Lesson 12 – Designing the
user interface
User interface
• User interfaces should be designed to match the skills, experience
and expectations of its anticipated users.
• System users often judge a system by its interface rather than its
functionality.
• A poorly designed interface can cause a user to make catastrophic
errors.
• Poor user interface design is the reason why so many software
systems are never used.
Human factors in interface design
• Limited short-term memory
• People can instantaneously remember about 7 items of information. If you present more
than this, they are more liable to make mistakes.
• People make mistakes
• When people make mistakes and systems go wrong, inappropriate alarms and messages can
increase stress and hence the likelihood of more mistakes.
• People are different
• People have a wide range of physical capabilities. Designers should not just design for their
own capabilities.
• People have different interaction preferences
• Some like pictures, some like text.
UI design principles
• UI design must take account of the needs, experience and
capabilities of the system users.
• Designers should be aware of people’s physical and mental limitations
(e.g. limited short-term memory) and should recognise that people
make mistakes.
• UI design principles underlie interface designs although not all
principles are applicable to all designs.
User interface design principles
Principle Description
User familiarity The interface should use terms and concepts which are drawn
from the experience of the people who will make most use of the
system.
Consistency The interface should be consistent in that, wherever possible,
comparable operations should be activated in the same way.
Minimal surprise Users should never be surprised by the behaviour of a system.
Recoverability The interface should include mechanisms to allow users to
recover from errors.
User guidance The interface should provide meaningful feedback when errors
occur and provide context-sensitive user help facilities.
User diversity The interface should provide appropriate interaction facilities for
different types of system user.
Design principles
• User familiarity
• The interface should be based on user-oriented
terms and concepts rather than computer concepts. For example, an office system should
use concepts such as letters, documents, folders etc. rather than directories, file identifiers,
etc.
• Consistency
• The system should display an appropriate level
of consistency. Commands and menus should have the same format, command punctuation
should be similar, etc.
• Minimal surprise
• If a command operates in a known way, the user should be able to predict the operation of
comparable commands
Design principles
• Recove-rability
• The system should provide some resilience to
user errors and allow the user to recover from errors. This might include an undo facility,
confirmation of destructive actions, 'soft' deletes, etc.
• User guidance
• Some user guidance such as help systems, on-line manuals, etc. should be supplied
• User diversity
• Interaction facilities for different types of user should be supported. For example, some users
have seeing difficulties and so larger text should be available
Design issues in UIs
• Two problems must be addressed in interactive systems design
• How should information from the user be provided to the computer system?
• How should information from the computer system be presented to the user?
• User interaction and information presentation may be integrated through a
coherent framework such as a user interface metaphor.
• Eg ????
Interaction styles
• Direct manipulation
• Menu selection
• Form fill-in
• Command language
• Natural language
Interaction styles
Interaction Main advantages Main disadvantages Application
style examples
Direct Fast and intuitive May be hard to implement. Video games
manipulation interaction Only suitable where there is a CAD systems
Easy to learn visual metaphor for tasks and
objects.
Menu Avoids user error Slow for experienced users. Most general-
selection Little typing required Can become complex if many purpose systems
menu options.
Form fill-in Simple data entry Takes up a lot of screen space. Stock control,
Easy to learn Causes problems whe re user Personal loan
Checkable options do no t match the form processing
fields.
Command Powerful and flexible Hard to learn. Operating systems,
language Poor error manage ment. Command and
control systems
Natural Accessible to casual Requires more typing. Information
language users Natural language und erstanding retrieval systems
Easily extended systems are unreliable.
Web-based interfaces
• Many web-based systems have interfaces based on web forms.
• Form field can be menus, free text input, buttons, etc.
• In the LIBSYS example, users make a choice of where to search from a
menu and type the search phrase into a free text field.
LIBSYS search form
LIBSYS: Search
Choose collection All
Keyword or phras e
Search us ing Title
Adjacent words Yes No
Search Res et Cancel
Colour displays
• Colour adds an extra dimension to an interface and can help the user
understand complex information structures.
• Colour can be used to highlight exceptional events.
• Common mistakes in the use of colour in
interface design include:
• The use of colour to communicate meaning;
• The over-use of colour in the display.
Colour use guidelines
• Limit the number of colours used and be conservative in their use.
• Use colour change to show a change in system status.
• Use colour coding to support the task that users are trying to
perform.
• Use colour coding in a thoughtful and consistent way.
• Be careful about colour pairings.
Error messages
• Error message design is critically important.
Poor error messages can mean that a user
rejects rather than accepts a system.
• Messages should be polite, concise, consistent and constructive.
• The background and experience of users
should be the determining factor in message
design.
User error
• Assume that a nurse misspells the name of a patient whose records
he is trying to retrieve.
Pleas e type the patient’s name in the bo x then c lic k on OK
Patient’s name
MacDonald, R.
