Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by øøøøøøø » Wed Mar 15, 2023 7:29 am

Ceylon wrote:
Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:04 am
So I'm currently studying UX design and one of my assignments got me thinking about the design of the electric guitar. For those unfamiliar with the field, user experience design is something most commonly applied to software tools, apps et cetera where you look at what the people who will use your product want it to be able to do, identify problems with current products on the market and apply feedback from users when you design your new product to tailor it to be as suitable and easy to use and learn as possible. This is a subset of the broader field of user-centered design, which isn't limited to the strictly digital but also to physical products.

This doesn't seem to really be a thing in guitar design? Perhaps the reason is that the solid body electric reached its functional maturity so early on. I remember reading that after the Telecaster had been on the market for a few years, Leo talked to players, got their feedback on what they would want their guitars to be able to do and implemented those changes into the Stratocaster. Pow, most successful and iconic guitar ever resulted from that.

But no truly major changes have been made and become standard since the end of the 60s or beginning of the 70s, with the exception perhaps of locking vibratos and active electronics. Usually it seems like design committees or individual inventors or master builders are the people bringing new products onto the market more or less by themselves. You get things like headless guitars, synth pickups, Evertune bridges, additional strings and True Temperament necks, and these have all caught on, but not with the vast majority of players.

So if a new product designer decided they wanted to bring a truly player-adapted guitar into the world, and they went about talking to like a hundred players about what changes, big or small, they would want to make to their instruments, what features they would want to get rid of or add or what minor tweaks could make their guitars more perfect for them, and then set about creating that instrument, what do you figure that would look like in 2023? Would such a product catch on, or is the electric guitar now such an iconic cultural artifact that it can't be successfully re-imagined anymore?

This is also a question to you all, having years or decades of experience of playing. What's your pet peeves or main issues with your guitars that you think more and better design work could improve?
For me there is one central thing with respect to user experience design that’s consistently overlooked in many contexts: the value of familiarity.

If you rent a car, you can be fairly sure you’ll be able to locate accelerator, brake, turn signals, and wipers easily. While it’s possible that the locations of these things could be optimized by someone’s logic, it would harm the overall user experience if, say, the accelerator and brake pedals swapped positions. Not only would it harm the experience of driving that one car (at least at first), but it would more importantly harm the experience of driving multiple cars, switching back and forth between them.

I see the stasis in guitar design as similarly-beneficial. Much like a piano or violin has matured, the design of the guitar has settled on a core set of archetypes that persist because entire ways of playing have matured around those design choices.

Many innovations have come and gone, and in the 1990s we largely reverted to a set of core mid-century functionality. There’s a lot of insight there—we collectively (as a market) deemed that those mid-century designs were sufficiently expressive and got out of the way a bit more than the active pickups (ugh battery changes) locking vibratos (stay in tune but take an hour and a small tool kit to get in tune the first time), etc.

So to me the most important user experience feature would be consistency. A pianist would hate it if you “improved” the position of the pedals or changed the spacing between the keys. I’d hate changes to the guitar for similar reasons.

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by andare » Wed Mar 15, 2023 4:24 pm

Too much history associated with guitars, that's why very few players venture out from the established standards.
We might make some minor changes here and there but as has been said, it's easy to adapt and the differences actually become endearing, as do the flaws.

Guitars are very personal objects because you cradle them and wear them. I don't think a piano player has the same relationship with their instrument.
Additionally, innovation in guitars has brought very little change to the music being made with them, if any, so why change?

I was a graphic designer for over 20 years and an industrial designer and architect before that. I relish tradition in guitars. Not everything needs to evolve and progress all the time. Some things were good enough 60 years ago already. Maybe we can just embrace their imperfections and enjoy them?

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by wooderson » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:04 pm

Ceylon wrote:
Mon Mar 13, 2023 12:04 am
So if a new product designer decided they wanted to bring a truly player-adapted guitar into the world, and they went about talking to like a hundred players about what changes, big or small, they would want to make to their instruments, what features they would want to get rid of or add or what minor tweaks could make their guitars more perfect for them, and then set about creating that instrument, what do you figure that would look like in 2023? Would such a product catch on, or is the electric guitar now such an iconic cultural artifact that it can't be successfully re-imagined anymore?
I think the answer to that can be seen over the last 50 years - 'advancements in guitar technology' survived in niches that needed/could exploit them (headless guitar weight savings, floating vibratos, eight strings, fanned frets, etc.) but weren't picked up by the masses because they didn't serve a general need.

