On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 9:29 PM, Stephen Michel <[email protected]> wrote:
> In the context of our recent discussion > <https://lists.snowdrift.coop/pipermail/design/2015-September/000096.html> > about the home page... > > Here's a pretty common thing that happens in communication between a user > (Bob) and a designer (Alice). > > *Bob's Perspective:* Bob wants to give Alice some feedback about an email > application he uses. Bob keeps hitting the delete button when he means to > hit the save button. He wants to give good feedback, so he brainstorms a > bit, and finally tells Alice that he thinks the application would be better > if the save button were bigger. Alice replies, saying she won't make the > save button any bigger. Bob is frustrated, and argues back with Alice. > > *Alice's Perspective:* Bob emailed Alice with a suggestion to make the > save button bigger. However, if Alice did that, it would break the > aesthetic of the application, and moreover, she's not sure if it would > actually solve Bob's problem! Alice is frustrated, because she's arguing > with Bob, and because Bob has an unsolved issue. > > *Analysis:* When Bob sends Alice only a suggestion, Alice is left with > only two actionable options: implement (bad because Bob's suggestion > introduces new problems) or not (she can also follow up with Bob, but Bob's > still attached to his solution and upset it didn't happen). The problem is > twofold: in his zeal to provide good feedback, Bob is actually providing a > suggestion -- essentially, doing design work -- rather than feedback. > However, he can't be expected to know what would be most helpful without > Alice letting him know what kind of feedback is helpful. As it is, Alice is > stuck trying to work backwards from Bob's suggestion to exactly what his > problem is. > > What should really happen, is a discussion between Alice and Bob to figure > out what Bob's issues is (for example, the 'save' and 'delete' buttons are > too close to each other and have icons that are too similar). Then Alice > has the flexibility to design a solution that fixes Bob's problem without > introducing new issues. > > It's also worth mentioning that if Bob provides only a suggestion, then > even if Alice follows up with, "I'm not going to implement that particular > suggestion but let's try to figure out a better one," Bob is still left > with a sour taste in his mouth because he has a tendency to become attached > to his solution. > > With that in mind, I'm going to try to give a bunch of feedback such that > we can have a discussion about what should change, rather than arguing > about whether the scene needs more trees. More indented --> more specific > suggestions --> more change-able as long as the higher-level stuff doesn't > change. > > --- > > *I believe that our landing page should provide a 1-second emotional > explanation of why we care (or, why an arbitrary internet user should care) > about Snowdrift.coop.* > *"Together, we can uncover this awesome thing that's currently being > suppressed."* > - They'll get a longer explanation of why they should care deeper into the > site, but I think this is important as a hook, to get them to be invested > immediately and keep them reading. > > *Thoughts on how to achieve this.* > - I don't think a sense of "path" is important. > - I think a sense of "barren wasteland" is important to *keep.* > - HOWEVER, I also think there needs to be a sense of "If we cleared away > this snow, it'd be a vibrant place!" I think this is the sense of vibrancy > that Aaron was missing. Unlike Aaron, I don't think it needs to be explicit. > - I think having something like a streak of green on a tree could have > this effect. > - I think version 27 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/older%20exports/export27/landing.png> > is the worst offender in this regard. It feels like if you cleared away the > snow, you'd still be standing in the middle of a tundra. > - Bonus points if there's a sense of the awesome thing being communal / a > community. > - I think the houses in the background in version 1 do this well. > - I think the latest, version 33 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/export33/landing.png>, > does this better than version 32 > <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mray/Snowdrift-Design/master/mray%20website%20mockups%20/export30/landing.png>, > because the mountain in the background is a little more prominent. > - I also personally like it because there's less of that blue strip > next to the path. I really don't like that strip of blue. > - I'm talking about visuals. I think it's supposed to give a sense of > a snowbank, but only because I've seen previous iterations. As it is, it > just looks like a flat shape on the ground. It barely even gives me a sense > of depth. It's really hard for me to look at the picture because it's *SO* > flat. v33 does help with this, but only a little. > > To enforce your mail a bit, the situation you describe above is well know as the XY Problem: http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/66378 > Cheers, > Stephen > > _______________________________________________ > Design mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.snowdrift.coop/mailman/listinfo/design > > -- Vincent
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