Mirror, Mirror, on the Screen by David Moskovic.
From the post:
According to Don Norman (author of Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things) there are three levels of cognitive processing. The visceral level is the most immediate and is the one marketing departments look to when trying to elicit trigger responses and be persuasive. Behavioral processing is the middle level, and is the concern of traditional usability or human factors practitioners designing for ergonomics and ease of use. The third level is reflective processing.
Reflective processing is when our desires for uniqueness and cultural or aesthetic sophistication influence our preferences. Simply put, it is about seeing ourselves positively reflected in the products we use. What that means to individuals and their own self-images is highly subjective (see the picture at upper-left), however—and again according to Norman—designing for reflection is the most powerful way to build long-term product/user relationships.
Unfortunately, reflective processing is often dismissed by interaction designers as a style question they shouldn’t concern themselves with. To be fair, applying superficial style has too often been used in ways that cause major usability issues—a fairly common occurrence with brand websites for consumer packaged goods. One that comes to mind (although perhaps not the most egregious) is Coors.com, with its wood paneling background image where the navigation gets lost. It is superficial style with no reflective trade-off because not only is its usability quite poor, it is also completely product-centric rather than customer-centric. On the flip side, and what seems to be a recurring problem, is that many very usable digital products and services fail to generate the levels of adoption, engagement, and retention their creators were after because they lack that certain je ne sais quoi that connects with users at a deeper level.
The point of this article is to make the case for reflective processing design in a way that does not detract from usability’s chief concerns. When reflection-based design goes deeper than superficial stylization tricks and taps into our reflected sense of self, products become much more rewarding and life-enhancing, and have a higher potential for a more engaged and longer-lasting customer relationship.
Equally important, and deserving of attention from a UX and user-centered design perspective, is the fact that products that successfully address the reflective level are almost unanimously perceived as more intuitive and easier to use. Norman famously makes that case by pointing out how the original iPod click-wheel navigation was perhaps not the most usable solution but was perceived as the easiest because of Apple’s amazing instinct for reflection-based design.
Questions:
1. Does your application connect with your customers at a deeper level?
Or
2. Does your application connect with your developers at a deeper level?
If #2 is yes, hope your developers buy enough copies to keep the company afloat.
Otherwise, work to make the answer to #1 yes.
See David’s post for suggestions.
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