By ~1962, the ergonomics of the electric guitar are pretty well sorted - whether tall or short, thin or not, there's a guitar and neck that fits your body and hands. You've got humbuckers and single coils depending on noise control needs. For the vast majority music people make with guitars, there's no need for more technology in the guitar itself.

Compare to amps where master volumes were introduced and then modeling has continually eaten up more of the market share because playing tubes outside of a rehearsal space/club/studio is a painful adventure in dealing with volume considerations. Modeling tech serves a real need and the market has responded accordingly.

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:23 pm

Simply moving the volume knob a few CMS on a Strat, giving it a bridge tone knob and replacing that sideways Jack with a proper one would vastly improve the UX for me.

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:32 pm

I see many opportunities to make small ergonomic and functional improvements that don’t drastically change the look and feel.

Better switches, pot tapers, jacks, etc…

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by Embenny » Wed Mar 15, 2023 8:21 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:32 pm
I see many opportunities to make small ergonomic and functional improvements that don’t drastically change the look and feel.

Better switches, pot tapers, jacks, etc…
Most of that stuff is a matter of preference. Very different from typical UX stuff like decreasing the number of places you have to move your eyes, the number of clicks required to reach any given information, etc.

Like with jacks - some people prefer to use angled plugs, some prefer straight, some plug a wireless unit straight into the jack, some run a cable to a wireless transmitter on their strap or belt. Some want to leave their instrument plugged in while being able to lean the guitar against an amp, some never do that and want it on the bottom edge, out of their line of sight. Each of those players might prefer a different jack location that facilitates their existing setup and habits.

What's a "better" switch? One player might want it to have a long throw and to land in the arc of their picking hand for quick changes during songs. Another player might want it to be stiff and low profile, out of their way so that they never hit it while playing since they never change pickups mid-song or even mid-gig anyway.
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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by PapaB » Thu Mar 16, 2023 7:43 pm

If I'm reading the question correctly, we are speaking of improvements to the electric guitar, right? The guitar of the future?
This being the digital age, I'd venture say it will be made with recyclable materials (plastic), covered in beautiful wood veneers, and use piezo and a single rare earth magnetic pickup (on the neck), that can provide a basic signal that can be processed digitally ....
Here's a possibility, the coil winds of the pickup will resemble Porsche electric motors .... (The braids!)
The bolt on neck will be quick-attach for easy travelling.
Standing wave pattern physics will play a role in shape and location of things. Like precision shooting rifles, the necks may get harmonic dampers .....
One thing is for sure: they'll be reliqued. Lol. (A bit of a joke, I'm not a fan of new instruments being all banged up and scratched for looks.)
Good luck!
If you do get the opportunity to design the guitar of the future, and I hope you do, please make it affordable. Music belongs to all. We all benefit from it.

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Fri Mar 17, 2023 9:12 am

A lot of modern UX design follows a simple formula.

1. People like things that are familiar. They are more likely to be able to successfully use something new if it has a familiar look and feel. A lot of “modern” guitars have been novelties because they were too different, not because they were poorly designed. I would keep the basic look of the guitar that everyone is currently happy with and not try to redesign the wheel.

2. Make it so simple a child can use it. The premise here is that people don’t read the instructions. To counter that, the interface has to be intuitive (familiar) so the user can see and understand how it works without being taught.

New materials could be a manufacturing improvement. Magnetic pickups and ‘50s plastics don’t last forever. But that’s not UX.

UX improvements are the interface. The ergonomics. Where are the controls? What do the controls do? How is the guitar held? How is it meant to be played? What should it sound like?

The Klein guitar is innovative because the body shape and neck angle are so different. Plus it’s a headless design. It works well for a classically trained guitarist or jazz player that remains still and requires precision, but anyone that wants to hang their guitar low and bash away or plays a thumb over blues-rock style will hate it. Great UX for 10% of guitarists. Terrible for 90%.

