Kuleshov effect illustrated in static graphics2
Lev Kuleshov exhibited his method in 1918 when he projected several short movie scenes in front of an audience. Kuleshov displayed a bowl of soup then an image of a man’s emotionless face. (Audiences thought the man was hungry.) Kuleshov displayed a child in a coffin then an image of a man’s emotionless face . (Audiences thought the man was sad.) Kuleshov displayed a woman reclined on a sofa then an image of a man’s emotionless face. (Audiences thought the man was full of lust.) In each case, the man’s face was the same image, but audiences derived differing perceptions of the man based on what image had preceded him. Hungry. Sad. Lustful. Placement changes everything.
Placement in User Experience
The Kuleshov effect shows us that placement determines context. Previous experiences inform current ones; current experiences inform future ones. Soviet filmmakers understood this well, as do application designers.
Consider an account sign-in. When a person has an account, the sign-in screen may serve as a place to enter a user name and password. When the person does not have an account, the sign-in screen may serve as a place to create one. Same screen, different contexts. This happens any time a screen serves multiple purposes.
A website may serve dozens of contexts: shopping, product research, and career seeking, to name but a few. Like Kuleshov’s example, users will derive differing perceptions of this website based on their context. To support these users, we must understand where they came from to anticipate where they wish to go. Perhaps they shop. Maybe they research. Possibly they seek a career.
Individual interface elements are also places, as each is a potential target of a user’s attention. Users move from titles to text, from buttons to labels, from lists to links, from target to target. Fitts’ law demonstrates why some movements are quicker and easier than others. At the heart of the law lies a simple model : the time and difficulty to reach a target is determined by the size and distance of the target. For example, moving your mouse pointer (i.e., cursor) between two adjacent, average-sized links is quick and easy, whereas moving between two distant, small links is slow and difficult.
TARGET 1 | TARGET 2
vs.
TARGET 1 | TARGET 2
When speed is needed, place targets close together. When distance is desired, make the targets bigger. We see Fitts’ law play out every day when typing on keyboards, selecting from menus, and hunting-and-picking buttons and links within an interface.
Place extends to offline experiences, as well. Paco Underhill’s book Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping describes place through the lens of retail design. Though the book’s focus rarely shifts from a brick-and-mortar store setting, the lessons learned are transferable to a multitude of digital user experiences. How shoppers enter and exit a building may affect their ability to understand information: a building’s entrance serves as an “outside–inside” decompression zone for visitors, allowing them to adjust to a new context. It is a magnificent model of how to introduce users to a new experience, be it a store, a website, or an app. Since digital experiences can change in microseconds, users often need to pause to take a breath.
In that spirit, let us pause for a moment and discuss the next section: process. Process requires all of what we have covered so far. We will exercise empathy. We will confront authority . We will seek motivation and relevancy and hope our efforts are reciprocated. If there were a fifth “P” in the four Ps (product, price, promotion, and place), it would be process, because process affords you an opportunity to craft the most important user experience of all: your own.
Key Takeaways
Placement determines context. Past experiences affect current and future experiences.
Users will derive differing perceptions of an experience based on their context.
Fitts’ law demonstrates that the time and difficulty to reach a target is determined by the size and distance of the target .
To speed up an experience, place targets close together.
“Outside–inside” zones allow users to adjust to a new context.
Questions to Ask Yourself
What was a user doing before an experience?
Does each part of an experience (e.g., a sign-in screen) address every user's context?
What will the user do after an experience?
Do I want to speed up or slow down a particular user behavior?
How might an experience be handled in a different channel (i.e., online compared to offline)?