Can I use a formula to calculate the user experience?

Can I use a formula to calculate the user experience?

My search for a formula to calculate the user experience comes from an experiment where I can calculate the cognitive loading time of a design. When we talk about the loading speed of an application, we often focus on the loading time of the interface, but we forget that understanding an interface also takes time, known as "cognitive loading time." But as I study this problem more and more, I am increasingly aware that loading time-both on the interface and in cognition-can be just a small part of a more important question: Is it possible to quantify the user experience?

The problem with the user experience is that--just like psychology--it's very vague. A lot of people, including me, are talking about how to improve the user experience and talk about what might affect the user experience, but it seems impossible to quantify or compute the UX (the following will replace the user experience with UX).

Of course, you can use questionnaires or interviews to understand how your product experiences, but the results you get from these methods are qualitative. It is not wrong to pass qualitative data or to let users tell the product to be good or bad, but you can't trust people's opinions. What people tell you is often part of the truth and is easily influenced by external factors. Cognitive biases make it difficult to accurately describe their use experience.

Then it would be great if we could figure out a formula to calculate the UX excellence of your product. This is not to say that you can not communicate with the user, but that having such a formula will make the work of the UX more clear. The idea of "finding a formula to figure out the UX excellence of the product" made me very excited, so I decided to try it out!

Decomposition

The first thing we need to do is break the UX down into small parts that are easy to quantify. What aspects can affect the UX of a product? This thinking is in fact throughout the "design of a clear and understandable product" process, there are many factors affecting the user's use of the product experience.

Interface Loading time

V Interface =v Network +v server +v device +v code

The loading time of the interface is easy to quantify. It is well known that the loading time of the interface has a huge impact on the UX of a product. If your software is slow, users become impatient, and if the speed is extremely slow, users may abandon your product altogether. Google's research has found that people will reduce the number of times they use the site as long as the response time is 400 milliseconds slower than the original.

The interface speed of a product can be subdivided into smaller factors: the speed of the network, the speed of the server, the velocity of the hardware device, and the quality of the product itself (the code part). In our formula, I will use V to express speed.

V Network

The connection speed of the network is not what we can change, but it has a huge impact on the UX of a product. It is important to note that regardless of whether users think that the slow speed is a product problem or a network connection problem, you can use a variety of methods to guide the user's ideas, including choosing a suitable loading animation.

V Equipment

You can't change the hardware that your users use-even though you can make your product support newer devices only. For example, you can let the product not support the old to slow down the speed of the device. Naturally, this involves a better choice between "no product" and "slow product".

V Server

I (a designer) actually do not understand the principle of server running speed, but I have a partner Petar Radoševi? Assure me that the server you choose affects the speed of application and database response, which will affect the load speed of the entire software. Therefore, we cannot ignore the response speed of the server when calculating the speed.

V Code

The final part of the interface loading speed is the product's code itself. After working with Joeri and Petar for many years, I was able to understand how hard it would be to write the query instruction set as fast as possible. So just to get the string to run is not up to my expectations, try to write beautiful and efficient code.

Cognitive load-in time

V Cognitive =ic/(N*DX)

The cognitive loading speed of the product is the starting point for me to start the study. I found this to be a particularly interesting subject because it is a very important embodiment of an excellent UX. This is the intersection of design and psychology, and the place where a lot of pixels are turned into flattened images, because the human brain can translate pixel points into meaningful interfaces. One might ask, "What is this cognitive loading speed?" "Don't worry, it's a very simple concept, especially for you, a person who's always working with a computer."