For me a simple approach would be a minimal and ergonomic control layout. The simplest would be a single pickup guitar with a volume and tone control. I usually prefer 2 pickups though, for 3 distinct tones, but a single pickup that moves from neck to bridge could work. (That’s an idea that has been tried before)

What could you do with a 2 pickup guitar? I would want the pickup switch somewhere where it’s easy to reach and change selections, because that’s what I do most often. For me that’s the upper horn as long as it’s not in my mad strumming range. I use the volume control a bit. I would want a master volume close at hand, but not so close that I hit it or accidentally change the position. (Strat too close, Gibson too far, Gretsch and Jazzmaster almost but not quite right)

Controls for tone are convenient, but I don’t change them often. I actually think that a roller tone control for each pickup would be nice. Set and forget. I am usually fine with a single master tone control though. (Telecaster in a better position)

As a different approach to having one or multiple tone controls, I would actually prefer a blend control, where I have both pickups on all the time and change tones and which pickup range is emphasized with a blend control. Then I wouldn’t need a selector switch at all. (Stolen from Rickenbacker)

A 2 pickup guitar with only a master volume and a blend control would work great for me. Possibly secondary roller controls for each pickup so I could fine tune the volume and balance of each - place those close at hand so I could make quick adjustments without complicating things too much. (Offset rollers where the Mustang switches are)

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by øøøøøøø » Fri Mar 17, 2023 9:34 am

To me, the most salient question is: "why are we questioning the user interface of the guitar?"

Are large numbers of people running into problems operating the instrument, or are we searching for problems to solve, purely as academic exercise? It's an important distinction that determines whether a design alteration is likely to endure.

As tradition-minded as guitarists are, most have accepted the five-way switch on the Stratocaster. It addressed a functional shortcoming ("combining two pickups on a strat sounds really cool, but there's no real way to do it reliably"). And it did so without changing any of the stuff people liked about the Strat.

As a result, pretty much every Strat comes with a five-way, and we've never looked back.

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Re: Food for thought: user experience design of guitars?

Post by øøøøøøø » Fri Mar 17, 2023 9:45 am

To put this another way: the electric guitar as a system is a sort of technological snapshot of mid-20th century tech. This includes the user interface.

There are so many easy ways to improve the whole system... on paper. Most have been tried and broadly rejected, because we (as a culture) tend to value the mid-century version most (just as violinists like the Stradivarius archetype best).

If the "electric guitar" never existed and we were designing it from a clean sheet of paper today, here are some things that'd almost certainly be different.
  • We'd never use crude magnetic pickups or tube amps. Single coil pickups of any kind, absent a tunable dummy coil, would be a total nonstarter. We certainly would not use 9V powered stompboxes.
  • Most likely, the guitar's output impedance would be low. Without the acquired cultural significance of tube amp distortion, amplifiers would be high-powered, efficient, and extremely clean.
  • Even if we somehow did use high-impedance pickups there would almost certainly be a small balancing transformer to lower impedance and enable a balanced output. You'd plug an XLR cable into your guitar instead of a quarter-inch. To go direct, you wouldn't need a direct box... your guitar would output balanced mic level already. And there would be no reason not to go direct, because the amps would be pretty transparent.
  • Some guitars might use active balancing, but would never use a 9V battery. You'd either use a 4-pin XLR and the amp would send +5v to the guitar to power the active circuitry, or perhaps 5-16v "phantom" would float on the signal lines, blocked by a capacitor at the amp input. It could power your pedals as well... scratch that, there would be no pedals. There would be an onboard signal processor built right into the guitar
  • Locking nut for the vibrato, but no hex screws. It'd lock into place with a flip-down mechanical toggle for easy tuning
  • Actually, there would be no tuning... automated self-tuners would probably obsolete any pitch or intonation irregularities
  • etc etc etc
In other words... it'd be pretty dull.

There's so much about the electric guitar that could easily be "optimized" with modern tech. We don't do it because each thing we change takes away some of the mid-century gestalt we (as a culture) have come to value.

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