: How to design a survey/questionnaire to evaluate user appeal of a visual design? There has been a lot spoken about user experience design for interactive products and services, but is there some

@Harper654

Has anyone tried to create some systematic way to evaluate this?

Of course. There are lots of methods to analyse user interfaces and interaction systems.

This post might be helpful.

The thing is: graphic design does not - as Alan points out - exist in a vacuum. There is always context. Methods for user testing includes stuff like "quick and dirty methodology", you do not have to spend thousands of dollars/pounds/kroner/yen. The point as I see it is not to get your basic user testing to make all your user interface and graphic choices for you. The point is to make sure your interface does not end up an impossible maze. Run a few basic tests on your neighbour, grandmother, your drinking buddy, and a couple of others. It is likely to be helpful, if for no other reason than that you get the confirmation that you have not forgotten something essential. And you might have overlooked something.

A good thing is to take one site you like and one you think are awful, and run it through a simple heuristics test. It will make you more aware of why bad choices are bad.

Web heuristics

10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design, Nielsen Norman group

A Guide To Heuristic Website Reviews, Smashing Mag

Heuristic Evaluation – a Step By Step Guide Article, SItepoint

What You Really Get From a Heuristic Evaluation, Uxmag

Books

The design of everyday things, Donald Norman

Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design

Practically anything by Edward Tufte

Interaction design, beyond human-computer interaction, Rogers

Vote Up Vote Down

@Hamaas979

If you have buckets of money (and time) and isolated yet related markets you can do A/B testing.

It's cheaper, quicker and ultimately more resonant and effective to pay someone millions that's brilliant at it to get it right the first time. Throw another million at them to stipulate why its right for those that need to additionally convey meaning through other contexts and endeavours.

That's how you wind up with those brand/image guideline docs... that last million.

The best at this are worth every ounce of blood they charge.

Vote Up Vote Down

@BetL875

Surveys and test marketing have been around since at least the 1930s, for good reason. Any time a company is about to spend a large amount of money on a marketing campaign, movie release or product launch, there will be surveys and testing. The bigger the investment, the bigger the risk, the greater the detail of surveys and/or extent of the tests. Poor or no surveys = poor or no results and a waste of money. There are many books on the subject, and any marketing course or text has extensive information on surveying.

Whether it's usability testing, test screenings of movies (with survey of the audience afterwards), reaction surveys, focus groups or in-person interviews, the only way to know how people will react to a given piece is to survey (if it's something new) or find out what has already been shown to work for that audience, preferably both. Sometimes you'll find the client's marketing or sales staff have a wealth of information about what works for their audience. Never ignore that; they know their public much better than you do.

Graphic design never exists in a vacuum. It always has a purpose, and most of the time that is a marketing purpose. Aesthetic appeal far from the only criterion. Those hideous-looking used car ads you still see in newspapers and online work when they're done like that. They don't work when they're aesthetically designed. (You may take a moment to recover from the horror of that before continuing. We understand.)

Before you can design something, far less decide what survey questions to ask or how to test, you have to know what the design is supposed to do. Your own evaluation of what works or doesn't is the first cut, then you go into the field and find out, using surveys or testing, how your audience reacts or responds.

If it's packaging, put it on a shelf with competing items and ask people which they would be likely to buy and why. If it's an ad, let people look at it for a few seconds, then ask what they got out of it. If you're typesetting a book, set up a half dozen variations and ask people which ones they find easier or more difficult to read. On the web, A/B testing is a standard way to test the effectiveness of an email campaign or a landing page.

Probably the only rule in all of this is: When you're testing a design, don't ask people what they "like" unless it's a purely personal item, like a birthday card or a wedding invitation. Asking what people like in a design focuses attention on the piece itself, not on what it's supposed to do, and you won't get the information you need.

Vote Up Vote Down