[Sigia-l] "The role of anti-marketing design"

[Jared M. Spool]

At 02:19 PM 3/7/2006, Listera wrote:
>Speaking of religious bigotry, our usability brethren often make a similar 
>accusation, citing sites that "test well" despite their lack of "good 
>looking" design and thereby reaching the faith-based conclusion that 
>design and performance aren't causally related. What's missing is any 
>proof showing an A/B comparison of the *same* site in two significantly 
>different configurations, one "poorly designed" and the other "well designed."

Lest our work be grouped into the above stereotype of "usability brethren":

1) We divide visual/graphic design into three categories: Content, 
Navigation, and Ornamental.

2) Our findings have continually found that well executed content and 
navigational graphics correlate highly to increased value of the user 
experience

3) Our findings have continually found that well executed ornamental design 
does not show any measurable correlation to the user experience.

4) We never talk about causality in our work. We have no way of measuring 
that with our current tools. We can only talk in terms of correlation.

5) We *have* done A/B comparisons with page designs that only differ in 
their ornamental visual appearance. While we do see that positional and 
weight changes correlate with behavior differences, pure visual appearance 
changes (color, imagery, tone, line weights, etc) rarely correlate with 
behavioral changes.

6) When we ask users to rate the quality of the design, it correlates far 
more to whether they complete their task or not than to any visual elements 
presented.

Of course, this is just what we've found in our studies. Others may have 
found different things. I'm a firm believer that "design" is what makes or 
breaks a user experience. I'm still trying to understand, through our 
empirical research, what the composition of "design" actually is.

>What needs to get eradicated before it becomes opium for the masses as 
>these anecdotal cases indicate is that design and performance are unrelated.

For every anecdotal case of Craigslist and MySpace, there's an iPod and 
Netflix. Just like fad diets ("Low carbs"), it's easier to think in terms 
of single variables than systemic interactions. I believe our challenge is 
to provide the tools and education that make good design the path of least 
resistance so that people don't have to think in these terms.

Jared


Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
4 Lookout Lane, Unit 4d, Middleton, MA 01949
978 777-9123   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks