The last half of this week saw me shift from design thinking mode to design and build mode as I began work on the exhibit that the Public Engagement project that I’m working on will be taking to the Cheltenham Science Festival.
It has been fantastic to get back to making things again as opposed to purely thinking about things. Ironically enough however, the time in workshops has afforded me a little bit of reflection on some of the reading I have been doing recently – particularly related to the role of physical activity and feedback within the design of engaging products, systems and services.
A bit of background – Cheltenham is a Science Festival held annually in the south west of England. I am in the process of designing and manufacturing an exhibit that we will be using to communicate what Ergonomics is as part of the Real World Design Project that I am working on at the moment. A feature of science festivals such as Cheltenham are the interactive exhibits that many scientists construct to help communicate their work to a lay audience. The basic and well founded idea being that something interactive and participatory helps make the exhibit more intriguing, enjoyable and memorable than something more static and less engaging (such as journal papers for example!)
Development of the Cheltenham Exhibit
The process of being back in the workshop making this pine and mdf monster (as it presently stands) has been very satisfying. I have been afforded instant feedback on my work - such as being able to observe the physical form of the exhibit emerge and be pieced together (positive feedback = satisfaction). I’ll be honest though, on the odd occasion in the past three days there has also been some negative feedback – for example in my slightly inaccurate jigsawing skills or some inaccurate dimensioning in my drawings both of which resulted in a (temporarily) less than satisfactory outcome and a bit of active problem solving and recutting!
All this has reminded me of some of my recent reading on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 1980, 1985b, 1991, 2000) which outlines the importance of a user’s perception of their competence, relatedness, and autonomy in determining their satisfaction and self-confidence. 
In the context of my recent woodwork experience SDT is the perception of how capable I am with woodworking tools (competence), how those skills then enable me to fulfil my ambition of creating the exhibition stand (relatedness) and how much external support I require in the process (autonomy). On days when my skills seemed ok and progress on work was good (Wednesday and Thursday) I went home with an feeling of satisfaction induced by an increased confidence in my abilities and perceived autonomy. This in turn resulted in increased enthusiasm to return to work the next day. Friday, wasn’t quite so satisfying however, due to a miscalculation in one of my drawings and some slightly rushed jigsawing – now mercifully remedied but undoubtedly knocking my workshop confidence a little.
It hopefully shouldn’t be too much of a challenge to think of the last time a product or service left you feeling dissatisfied or demotivated. Perhaps, because it left you feeling incompetent (i.e. not able to fulfil the task you wanted to) or because the task it enabled you to do wasn’t quite the one you had in mind (i.e. unrelated). Both of these sorts of failures, known in Cognitive Ergonomics respectively as a Skill Errors and Knowledge Errors (Reason, 1990) are incredibly common.
For example, my inability on Friday morning to cut out a piece of MDF correctly as I had planned it is a Skill Error, i.e. an error of my jigsawing skills. Whereas, the error where I cut the piece of MDF accurately but based on a drawing/specification that was wrong is a Knowledge Error. This classification relates to Rasmussen’s Skill – Rule – Knowledge Taxonomy which I discuss initially here and again here, and hope to elaborate further in relation to design, engagement and learning on this blog.
So how should designers of products and services better influence and accommodate users’ perceptions of competence, relatedness and autonomy? As a designer what are you doing to understand your users and make them feel competent and empowered in the use of your product or service?
This dilemma is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve on this Public Engagement project and with the exhibit at Cheltenham. We want to leave visitors feeling competent and confident in their understanding of Ergonomics and how it relates and is relevant to their lives, giving them a foundation to autonomously and successfully pursue a deeper understanding and engagement with the discipline if they wish. The interactive exhibits and the physical interaction they demand are an integral part of this, largely because they will enable users to interact with Ergonomics at a Skill based level (pushing buttons, reading text, looking at the artefacts). How do we plan to do this and will it be successful? Over the next few weeks I plan to let you know and if you are going to be around Cheltenham between the 2nd and the 7th of June please come and pay us a visit.
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Tags: Design Research, Human Centred Design, Motivation, Motivational Design, Public Engagement, Self Determination Theory, Service Design, the difference between novice and expert behaviour, User Perceptions