Why are Usability and Fun opposed to each other? I don't think that they are mutually exclusive. There is an old post on my blog concerning fun in IxD - it's something that we need a lot more of. From this post: "It’s standard practice to design with our user’s goals in mind. Too often, though, we tend to focus only on the immediate goals: Send an Email, Download a File, Do my Taxes. Although we may produce usable and successful designs, we have ignored the user’s larger context.
They may be bored, tired, at work, grinding away at a long term deliverable. They may be entering countless rows of data into a spreadsheet. People love to have fun. Without sacrificing usability, let’s bring a little fun into our designs." - http://www.acleandesign.com/2008/11/fun-in-interaction-design/ Best, Loren ----- http://acleandesign.com http://twitter.com/lorenbaxter On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 4:51 AM, Nasir Barday <[email protected]<nbarday%[email protected]> > wrote: > Giving people a rewarding experience in exchange for learning a complex > interface is one tactic. But let's take a step back. It sounds like the > strategic goals here are twofold: > > -) Allow people to create their own products > -) Help them get to results that are good enough to buy > > Maybe instead of thinking of "fun" in the context of usability and slapping > engagement on a complex, flexible product (e.g. with snazzy transitions, > 'cool' graphical treatments, attitudey language, etc), you could first > think > of ways to make the product creator more engaging and satisfying to use > functionally. A potential t-shirt buyer has an idea in his/her head that > she > wants to make happen, e.g. "Sarah's 80s Party Bash." What if you give her > the right tools to help her along? For example, templates that give her a > satisfying head start, ensuring she will be happy with the results. Or a > color pallette for text and accents, based on the background color of the > piece (you could also let her pick her own colors, but make the suggested > colors more prominent). > > Goading people to buy becomes an easier task once the thing they've made is > sufficiently awesome in their eyes :-). > > - Nasir > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