The cognitive loading theory was first presented by G.a.miller in the 50 's. He mentions this theory in a paper that tells of the inherent limits of human working memory. He argues that working memory (such as numbers, text, or visual elements) can only be remembered by the brain at most 7 (±2) fragments at a time. The brain's working memory is actually about the same as the computer's memory, and it handles all the input information. Dr. Graham Cooper, in his 1998-year research paper, drew a picture explaining the theory:

Complexity of the Ic= interface

The complexity of the interface plays a huge role in sensory loading. If your product has a complex interface with a wide variety of elements, its cognitive loading time will be very long, that is, users need more time to understand your product, the results will lead to a decline in user goodwill. This is not a good UX design if an interface makes it difficult for users to understand or to create uncomfortable and insecure feelings. That's why designing a simple and comfortable interface is not just about avant-garde designers, because every design is completely necessary to make the user feel controlled. This leads to a happier and more confident user who will decide faster.

n= access times

Dx= Experience Expectations

Although the complexity of the interface is a key determinant of the speed of cognitive loading, there are two other important factors that can counteract the benefits it brings. N, the number of times a user has experienced your product in the past; DX, the user's general experience with this large class of software is expected. For example, although a product has a complex interface, but the user has experienced similar products before, then his cognitive load is still very small. This means that if the user has used a lot of similar products before, the complexity of the product is no longer a problem for him. This can explain why experienced old users are more efficient in the face of a complex but long-running interface than when faced with a redesigned, simple interface, because the new interface makes their original experience useless.

Writing here, we can add the interface speed and the cognitive speed to calculate the total product needs of the speed.

V Interface =v Network +v server +v device +v code

V Cognitive =ic/(N*DX)

V=v Interface +v Cognition

Now we have a clear understanding of what the speed of the product will involve. However, fast is still only a small part of a good UX design, which is why it is difficult to calculate the UX, perhaps I need everyone's help to brainstorm.

Use

P=b+s

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the basic component of a robust UX is purpose. A software product must have a purpose to provide value. If a product is useless, there is no user to experience your UX at all. The purpose of a product is individual, but generally consists of two factors:

b= Benefits

Users are going to use a particular product because they believe it will benefit themselves. These benefits can be access to information, social, informational, or just happiness.

s= status

After we started studying human behavior, we thought that one of the factors that could not be overlooked was status. The promotion of status is a powerful force that drives people to act. If a product can improve the social status of users, it will also improve the user's own enthusiasm for using the product.

Interaction

I=e+c

i= Interactive Design

When designers want to improve the UX of their products, the most they consider is the interactive design of the product. As a designer, this is one of the most easily promoted factors. But the problem is that, under the influence of "chasing Waves", young designers will think that excellent aesthetic design is the whole of excellent UX design.

E= Aesthetics

Although I do not want to admit it, the aesthetic factor is really just a small part of a good UX design. Designers – including me – like to overestimate the impact of their designs on UX and the overall success of the product. But as you read in this article, there are too many factors to determine whether an UX design is successful, UX design is a team sport and not just a designer's own business.

c= Communication

Last but not least, communication is also important. Communication includes everything from the interface's copywriting to the customer service mail. Communication with users should be humane, cordial, thoughtful and with a little sense of humor. Everyone wants to be treated kindly, your product is the sound you make, so please treat the user wisely and kindly.

Magic formula

If you're still reading my article here, thank you and congratulations on seeing it! After you read all of the above, we now have all the bricks needed to build a great UX design. If I have forgotten anything-this is unavoidable-please let me know on Twitter @WdeB. Now can we create a magic formula that can calculate the quality of the UX? Let's give it a try. Mathematicians and physicists, please take a detour.

V Interface =v Network +v server +v device +v code

V Cognitive =ic/(N*DX)

V=v Interface +v Cognition

P=b+s

I=e+c

ux= (p*i)/V

Conclusion

Can we decipher the UX password now? Instead of communicating with the user, we can only use the computational formula to know if the UX is good enough? No, that's not true at all. First, the purpose of deriving this formula is to discover the various factors that affect UX design. Secondly, many of the factors mentioned above are almost impossible to quantify, so this formula is difficult to actually use.

But at least we know that a good UX design is more than just a nice interface, and the interface is just part of the equation. To complete the equation is not just a designer, but the responsibility of everyone in the company-from back-end engineers to customer service. Perhaps this equation can help us discover where the product is strong and where it is weak, but as I mentioned in the previous blog, the use is the key to a successful UX design. Loading speed, communication and aesthetic design can be easily improved, but only use is the core of your product.

This article turns from: Bole online

Can I use a formula to calculate the user experience?