This assignment has been really valuable for me as a designer because it goes beyond all the theory about interaction or ‘usability’ that I came across until now. Normally these theories focus on the different sensory capabilities and limitations of a user. This is often results in products where a lot of text, lights and symbols are added to explain amplify functionality.
By discussing, making, questioning and experiencing how products work, this assignment has taught me how you can come to products that are more intuitive by itself, without added symbols, text or lights. Simply by building and physically exploring certain interactions you can feel if an interaction is intuitive or not. By reflecting on every single possible interaction, you find a logical explanation why a certain interactions feels more intuitive than another.
For me taking mechanical products and trying every possible interaction to understand what you find aesthetic about it, was a very valuable inspiration source to create a product. Especially in the current society where a lot of functionalities of a product are displayed on a touchscreen and the product is shaped like a black box, it is very valuable to understand why the interaction with buttons, knobs and shapes are so important. It also helped me to better understand how I envision the products I want to create as a designer. I already stated in my vision that I didn’t want to make incremental products, but what I really meant is that I wanted to bring aesthetic interaction back into products. I could only pinpoint certain products and explain why I liked them, but I didn’t understand why. This assignment gave me this understanding and enables me to create them myself.
