Dotting the Connections: Great User Experience is an Emergent Phenomenon
You’ve heard it before: a lonely tree falls in a remote forest; with no humans around to witness the event, the riddle asks us to wonder whether any sound is produced when the tree meets the ground. As a thought experiment, this classic riddle is a terrific example of how a shift in paradigm produces opposite and equally valid answers, in this case the classic rival world views of rationalism and empiricism. The rationalist, or Cartesian, thinker holds that since we know the impact of tree to ground produces vibrational pressure waves in the surrounding air – sound – as a phenomenon independent of any observer, it’s clear a sound is produced. Engineers (of which I’m one) are trained to think this way; we’re all supposed to get the same answers in the problem set by using the same, prescribed equations in the proper order, the same answers listed in the back of the textbook.
The empiricist is quick to point out, though, that the rationalist’s inherent properties of the tree/ground impact – vibration, pressure, wave, air, sound – are all linguistic constructs of an observer’s mind describing sensory experiences. Certainly a tree (or its new friend, the ground) has no knowledge of pressure waves; it’s just being a tree in the world. So without the observer there to have the experience and assign the name “sound”, there is no sound.
In their sweeping book, The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi assert a particularly powerful paradigm shift is underway in the world towards “systems thinking”, where we must change our focus from subject and object as the defining elements of our worldview, to the relationship between the two as primary: “Qualities arise from processes and patterns of relationships among the parts.” In other words, the tree question is perhaps the wrong one to ask from the get-go because it presumes the independent objectivity of tree and listener. Consider instead, “If there’s a tree fall sound, do we know there’s both a tree and an observer?”
For a fun and easy example, think about symmetry – we only assign the property of symmetry when otherwise independent elements have a certain relationship with each other. Color is a somewhat more slippery yet more illustrative example. Color is a quality arising from a sensory relationship between our eyes and an object, catalyzed by the presence of light. The object does not “have” or “own” color as an inherent property (more so, nor is the object that color). The quality of color only emerges in our relationship with the object in the presence of light.
I’m reminded of Steve Jobs, who said “creativity is just connecting things.” While I recognize Jobs is talking about the importance of curiosity and non judgemental observation in building something like a mental database of experiences to be eventually mined in the future for innovations by bringing together previously unconnected pieces, I can’t help but see something deeper. Isn’t the implication here that the innovation lives in the relationship between the two newly connected things, or actually is the relationship? In that sense, we can say the innovation is an emergent quality arising from the new relationship; there’s no hint of the innovation in either thing on its own.
Emergent phenomena have been observed as such for a very long time; Aristotle discussed the concept. Modern philosophers of the early 20th century, however, pointed to emergence in their efforts to question the prevailing paradigm of Cartesian reductionism as the be-all and end-all approach to understanding the universe, in part prompting the development of “systems thinking” mentioned above. Certainly the confidence we’ve built in science and engineering by looking to constituent parts to explain the whole is a valuable thing, as I’m reminded every time I drive across the Golden Gate Bridge or fly halfway around the world in a Boeing 787. In design, though, more deeply rooted in experiential and linguistic domains, a systems view of the world around us leads to more compelling insights and powerful innovations than a Cartesian, sum-of-the-parts approach.
At one level, users’ relationships with designed artifacts (physical or virtual) comprise the entirety of their experience with them; the relationship and the experience are one and the same. Well designed products seem to insert themselves smoothly into our lives, improving our experience of moving through the world without disrupting the flow. Poorly designed products are annoying and disruptive, even if the results of their use objectively produce the intended outcomes. An awkward and inefficient bicycle will still get me to my destination. Of course, as designers, we’re more interested in the former result, but either way it’s fairly plain to see that our experience lives entirely within our relationship with the product. Studying the spec sheet, the CAD models, the PCBA layout, the firmware code or the color/material/finish call-outs predicts very little about the quality of our eventual experience. Those are all reductive, quantitative descriptors of the constituent parts.
(Granted, we all geek out on hero shots and impressive specifications of products whose use patterns we’re already familiar with, like maybe that expensive new bike, but that sensation is one of anticipation of the actual experience of riding the bike; our geeked relationship is with the well-designed marketing material, not the bike. This explains somewhat why I’ve had fabulous experiences riding rusty old single-speed beach cruisers.)
Similarly, the qualities of a product with which we engage as users emerge from the relationships among and between the components and features that comprise the artifact. In this context, qualities of experience are emergent properties devised intentionally by designers, not the kind of measurable product quality assessed by the QA/QC team. Maybe it’s the way a power tool feels effortlessly balanced in your hand, or an app just flows seamlessly from page to page, or that bike feels like an extension of your own body. Visceral experiences of product qualities like these are hard to describe in specific terms; users will often turn to ambiguous, qualitative words like “sophisticated” or “dialed” to describe a positive experience. Like Goldilocks, who used quantitative adjectives like hot/cold or hard/soft for poor experiences, we get more qualitative when things are “just right” for us.
Ultimately, it’s these emergent qualities designers strive to conjure as they aim to get the user experience just right, dialed. We’re after the often elusive integration of elements – parts, components, features, code – that results in something greater than the sum of its parts, and not foreshadowed by any of them individually. At Spanner, we rely heavily on complementary tools like storyboards and product requirement documents, and practices like iterative prototyping with methodically increasing levels of resolution, to keep our design process focused on the emergent qualities we’re looking for and avoid the distraction of overemphasizing component specs individually.
In a Medium article, Kayden Hines, writer, illustrator and tech muse, said, “In short, creativity is about connecting the dots. Creative people collect more dots, so they can connect them later.” Hines hits something closer to truth here, frankly, than Jobs’ thing-connecting quote above. When I first read this, my brain defaulted to a Cartesian emphasis on the noun, “dot”, blowing right past the verb, “connect”, reflecting our tendency to focus on the dots, the parts and components. As designers, we need to first understand the connections, the relationships, and the experiences we’re after. Then add the dots to breathe life into those connections.
Arne Lang-Ree is co-founder and CDO of Spanner.
An innovator, thinker and deconstructor, Arne challenges himself and Spanner’s clients to bring sustainable and responsible products to life. Born in Norway, Arne was inspired early by his engineer father to look at things twice. At an early age, he was imagining inventions that ultimately inspired him to earn both his BSME in Mechanical Engineering and MSE in Product Design from Stanford University. Arne has since racked up more than 30 years of product development and mechanical design experience in a wide range of product markets and with globally recognized brands. Arne is rarely without his trusted canine sidekick, Penny, and the duo can be found at the Spanner office creating together or walking the Silicon Valley for inspiration.
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