Photo Dario Cardona, La Patria, Colombia

The last decade in Manizales, where I live in Colombia, there has been a proliferation of call centers that offer customer services of different companies in Latin America and Spain. This make me wonder if the solution for bad information design and corporate communication has cause this call center increment. I also have felt that every year I use more call centers, to clarify services, make questions or whatever according to circumstances. Of course, I don’t have evidence about the correlation between bad information and the increment of call centers. But I do know that many information need a better design. See example below about phone company bill from Manizales (Emtelsa).

If you ask a designer which part of this visual information has the highest visual hierarchy, probably he or she would say that the number “51″ and text “Monday through Friday”. According to visual hierarchy design principle size, contrast and position define the order of visualization. However, designers always see through designers’ glasses; real world interactions are different. In a brochure with 3 tables like this above (Monday-Friday, Saturday and Sunday) I have asked people to find Saturday schedule and write down a departure time to arrive at 2pm to a destination.  Most of them focus on time tables and have written Monday-Friday time and then they realize later of the mistake correcting the answer. Some people even realize the mistake.

This means that a given goal changes the visual hierarchy principle. This issue leads me to think that visual hierarchy might be not a principle at all because people in real world interactions, that usually have a goal to achieve, definitely is not to see how the design manages contrast, size and position. I have found myself missing tittles or subtitles when I read journals, books, websites and so on. So, design research has a lot to do to study the traditional design principles that have been established for so long in the design schools.

PS A final thought: should high hierarchy information be part of details and pop up from them?

Part of my current summer fellowship is that subjects have to find a room inside a building. It is biomedical informatics 125, which is in floor 10. Subjects can not ask anyone for directions. I designed the experiment hoping that user will go an look at the directory, study it, and go to the correct floor; however, subjects forget biomedical informatics, and look for room 125 in the entrance level. The directory becomes noise and most of the people start to look at every room number in the 1st floor. Of course, there is a serious problem with the experiment design. I did not realize that the 100 number is a very strong standard in the people for first floor. Indeed, this reveals a numbering problem in the building.

Besides, I have seen that many people relies on others to find places. Why bother trying to process visual information if you can ask people everywhere that have very good mental maps because the are everyday users? This issue leads me to think that the design of signage is a very complex problem that designers poorly have solved. The everyday users of the directory have different rooms to go; but there is still much to learn to make visual information more versatile for people.

I got my Design Council newsletter today. It has a quite old user-centered design article (2007) that made me recall some questions I have about the diverse design ideas and methods today. The article makes interesting comments about how design is still focused on companies rather than users. Most of the claims were not new like the Norman principles but anyway highly worth. The article suggests that one should be cautious about the issues you ask users. It uses the meaning quote from Henry Ford: “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.” I find this quote is very inspiring. Also, the article recommends that the designer must look at how users actually behave, not what they say they do. I agree that user-center design approach is the way for efficient objects whatever they are, but is efficiency the only need?

It seems that design practitioners that are applying user-centered design are refining the way they understand users. This is very good for design and for users. However, I just wonder if this method alone is enough for society’s needs. I believe that although user-centered design is necessary, it is an incomplete method that should be connected to an integral idea of design. Think for example in sustainability, can design be green and user-centered at the same time? I’d say that it should be. It happens too with other “new designs” like social design, universal design and so on. Design practice should be integral, not only efficient, not only green, not only inclusive, but all of them.

Currently, I am doing a summer fellowship. I am studying how intelligence and mood affect the way people use visual information in physical and digital spaces. This is my exploratory stage and I only need 20 students from 2 colleges. So far I have 11 volunteers but everyday is more difficult to get new ones. I have seen some difficulties for this. First, the 90 minutes session is quite long because I am collecting qualitative data. Initially I thought that it was short, and it really is, but free time is not abundant today.  Second, people need good compensation to motivate them. I decided to ask the university review board for introducing a small amount gift card. Third, if you are unknown, people do not feel confident. I believe that people have decided not participate because they do not know me.

For future projects it is essential to think about easy recruitment. For example, professors and their student groups with some affiliation to the project. If the project is with teenagers, one can look for high school partners. Besides, reducing the time as much as possible might be good. However, shorter times make projects more quantitative prone. Thus, this will depend on the research design.

This is my second attempt to have a regular blog, now hosted in my school site (disenovisual.com). The first one (mauriciomejia.wordpress.com) was written in Spanish. Now, I decided to do it in English because there is a broader audience. I hope that readers will enjoy my notes.