CH.5 Design With Users

Human Computer Interaction

• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is a design subject, well-studied with rich traditions
• Designers use methodologies to create better interfaces
• HCI is viewed as a design problem concerning the user experience, encompassing design considerations for usability, efficiency, safety and satisfying user goals

Interface Design

• Interface principles include:
  • Interesting, pleasing, attractive, and inviting; effective to use
  • Intuitive
  • Earning user trust
  • Clean, organized, hierarchical structure
  • Help functions, search capabilities
  • Consistent forms with design integrity
  • Automatic assistance (auto-completion, spell-checking)
  • Leading users (prompts, nature of problem, specific communication)
  • Navigational aids for large systems
  • Meaningful error messages (not sending user elsewhere, giving useful numbers)
  • Multiple paths to a function
  • Keeping the interface simple

Learning Goals for HCI

• Overview of the interaction design process
• Understanding of what "design" means
• Understanding user involvement in the design process
• Understanding the User-Centered Design (UCD) Process

What is Design?

• More than just problem-solving
• Includes multiple points of view
• Requires vision, multiple minds, openness, and learning from experience
• A combination of reflection, feel for materials, broadening ideas, and subsequent narrowing
• Ongoing mindfulness is necessary

Need to Take into Account

• Understanding user needs, activities, and interaction settings
• Optimize user interaction with product to match activities and needs
• Consider user skills and strengths/weaknesses
• Consider how people currently go about tasks, to enhance
• Aim for quality user experiences
• Use tried-and-tested user-centered methods

Goals of Interaction Design

• Developing usable products (easy to learn, effective use, enjoyable experiences)
• Involving users in the design process

Usability Goals

• Effective to use
• Efficient to use
• Safe to use
• Have good utility
• Easy to learn
• Easy to remember how to use

Why Go to This Length?

• Help designers understand how to create interactive products that meet users' needs and desires
• Identify and correct mistaken assumptions about particular user groups
• Recognizing user sensitivities and capabilities

User Experience Goals

• Satisfying
• Enjoyable
• Engaging
• Pleasurable
• Exciting
• Entertaining
• Helpful
• Motivating
• Emotionally fulfilling
• Challenging
• Supportive of creativity
• Enhancing sociability
• Rewarding
• Fun
• Surprising
• Provocative
• Boring
• Annoying
• Frustrating

Good & Bad Design

• Example comparison of an Apex remote and a TiVo remote (discusses design flaws that hinder usability)

Interaction Design Process

• Design is inherently creative and unpredictable, regardless of the discipline

• Combines technical understanding with aesthetic elements to create interfaces that satisfy users.

• Design is a process, not a state, that can not be represented statically

• The design process is non-hierarchical, not strictly top-down or bottom-up.

• Design is transformational; it involves partial and interim solutions that may not be in the final product

• Design inherently involves the discovery of new goals

• Key Stages in the Interaction Design process include:

  • Identifying needs
  • Developing alternative designs
  • Building interactive prototypes (that are communicated and assessed)
  • Evaluating the process and the user's experience it offers

Core Characteristics of Interaction Design

• Users should be involved throughout the project
• Specific usability and user experience goals should be established at project start
• Iteration is important throughout the process.

Design Phases

• Understand
• Observe
• Visualize and Predict
• Evaluate and Refine
• Implement

Analyzing Needs

• Needs drive and dictate design
• Iterative design process is essential

Contextual Inquiry

• Users and stakeholders
• Context of the interviewee's workplace
• Designer apprenticing to interviewee
• Guided by interviewee

Contextual Interviews

• Interpretation and elicitation of needs within the context and by the interviewee
• Short, focused on behaviours
• Aim to design a new system

Capturing Data

• Observer's notes
• Written notes
• Sketches and photographs
• Audio or video recordings

Generating an Idea

• Brainstorming - a crucial step for creativity

Brainstorming Rules

• Be visual
• Defer judgment
• Encourage wild ideas
• Build on ideas of other participants
• Go for quantity, not quality
• One conversation at a time
• Stay focused on the topic

Explore Design Ideas

• Needs, design, evaluate, implement as iterative

Sketches

• Illustrative examples

Flow Diagrams

• Graphic representation of process steps

Prototyping

• Iterative process, critical for envisioning together different perspectives from various parties
• Focus for identifying alternatives during reflective conversation on materials and trade-offs

Low-Fidelity Paper Prototype

• Tools include paper, cardboard, transparencies, tape, glue, rubber cement, pens, pencils, markers, scissors, plastic tubes, paper cups, and CDs
• Low-fidelity prototypes are examples in the form of sketches, diagrams or on paper

Tools for Prototyping

• HTML and Javascript
• Java Swing
• Visual C#, Visual Basic
• Flash MX, Director
• Mac Interface Builder
• A mix of the above

Methods for Getting Users Involved

• Users and stakeholders throughout the entire design process

User-Centered Design

• Users drive the force behind development
• Users are consulted throughout development
• Decisions are made within the context of user work, and environment

Stages of User Involvement

• Need finding
• Design (participatory design)
• Implementation (end-user programming)
• Evaluation
• Use in the target setting
• Users can be involved in any stage

Why is Design Difficult?

• Increasing complexity/pressure
• Marketplace pressures
• Consideration for cost and appearance surpassing human factors design
• Challenges in creativity

Idea Creation

• Methods of idea generation
• Drawing on other fields
• Analogies
• Concepts of magnification and adaptation
• Generating creative ideas with approaches like consideration of object use, adapting objects, modification, or combinations, etc.

Design Principles

• Use simple and natural dialog in user's language
• Match user's task with a natural method
• Avoid slang and techno-speak
• Present exactly the needed information
• Strive for consistency with sequences, actions, commands, layout, and terminology
• Providing informative feedback about occurring actions and delays
• Minimize user's memory load (recognition vs. recall, example formats with defaults)
• Permit easy reversal of actions
• Provide clearly marked exits
• Provide shortcuts for often-used operations
• Support internal locus of control
• Handle errors gracefully
• Provide useful help and documentation

This quiz covers the fundamentals of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and interface design principles. It explores design methodologies aimed at creating effective and user-friendly interfaces, focusing on usability, safety, and user satisfaction. Test your understanding of these essential concepts in HCI.