Iteration is one of the key process throughout design and development with the goal of creating a holistic product that captures the true needs of your user through repeated testing and rebuilding when failure occurs. As Lidwell, Holden, and Butler define it in Universal Principles of Design, “In nature, iteration allows complex structures to form by progressively building on simpler structures. In design, iteration allows complex structures to be created by progressively exploring, testing, and tuning the design.” One might think of iteration as natural evolution as applied to design; this sort of positive, systematic reworking and tailoring of a system or product to work towards some more functional result.

Example 1: SnoWalkers Snow Shoes

The example found in Universal Principles of Design explains the evolution of SnoWalkers snow shoes over the years, as product designers used high-fidelity prototypes of the shoes in their true environment to test out new models and improvements. This led to various iterations of the snowshoes, and new features meant to improve the shoes’ function and versatility in their harsh environment. Some might think of more handmade snowshoes when they think of the product, consisting of rope tied between thicker sticks. These have since evolved to include stronger materials like steel and fiberglass, and lock-in mechanisms for specialized shoes. All of these improvements have evolved through iteration after iteration of products and testing.

Example 2: Apple’s iPhone

When looking at iPhones since their original announcement in 2007, each new model is arguably both the result of iteration, and itself an iteration of the product as a whole. Not only has the hardware, materials, and design of the iOS gone through an incredible amount of testing and reworking, but the product structure and vision has also seen some dramatic changes. From it’s first ‘iteration’ in 2007, the iPhone has continued to push new features, eliminate old ones, and rework some into something more functional – though the latter is not always the case. Throughout Apple’s story, the product’s roadmap and vision are also huge inputs in the iterative process, and act as part of the evolutionary process. This could potentially leverage the user, which might clash with a more purist view of iteration. But, this still holds true to an iterative process, using the market as a force of testing and refinement in the building of a more advanced product.

Example 3: Letterpress Printmaking

Inherent to the art of printmaking is an extreme degree of iteration.One must test and print at every point in the process in order to achieve exactly what their project’s vision was. This is especially true for letterpress, as the art demands a high focus on things like roller pressure, ink type, registration, and paper choice. Because all these factors affect the outcome substantially, one is able to play with each to achieve a specific outcome for their prints.

In this example of my own prints, I needed to test the ink color and roller pressure to ensure that the outcome was both legible and wasn’t leaving a heavy impression (or deep embossing) on the back of the cards. This was so people would be able to write in those spaces without bumping over ridges or having the ink pool opposite the printed text. To achieve this, I had to constantly iterate on different levels of pressure, consistencies of the ink, and amounts of ink on the rollers. Print after print, I would take detailed notes on how each successive iteration turned out, and finely tune each new print to achieve a specific end goal. This process is highly representative of iteration as described by Lidwell, Holden, and Butler.

Horror Vacui is Latin for ‘the fear of emptiness.’ It is the practice of filling a space with as many design elements as possible. As a design principle, it was a historically popular in the Victorian, Georgian, and Baroque eras, in times when having more meant you were more affluent.¹ 

Today, we are overwhelmed with options and choice, so minimalism and simplicity have become the trend. This means that there has been a shift in value perception. Now, the busier and more cluttered a design, the cheaper the product feels. Brands may choose to employ horror vacui based on their product positioning—for the Dollar Store, cheap is a good thing.

Example 1: Dollar Store vs. Jewelry Store

Example 2: The Cheesecake Factory vs. Ramen Hood

Example 3: Attorneys/Abogados

This store window in downtown Los Angeles markets the attorneys inside to low-income clients with its use of horror vacui. It not only fills up most of the window space with information, but also advertises many different kinds of potential lawsuits that the lawyers could represent the clients on.

Footnotes

¹“Horror Vacui: The Fear of Emptiness | Interaction Design Foundation.” 8 Aug. 2018, https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/horror-vacui-the-fear-of-emptiness.

Desire lines, or desire paths, are traces of use or wear indicating a user’s preferred method of interaction with an object or environment.¹ They are most often associated with walkways, in situations where pedestrians’ repeated traversals of shorter, more direct routes create alternative paths to paved ones. Landscape architects are now starting to embrace desire lines by allowing them to form and then paving over them, instead of predicting behavior and trying to force it with barriers and other constraints.

