Here, look at this,” Hiroshi is calling from the other side of the room, “try this.” What is going on? I don’t know, but it certainly is fun. I could spend the whole day there.
But Hiroshi has more delights to show. Imagine trying to play table tennis on a school of fish, as in figure 4.1. There they are, swimming about the table, their images delivered by a projector located in the ceiling above the table. Each time the ball hits the table surface, the ripples spread out and the fish scatter. But the fish can’t get away—it’s a small table, and no matter where the fish go, the ball soon scatters them again. Is this a good way to play table tennis? No, but that’s not what it’s about: it’s about fun, delight, the pleasure of the experience.
FIGURE 4.1
Table tennis on top of a school of fish.
“Ping Pong Plus.” Images of water and a school of fish are projected onto the surface of the ping pong table. Each time the ball hits the table, the computer senses its position, causing the images of ripples to spread out from the ball and the fish to scatter.
(Courtesy of Hiroshi Ishii of the MIT Media Laboratory.)
Fun and pleasure, alas, are not topics often covered by science. Science can be too serious, and even when it attempts to examine the issues surrounding fun and pleasure, its very seriousness becomes a distraction. Yes, there are conferences on the scientific basis of humor, of fun (“funology” is the name given to this particular endeavor), but this is a difficult topic and progress is slow. Fun is still an art form, best left to the creative minds of writers, directors, and other artists. But the lack of scientific understanding should not get in the way of our enjoyment. Artists often pave the way, exploring approaches to human interaction that science then struggles to understand. This has long been true in drama, literature, art, and music, and it is these areas that provide lessons for design. Fun and games: a worthwhile pursuit.
Designing Objects for Fun and Pleasure
Why must information be presented in a dull, dreary fashion, such as in a table of numbers? Most of the time we don’t need actual numbers, just some indication of whether the trend is up or down, fast or slow, or some rough estimate of the value. So why not display the information in a colorful manner, continually available in the periphery of attention, but in a way that delights rather than distracts? Once again, Professor Ishii suggests the means: Imagine colorful pinwheels spinning above your head, enjoyable to contemplate, but where the rate of spin is meaningful, perhaps coupled to the outside temperature, or maybe volume of traffic on the roads you use for your daily commute, or for any statistic that is useful to watch. Do you need to be reminded to do something at a specific time? Why not have the pinwheels increase their speed as the time approaches, the higher rate of speed being more likely to attract your attention and, simultaneously, to indicate the urgency. Spinning pinwheels? Why not? Why not have information displayed in a pleasant, comfortable way?
Technology should bring more to our lives than the improved performance of tasks: it should add richness and enjoyment. A good way to bring fun and enjoyment to our lives is to trust in the skill of artists. Fortunately, there are many around.
Consider the pleasure of the Japanese lunchbox, which started as a simple work lunch. In the box lunch you can enjoy a wide assortment of foods, wide enough so that even if you do not like some of the entrées, there are other choices. The box is small, yet fully packed, which poses an aesthetic challenge to the chef. In the best of cases (figure 4.2), the result is a work of art: art meant to be consumed. The Japanese industrial designer Kanji Ekuan has suggested that the aesthetics of the Japanese lunchbox is an excellent metaphor for design. This lunchbox, divided into small compartments, each with five or six types of food, packs twenty to twenty-five colors and flavors within its small space. Ekuan describes it this way:the cook . . . would naturally be disappointed if the result of such an effort were eaten without a glance or a second thought, (so) he or she works to make lunchbox meals so attractive that guests are actually reluctant to take up their chopsticks and begin eating. But even so, it is only a matter of time before the masterwork is consumed. The guest senses the formal layout even as he proceeds to break up the perfected layout. This is the inherent and paradoxical relationship between the provision and the acceptance of beauty.
FIGURE 4.2
The cover of Kenji Ekuan’s book The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox.
The book illustrates how design should incorporate depth, beauty, and utility. Ekuan demonstrates that the lunchbox is a metaphor for much of Japanese design philosophy. It is art meant to be consumed. It follows the philosophy more is better, offering an assortment of foods so that everyone can find something to their taste. It originated as a practical, working person’s lunch, so it combines function, practicality, and beauty—as well as an exercise in philosophy.
(Photograph by Takeshi Doi, with permission of Doi, Ekuan and MIT Press.)
The crowded nature of the lunchbox has many virtues. It forces attention to detail in the arrangement and presentation of the food. This essence of design, packing a lot into a small space while maintaining an aesthetic sense, says Ekuan, is the essence of much of Japan’s design for high technology, where one goal is “to establish multifunctionality and miniaturization as equal values. Packing numerous functions into something and making it smaller and thinner are contradictory aims, but one had to pursue contradiction to the limit to find a solution.”
The trick is to compress multiple functions into limited space in a way that does not compromise the various dimensions of design. Ekuan clearly prizes beauty—aesthetics—first. “A sense of beauty that lauds lightness and simplicity,” he continues, “desire th
at precipitates functionality, comfort, luxury, diversity. Fulfillment of beauty and its concomitant desire will be the aim of design in the future.”
Beauty, fun, and pleasure all work together to produce enjoyment, a state of positive affect. Most scientific studies of emotion have focused upon the negative side, upon anxiety, fear, and anger, even though fun, joy, and pleasure are the desired attributes of life. The climate is changing, with articles and books on “positive psychology” and “well-being” becoming popular. Positive emotions trigger many benefits: They facilitate coping with stress. They are essential to people’s curiosity and ability to learn. Here is how the psychologists Barbara Fredrickson and Thomas Joiner describe positive emotions:positive emotions broaden people’s thought-action repertoires, encouraging them to discover novel lines of thought or action. Joy, for instance, creates the urge to play, interest creates the urge to explore, and so on. Play, for instance, builds physical, socioemotional, and intellectual skills, and fuels brain development. Similarly, exploration increases knowledge and psychological complexity.
It doesn’t take much to transform otherwise dull data into a bit of fun. Contrast the style of three major internet search companies. Google stretches out its logo to fit the number of results in a playful, jolly way (figure 4.3). Several people have told me how much they look forward to seeing just how long the Gooooogle will get. But Yahoo, Microsoft network (MSN), and many other sites forgo any notion of fun, and instead present the straightforward results in an unimaginative, orderly way. Small point? Yes, but a meaningful one. Google is known as a playful, fun site—as well as a very useful one—and this playful distortion of its logo helps reinforce this brand image: Fun for the user of the site, good reflective design, and good for business.
Emotional Design Page 10