I feel that the author has made relevant arguments with regard to the flaws in which scientific researches possess. There may be technology devices to assist designers in the collection user reactions and emotions toward product designs; I agree with the author that those results produced are subjected to each individual designer’s interpretation. This process is somehow very subjective and may not even reflect what users are truly thinking, thus resulting wrong conclusion. Taking the eye-tracking device for example, I truly agree with the author’s statement that the eye-tracker shows what users are looking at but it does not tell us what is going through users’ mind. Thus there is not expert in user experience design.
At the meantime, I also agree that non-scientific user research is useful still as we are able to get information of users’ thinking process. However, we should also keep in mind that even though we are able to obtain direct information from our users, there is always likelihood of inaccuracy in the information provided. I feel that the information provision process could be influenced by several factors including environment, users’ self-cautiousness as well as facilitators’ reactions. Thus here comes the rationale for using scientific research tools as these devices are able to obtain users’ reactions by assessing their physical reactions such as eye movement.
At the end of the day, there is no perfect research method to understanding user experience. What could be done is to choose the most appropriate research tool depending on the product design in which research revolves around. The appropriate method may be hiring either scientific, non-scientific research tool or even both. Thus designers should never restrict themselves to any form of conventional research method.
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A question that came to me was whether the eye-tracking device affects the behaviour of the tested user as I have came across eye-tracking devices online which required their user to wear a device over their head and eyes (below top). But my question was solved after my further search on the internet. Pardon my ignorance, but I was amazed by the current eye-tracking system that is attached to the bottom of the monitor screen because it quite unnoticeable (bottom most picture). However, as users in the experiment are aware of their actions being observed. To what would they still be affected in terms of their behaviour during a research?
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