Physical examples include ergonomic keyboards that split in the middle and allow wrists to assume a more natural position, and the water fountain spigot designed for water bottles below. Prior to the installation of these faucets, the only way to fill up a water bottle was to tilt it sideways, a less efficient and more annoying method.

Footnotes

¹ Lidwell, William, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler, and Kimberly Elam. Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design. Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2010. Print.

² “Pave the Cowpaths – Social Patterns – Designing Social Interfaces.” 13 Aug. 2013, http://designingsocialinterfaces.com/patterns/Pave_the_Cowpaths.

³ “Least Resistance: How Desire Paths Can Lead to Better Design – 99 ….” 25 Jan. 2016, https://99percentinvisible.org/article/least-resistance-desire-paths-can-lead-better-design/.

Prototyping is a design principle used to create quick and simple to more refined mockups in order to explore the design of the product being built, refine it, and test it. There are many different ways to go about doing this. It can be as simple as a sketch or be more complex as 3D printed models. The main purpose of prototyping is to walkthrough a similar experience and define points of failure or improvement in a way that is not costly. Prototyping in each design process is beneficial to exploring more of the focus of that process.

Example #1: Ojex Juicer

This image here depicts many examples of prototyping at each design phase.

Example #2: 3D Printed Custom Jewelry

This is a great example of prototyping in order to inspect something, in this case jewelry, prior to actually building out the final product.

Example #3: “Creeper Cam”

My friend and I were on a mission to create a sneaky way of taking photos of what’s around us (we’re normal, I swear).  We came up with an idea of an iPhone attachment and we decided to build it out. The red arrow focuses on the area where the attachment will slide into your iPhone. The black arrow is where we would add a reflective layer to bounce off the camera and into the opening. This allows users to have their phones parallel to the ground while at the same time taking pictures of what is right in front of them.

Resources:

Lidwell, William, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler, and Kimberly Elam. Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design. Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2010. Print.

“Solus DLP 3D Printer – Australian Distributor – 25 Micron Resolution.” CAD Jewelry School, www.cadjewelryschool.com/solus-dlp-3d-printer.

Garbage In Garbage Out is a design principle based on the the notion of bad input producing bad output and vice versa. If the end user has the ability to input any type of value with any given quality into a space without ways of preventing “invalid” inputs, the outputs will probably be equivalent to the input’s caliber. In the Universal Principles of Design book, the authors bring up two types of input problems: input type and input quality. Input type is focused more on inserting the wrong information into a space. An example of this might be entering your username in the password field on a login form. On the other hand, input quality is centered around injecting a flawed value that is of the correct type. For example, missing one number from your credit card number will result in a faulty transaction. There are ways to prevent garbage ins broken out by each kind of problem. Using affordances and constraints for input type issues and previews and confirmations for input quality issues will help minimize the impact of the input has on the output. Prevention of input error is the key to a successful interaction resulting in the expected and desired outcome.

Example #1: Order Forms

The image displays the preventative measures added in the redesigned form to avoid any potential garbage input values.

Example #2: Remote Controls

This example shows the many possible inputs or sets of inputs for an end user of remote controls. One might keep hitting the “1” button numerous times with the result not having to do anything with the number “1”. It might take the user to the “On Demand” channel or “Guide”. The lack of constraints allows for bad inputs.

Example #3: Cuisinart Coffee Maker

This example I struggled with this morning while house sitting my friend’s house. I wanted to make a cup of coffee and I was confident I set everything up correctly. When it came to the moment of turning it on, I was puzzled by how it worked. I turned the distinct “Ready Tone” knob to “ON” and nothing was happening. No coffee. I realized later that I had missed the “ON/OFF” button at the top since the color blended in with the rest of the machine and did not stand out to me. The main issue is the counts of “ON” on that machine: “Auto ON”, “ON”, and “ON/OFF”. The probability that a user will interpret only one of these “ON” labels to be true decreases as the number of “ON” options  increases.

Resources:

Lidwell, William, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler, and Kimberly Elam. Universal Principles of Design: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design. Beverly, Mass: Rockport Publishers, 2010. Print.

Wilkinson, Darryl, and Grant Clauser. “The Best Universal Remote Control.” Engadget, 24 Jan. 2017, www.engadget.com/2016/04/29/the-best-universal-remote-control/.

