Before this class, I thought that user interface design was mainly based on what the designer thinks would look aesthetically pleasing while preserving the brand’s design language. I thought that designers would be the ones steering the creative design of the product. I assumed that things like color palettes, button design, and menu choice were all aspects of a product that would be chosen arbitrarily. This class challenged this way of thinking.
In this class, we were exposed to the psychological theories that inform UX researchers on how to best empathize with the user so that the product’s design can best meet their needs, not a target aesthetic like I originally thought. For example, we learned about psychological anchors, reciprocity’s power, and anticipation’s motivational potential. These concepts become an integral part of shaping our final solution’s design and philosophy, consistently making us consider alternative design choices to maximize the motivational influence that is conducive to behavior change. Our app explored the intersection of how people build and maintain relationships and how people learn languages, both of which benefit from finding ways to stay consistent.
We viewed the decision to learn a foreign language to better connect with a loved one as an act of love due to the large time commitment that it requires. Couples are intrinsically motivated to do things that would benefit their partner. They might move into the same space, despite maybe having less individual privacy; they might listen to a new genre of music to make the other person happy; they may shower their partner with gifts. Our solution attempts to focus this strong motivation towards their attempt to learn a new language. From our research, we learned that oftentimes people would stop practicing a language that they were learning because they would not have anyone whom they could practice it with.
By involving their partner in their language learning journey, we would (hopefully) be connecting them with someone who wants to see them succeed, someone who already has high proficiency in their partner’s target language, and someone whom they will probably be using their new language skills with. Since our solution would rely on the language learner’s partner to nudge them to continue, this motivation is much more natural and powerful than a push notification that would most likely be lost in the sea of notifications from other unrelated apps. In this way, our app is less manipulative than competitors that rely on mascots scolding and harassing users for not having enough screen time on their app. By offering a platform for couples to accumulate memories they’ve had throughout their language learning journey, they can grow together and have excuses to make new memories, consistently practicing in a real-world environment that replicates the use cases that they will engage in after becoming proficient, like communicating with their partner and their family.
Our project respects our users’ privacy by keeping the personal conversations of our users, which can be extremely private due to the subject of our app (love), only accessible to each partner rather than a public forum like Facebook or X. We expect our app users to have password protected accounts and have access only to their partner’s messages, not any other couples’ messages. We hope to implement a feature to be able to unlink partners so that if the couple breaks up they have ownership over their data and messages. Otherwise, we could imagine a disgruntled partner potentially using the contents of the messages exchanged through our app to blackmail or embarrass their ex-partner. Ideally, we would encrypt messages sent through our platform to help anonymize user data in the case of a data center hack or leak that could violate users’ privacy. Moreover, the data used by the AI assistant should be monitored closely to prevent others from prompt engineering unintentional data leaks or inappropriate data use by the AI assistant itself.
Now, I think that user experience design is mainly driven by the user and their specific needs. Aesthetics should not be the end goal. Aesthetics are simply another tool in a designer’s toolkit to help guide users towards their goals. These goals are not set by the designer but by the user. Therefore, designers must learn from the user. A designer should consider the following questions: Where are our users now? Where do they want to be? What is stopping them from being there? If possible, what can be done to clear the path to their goal? Otherwise, how can we leverage what the user already knows and does to navigate the problem space? I think the elephant rider metaphor that was presented in class best summarizes what a designer’s role should be: the designer, like the elephant rider, should take advantage of their ability to look ahead and appropriately guide the elephant– the user– along the path.
Next time when faced with a similar situation, I will prioritize understanding the user’s needs and motivations through research methods like user interviews and usability testing. This will ensure the design caters to their specific goals, not just what appears aesthetically pleasing. By employing empathy and psychological theories, I can craft solutions that leverage the user’s intrinsic motivators and existing behavior patterns to achieve success.