OK Cancel
Good and bad message design
The UI design process
• UI design is an iterative process involving close liaisons between users
and designers.
• The 3 core activities in this process are:
• User analysis. Understand what the users will do with the system;
• System prototyping. Develop a series of prototypes for experiment;
• Interface evaluation. Experiment with these prototypes with users.
User analysis
• If you don’t understand what the users want to do with a system, you
have no realistic prospect of designing an effective interface.
• User analyses have to be described in terms that users and other
designers can understand.
• Scenarios where you describe typical episodes of use, are one way of
describing these analyses.
User interaction scenario
Jane is a student of Religious Studies and is working on an essay
on Indian architecture and how it has been influenced by religious
practices. To help her understand this, she would like to access
some pictures of details on notable buildings but can’t find
anything in her local library.
She approaches the subject librarian to discuss her needs and he
suggests some search terms that might be used. He also suggests
some libraries in New Delhi and London that might have this
material so they log on to the library catalogues and do some
searching using these terms. They find some source material and
place a request for photocopies of the pictures with architectural
detail to be posted directly to Jane.
Requirements from the scenario
• Users may not be aware of appropriate search terms so need a way of
helping them choose terms.
• Users have to be able to select collections to search.
• Users need to be able to carry out searches and request copies of
relevant material.
Analysis techniques
• Task analysis
• Models the steps involved in completing a task.
• Interviewing and questionnaires
• Asks the users about the work they do.
• Ethnography
• Observes the user at work.
Hierarchical task analysis
Retrieve pictures
from remote
libraries
do 1, 2,
3 until pictures found, 4
1 Discover 2 Establis h 3 4. Request
search Search for
possible photocopies
terms pictures
sources of founditems
do 3.1, 3. 2,
3.3 until pictures found,
3.4 if necess ary , 3.5
3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Record
Select Log in to Search for Modify
library catalogue pictures relevant
searchterms
items
do 3.3.1, 3. 3. 2, 3.3.3
3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3
Enter search Initiate Review
terms search results
Interviewing
• Design semi-structured interviews based on open-ended questions.
• Users can then provide information that they think is essential; not
just information that you have thought of collecting.
• Group interviews or focus groups allow users to discuss with each
other what they do.
Ethnography
• Involves an external observer watching users at work and questioning
them in an unscripted way about their work.
• Valuable because many user tasks are intuitive and they find these
very difficult to describe and explain.
• Also helps understand the role of social and organisational influences
on work.
Ethnographic records
Air traffic control involves a number of control ‘suites’ where the suites
controlling adjacent sectors of airspace are physically located next to
each other. Flights in a sector are represented by paper strips that are
fitted into wooden racks in an order that reflects their position in the
sector. If there are not enough slots in the rack (i.e. when the airspace
is very busy), controllers spread the strips out on the desk in front of the
rack.
When we were observing controllers, we noticed that controllers
regularly glanced at the strip racks in the adjacent sector. We pointed
this out to them and asked them why they did this. They replied that, if
the adjacent controller has strips on their desk, then this meant that
they would have a lot of flights entering their sector. They therefore tried
to increase the speed of aircraft in the sector to ‘clear space’ for the
incoming aircraft.
Insights from ethnography
• Controllers had to see all flights in a sector. Therefore, scrolling
displays where flights disappeared off the top or bottom of the
display should be avoided.
• The interface had to have some way of telling controllers how many
flights were in adjacent sectors so that they could plan their
workload.
User interface prototyping
• The aim of prototyping is to allow users to gain direct experience with
the interface.
• Without such direct experience, it is impossible to judge the usability
of an interface.
• Prototyping may be a two-stage process:
• Early in the process, paper prototypes may be used;
• The design is then refined and increasingly sophisticated automated
prototypes are then developed.
Paper prototyping
• Work through scenarios using sketches of the interface.
• Use a storyboard to present a series of interactions with the system.
• Paper prototyping is an effective way of getting user reactions to a
design proposal.
Prototyping techniques
• Script-driven prototyping
• Develop a set of scripts and screens using a tool such as Macromedia Director.
When the user interacts with these, the screen changes to the next display.
• Visual programming
• Use a language designed for rapid development such as Visual Basic
• Internet-based prototyping
• Use a web browser and associated scripts.
User interface evaluation
• Some evaluation of a user interface design
should be carried out to assess its suitability.
• Full scale evaluation is very expensive and
impractical for most systems.
• Ideally, an interface should be evaluated against a usability
specification. However, it is rare for such specifications to be
produced.
Usability attributes
Attribute Description
Learnability How long does it ta ke a new user to become productive with
the system?
Speed of operation How well does the system response match the userÕswork
practice?
Robustness How tolerant is the system of user error?
Recoverability How good is the system at recovering from user errors?
Adaptability How closely is the system tied to a single model of work?