Summary:

Humans have a tendency to like anthropomorphic forms, or things that have similar characteristics to us. We are biased towards them, we feel a connection to them… That is, until they hit the “Uncanny Valley” where they become so similar to us that they become unappealing or even creepy. Though there is no concrete measurement of when an object enters the uncanny valley, characteristics that typically receive negative reactions include: abnormally portioned facial features, subtle eye movements, and unnatural skin complexions. An interesting observation to note is that this does not only affect humans; when macaque monkeys were shown computer generated images of monkeys they also fell into the valley effect.

Example #1 – Cited By Original Source:  Mannequins

As described in Universal Principles of Design, mannequins are a common example of “Uncanny Valley” because they typically have the basic shape and curves of a human body, but the plastic and uniform color, the eyes that are there but not there, and the motionless, dead aura of these figures give the uncanny feeling.

Example #2 – Found Online:  Avatar SDK

The Avatar SDK is a very effective example of “Uncanny Valley,” particularly when playing with the demo on their website. The SDK truly tries to create a computerized version of a person, and the similarities are just too much. Zooming in and out on the demo really gives the creepy feeling of “Uncanny Valley.”

Example #3 – Found in Real Life: Target

Walking through the isles at Target, you will find products such as the dolls and books above that exhibit the characteristics of something that could be identified as “Uncanny Valley.”

References and Citations:

1. Bradley, Steven. “Contour Bias And The Uncanny Valley: Anthropomorphic Forms Part II.” Vanseo Design, 13 Sept. 2010, vanseodesign.com/web-design/anthropomorphic-forms-part-ii/.
2. William Lidwell, Kritina Holden & Jill Butler. Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design. Rockport, 2012.

Summary:

Scarcity is the idea that an object’s level of desirability increases as its supply decreases. Our reading, Universal Principles of Design, describes five common tactics apply the principle of Scarcity: exclusive information, limited access, limited time, limited number, and suddenness. Each of these tactics move people to action because of a human cognitive bias known as “loss aversion.” Jen Cardello’s article, “Scarcity Principle in UI Design: Making Users Click RIGHT NOW or Lose Out,” highlights that the research conducted by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky has shown that the human tendency is to avoid loss over acquiring gains. Both sources suggest that scarcity is largely effective in terms of not only quantity, but in time and information.

Example #1 – Cited By Original Source: Running Brides

As described in Universal Principles of Design, the running brides depicted in this picture show how scarcity can motivate people to act. Typically, I would imagine bridal shoppes to be mostly empty, quiet, calm – but this picture shows the complete opposite, all because of the short supply of cheap wedding dresses.

Example #2 – Found Online: Fancy food

This dinner plate depicts scarcity because seeing so little food on the plate, and especially in its artistic arrangement on the plate, suggests that this is a desirable and expensive meal.

Example #3 – Found in Real Life: Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced Latte

This was the first time I ever tried the PSL from Starbucks. It was pretty good, but I know people who count down the days before the Fall drinks come back to the coffee shop so they can order their beloved PSL. Of course, since this is the only time of the year they can drink this beverage, they enjoy it as much as possible before it disappears… the power of scarcity is Starbuck’s friend.

References and Citations:

1. Cardello, Jen. “Scarcity Principle in UI Design: Making Users Click RIGHT NOW or Lose Out.” Nielsen Norman Group, 14 Sept. 2014, www.nngroup.com/articles/scarcity-principle-ux/.
2. William Lidwell, Kritina Holden & Jill Butler. Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design. Rockport, 2012.

Two subtle biological indicators of female fertility are rosy cheeks and red lips. Humans subconsciously perceive women as more sexy and attractive if they’re wearing red (clothing, lipstick, and blush) compared to other colors for this reason. Iconic examples of this in history are Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell’s bright red lips and sequin dresses in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Stevie Wonder’s soundtrack album, The Woman in Red. Men, on the other hand, are perceived as powerful, dominant, and aggressive if they’re wearing red. Some examples include, male politicians wearing red ties, Satan, and red sports cars.

Example #1 – Cited By Original Source:

Beyoncé is inarguably one of the most beautiful women in the world. Although the style of clothing, make-up, and art direction are very different in these two magazine covers, the color that Beyoncé is wearing is extremely influential to the overall vibe of each. In the blue dress, she’s a sweet and sophisticated beauty, while in the red dress, she’s a sexy, sultry, and confident vixen.

