Page 90 - Educational Technology A Primer for the 21st Century

5.2 User Experience 79

Fig. 5.1 User experience
honeycomb. Adapted from
Molville (2004)

User Experience Honeycomb
Morville (2004) created a frequently reproduced honeycomb model to design for
user experience that illustrated the facets of user experience (see Fig. 5.1), espe-
cially to help clients understand why they must move beyond usability.
The user experience honeycomb could be used as a guide to explain the various
facets of the design of user experience. Morville (2004) believed that the user
experience honeycomb would contribute to educating clients, which helps them to
find a sweet spot between the various areas of a good user experience. If applied in
educational technology, the essential items could be explained as follow:

Useful. An educational technology product or service should fulfill teachers’/
students’/parents’ needs. If the product or service could not fulfill user’s wants
or needs, then there is no real use for the product itself.
Usable. Systems in which the product or service is delivered should be simple,
familiar, easy to understand and easy to use. The learning curve that users must
go through should be as short and painless as possible.
Desirable. The visual aesthetics of the educational product, service, or system
should be minimal, attractive, and easy to understand. Our pursuit of efficiency
must be moderated by an appreciation for the power and value of the brand,
image, identity, and other elements of emotional design.
Findable. Information in the educational technology systems needs to be findable
and easy to navigate. If teachers/students/parents have a problem, they should be
able to find a solution quickly. The navigational structure must be set up in a way
that takes users’ behaviors and habits into consideration to makes sense.