Cover sources: All Hail Queen B: Over 40 of Beyoncé’s Chicest Magazine Covers

Example #2 – Found Online:

Throughout history, Satan has been betrayed as an almighty, evil, fiery red beast from Hell. If you Google, “Male devil Halloween costume,” you’ll find a plethora of costumes that meet that criteria. However, if you Google, “Female devil Halloween costume,” all that comes up are sexy devil costumes that enhance the female form and highlight sensuality.

Costume sources: www.halloweencostumes.com

Example #3 – Found in Real Life:

Red roses are extremely feminine and reminiscent of the female form. They symbolize, love, passion, romance, fertility, and sensuality. Men often give a dozen red roses to women as gifts to show their love and appreciation on special occasions and Valentine’s Day. On the other hand, chili peppers appear as more masculine in nature. They are are hot, spicy, temperamental, and phallic.

Reference:

1. William Lidwell, et al. Universal Principles of Design. 2nd ed., Rockport Publishers, Inc., 2010.

The Exposure Effect, also known as The Mere Exposure Effect, occurs when people begin to like something (neutral or positive) after they’ve been exposed to it many times. For instance, turmeric, the exotic tasting spice that hails from India, is now a widely accepted anti-inflammatory flavor enhancer in Western cultures. Turmeric can now be found in practically everything — from smoothies, to lattes, to savory meals. K-Pop’s number one boy band, BTS, has become a worldwide sensation. Their songs, which are sung in Korean, are known by heart by women and men all across America. Conversely, when people are exposed to negative things, they’ll be more likely to dislike them even more. There are many examples of how over exposure to negative stimuli in the news is affecting our polarized nation… and what can be seen as negative to some, can be seen as positive to others.

Example #1 – Cited By Original Source:

 Politicians often use the Exposure Effect to help them gain popularity and likability. One of the most powerful examples of this is President Obama’s widely recognized “Hope” poster by American artist Shepard Fairey. Fairey’s poster helped define and encapsulate positive feelings of change, hope, and optimism. “That the image immediately went viral is proof of the emotional connection it had with potential voters, especially youth. Many believe this poster inspired enough voters to give Obama the edge that he needed to win.” (CNN) Since the original poster was created, the Fairey and other artists have created iterations of it that played on the theme of other important social and political issues.

Example #2 – Found Online:

The Exposure Effect can influence design trends and standards. Once certain layouts, symbols, and icons become popular, they begin to be widely used in design and accepted by users. The hamburger menu was originally designed three decades ago by Norm Cox while he was working at Xerox Star. Unfortunately for Cox, the icon was never “McDonaldized.” The icon was brought back to life during the advent of mobile devices and started trending after it was used for Twitter’s app, Tweetie, and Apple’s Voice Memos app for iPhone 3GS. (O’Neill) Although not everyone is a fan of the hamburger menu, it has become a very common standard for mobile friendly apps and websites.

In just sixty seconds, I found three examples of the hamburger menu (circled in red) on my phone:

Example #3 – Found in Real Life:

Remember a time when smoothies were just a healthy drink to aspire to making? Well… people got bored of just drinking their meals and taking photos of themselves holding a glass and decided to create a new trend: smoothie bowls. Instagram smoothie pics went from drab to fab seemingly overnight as people started creating fruit, nut, and seed mosaics on top of their smoothies. Currently, the #smoothiebowl hashtag has 1.7 million posts! Before grad school happened and I had more time on my hands, I used to painstakingly make smoothie bowls and take photos of them too…

References and Citations:

1. CNN, Carol A. Wells. “Poster Politics: Can Art Influence Elections?” CNN Style, 1 Nov. 2016, https://www.cnn.com/style/article/political-posters-oped/
2. O’Neill, Mark. “The 3 Line Menu Icon: What Is a Hamburger Menu?” Small Business Trends, 21 Jan. 2015, https://smallbiztrends.com/2015/01/3-line-menu-icon-hamburger-menu.html.
3. Smith, Jeremy. “6 Conversion Principles You Can Learn From The Mere-Exposure Effect.” Marketing Land, 3 Sept. 2015, https://marketingland.com/6-conversion-principles-can-learn-mere-exposure-effect-140430.
4. William Lidwell, et al. Universal Principles of Design. 2nd ed., Rockport Publishers, Inc., 2010.

Chunking refers to separating a large body of information into a smaller number of “chunks” so that information can be processed and memorized more easily. A chunk can refer to a string of letters, word, or series of numbers. The optimal number of chunks that can be most efficiently processed by our short-term memories is 4 plus or minus 1 (Lidwell, Holden and Butler, 2010). It is important to note that the limits brought up by this principle are specifically for tasks involving short-term memory. For references that may be scanned (such as a dictionary), chunking sections into 4 or so entries per page would be counterproductive and inefficient.

Example from original source:

The example on the right is an e-learning course by Kaplan EduNeering, which utilizes chunking of the topics on the grey left sidebar as well as on the topics on the main page. The top left example shows how familiar words are more natural for us to chunk together and recall than unfamiliar words. The bottom left example shows how a large string of number (such as a phone number) can be made easier to recall by chunking them into small pieces.

Example from online:

On Apple’s Human Interface Guideline’s page in their developer portal, the content is divided into five digestible chunks. The first four boxes feature different Apple products while the bottom rectangle features additional technologies. Under Technologies, information is further divided into columns of four.  However, a critical observation is that the alphabetical ordering of their technologies seems a bit arbitrary; the way the rows are divided make the four items in each column seem like they might be related when in fact they aren’t. However, this may be due to the fact it is difficult to divide the content into four perfect groups of four technologies that are related.

Example from real life:

In this example, I’ve divided the page on Chunking from “Universal Principles of Design” into four unironic chunks. This was to help me remember the key points of what I wanted to talk about in this very post.

Works Cited

Human Interface Guidelines. (2018) Retrieved from https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/

Lidwell, W., Holden, K. and Butler, J. (2010). Universal principles of design. 2nd ed. Rockport Publishers, pp.27,40.

Anthropomorphic forms are forms that possess humanoid characteristics. People have a tendency to be drawn to human-like forms or patterns because we are predisposed to be drawn to forms that resemble us. Humanoid designs are often good at grabbing a person’s attention while exuding a positive emotional impression (Lidwell, Holden and Butler, 2010). However, it is important to note that abstract anthropomorphic forms lead to more positive reactions than more realistic anthropomorphic forms such as lifelike robots, which can sometimes result in a person feeling unsettled or even repulsed (AKA uncanny valley). Therefore, our positive bias towards anthropomorphic forms is more evident when the form appears only slightly human.

Example from original source:

The Method Dish Soap bottle (left) was made to resemble a female breast and elicited a strong positive response in people because they have positive associations with breastfeeding. Moreover, this anthropomorphic bottle gave it personality, attracted attention, and even worked as an aesthetic art piece that livened up a space. In contrast, the replacement bottle (right) looks bland and uninteresting and fades into all the other soap bottle designs.

Example from online:

This is Musio, an AI robot assistant that seemingly has emotions and can engage in fluid conversations with a user using machine learning. Musio’s design features two eyes, two ears, a head, two arms, two legs, and a heart too. However, its form looks far from realistic. In fact, it resembles more of a cat. On top of that, its short legs make it look almost cartoon-like which adds to the cute factor.

Real life example:

This right here is my main squeeze: MamaChia’s Chia Squeeze drink in strawberry banana. It took everything in me not to squeeze this package right then and there. Everything from the sensual feminine silhouette to the font that was chosen to the vibrant shade of fuschia of the packaging exudes vitality, femininity, and sweet chia goodness. The sides of the package curve inwards like the waist of a goddess, seducing me with her organic wholesomeness. In the Chia Squeeze’s case, its anthropomorphic form follows its function, as the curves gave me a solid and comfortable grip.  I also quite enjoy how the form of this package ties it in with the brand. MammaChia brings about associations with a mother figure who is nurturing and wants us to be well fed. The silhouette of an attractive female form further enhances that association and the curvy package ties it all together.

Works Cited

Musio: Your Curious New Friend. (2015) Retrieved from https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/musio-your-curious-new-friend

Lidwell, W., Holden, K. and Butler, J. (2010). Universal principles of design. 2nd ed. Rockport Publishers, pp.27,40.