Lesson 1.

2: Interaction Design

Lesson Summary
This lesson discusses the user experience, which is a central concern of
interaction design, is then introduced.
In this lesson, we'll look at what interface design is. We examine the distinctio
n between excellent and bad design, emphasizing how goods may differ dramaticall
y in terms of use and enjoyment.
Then we outline what and who is engaged in the interface design process.
The user experience, which is a primary focus of interface design, is next disc
ussed.
Finally, we discuss how to define the user experience using usability
objectives, user experience goals, and design principles. At the end of the lesson,
you will be given an assignment in which you will be able to put what you have
learned into practice by analyzing the design of an interactive product.

Learning Outcomes
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Explain the difference between good and poor interaction design.
2. Describe what interaction design is and how it relates to human–computer
interaction and other fields.
3. Explain the relationship between the user experience and usability.
4. Describe what and who is involved in the process of interaction design.
5. Outline the different forms of guidance used in interaction design.
6. Enable you to evaluate an interactive product and explain what is good and
bad about it in terms of the goals and core principles of interaction design.

Motivational Questions
How many interactive products are there in everyday use? Think for a minute about
what you use in a typical day: smartphone, tablet, computer, remote control, coffee
machine, ATM, ticket machine, printer, iPod, GPS, e-reader, TV, electric toothbrush,
radio, games
console . . . the list is endless.

Now think for a minute about how usable they are. How many are actually easy,
effortless, and enjoyable to use?
 Some, like the iPod, are a joy to use. Others, like a ticket machine, can be very
frustrating. Why is there a difference?

Discussion
Many products that need users to engage with them, such as cellphones and social
networking sites, were developed with the user in mind first and foremost. They are
often simple and pleasurable to use. Others, such as moving from watching a
rented movie on a smart TV to watching a sports channel or setting the alarm on a
digital clock, were not necessarily developed with consumers in mind, but were
instead engineered primarily as systems to execute predefined duties. While they
may be successful, they may be at the price of how actual people will utilize them.
One of the primary goals of interaction design is to minimize the bad parts of the
user experience (such as dissatisfaction and aggravation) while boosting the good
ones (e.g. enjoyment, engagement). In essence, it is about creating interactive
products1 that are simple, effective, and enjoyable to use - from the consumers'
point of view.

Good and Poor Design

The creation of useable interactive goods is a major focus of interaction design.

This often refers to how easy it is to understand, how effective it is to use, and how
joyful the user experience is. Comparing examples of well-designed and poorly-
designed interactive goods is a useful place to start thinking about how to build
useable interactive products. We may begin to comprehend what it means for
something to be useable or not by examining the individual faults and strengths of
various interactive goods. In this section, we discuss two instances of badly
designed goods – a hotel voice mail system and the ubiquitous remote control
device – and contrast them with two examples of well-conceived products that fulfill
the same job.
 Voice Mail System
Imagine the following scenario. You are staying at a hotel for a week while on a
business trip. You discover you have left your cell phone at home so you have to
rely on the hotel's facilities. The hotel has a voicemail system for each room. To find
out if you have a message, you pick up the handset and listen to the tone. If it goes
‘beep, beep, beep’ there is a message. To find out how to access the message you
have to read a set of instructions next to the phone. You read and follow the first
step:
(1) Touch 41.’
 The system responds: ‘You have reached the Sunny Hotel voice message
center. Please enter the room number for which you would like to leave a
message.’
You wait to hear how to listen to a recorded message. But there are no
further instructions from the phone. You look down at the instruction sheet
again and read:
(2) Touch *, your room number, and #.’
You do so and the system replies: ‘You have reached the mailbox for room
106. To leave a message, type in your password.’
You type in the room number again and the system replies: ‘Please enter
room number again and then your password.’
You don't know what your password is. You thought it was the same as your
room number, but clearly it's not. At this point you give up and call reception
for help. The person at the desk explains the correct procedure for recording
and listening to messages. This involves typing in, at the appropriate times,
the room number and the extension number of the phone (the latter is the
password, which
is different from the room number). Moreover, it takes six steps to access a
message and five steps to leave a message. You go out and buy a new cell
phone.

What is problematic with this voice mail system?

 It is infuriating.
 It is confusing.
 It is inefficient, requiring you to carry out a number of steps for
basic tasks.
 It is difficult to use.
It has no means of letting you know at a glance whether any messages have
been left or how many there are. You have to pick up the handset to find out and
then go through a series of steps to listen to them. It is not obvious what to do: the
instructions are provided partially by the system and partially by a card beside the
phone.

Now consider the following phone answering machine. Figure 1 shows two small
sketches of an answering machine phone.
Incoming messages are represented using physical marbles. The number of marbles
that have moved into the pinball-like chute indicates the number of messages.
Dropping one of these marbles into a slot in the machine causes the recorded
message to play.
Dropping the same marble into another slot on the phone dials the caller who left
the message.
 Figure 1. The marble answering machine

Source: Adapted from Gillian Crampton Smith: “The Hand that Rocks the
Cradle” ID Magazine, May/June 1995, pp. 60–65.

How does the marble answering machine differ from the voice mail system?
 It uses familiar physical objects that indicate visually at a glance how many
messages have been left.
 It is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to use.
 It only requires one-step actions to perform core tasks.
 It is a simple but elegant design.
 It offers less functionality and allows anyone to listen to any of the messages.
The marble answering machine is considered a design classic and was designed by
Durrell Bishop while he was a student at the Royal College of Art in London
(described by Crampton Smith, 1995). One of his goals was to design a messaging
system that represented its basic functionality in terms of the behavior of everyday
objects. To do this, he capitalized on people's everyday knowledge of how the
physical world works. In particular, he made use of the ubiquitous everyday action
of picking up a physical object and putting it down in another place. This is an
example of an interactive product designed with the users in mind. The focus is on
providing them with an enjoyable experience but one that also makes efficient the
activity of receiving messages. However, it is important to note that although the
marble answering machine is a very elegant and usable design, it would not be
practical in a hotel setting. One of the main reasons is that it is not robust enough
to be used in public places: for instance, the marbles could easily get lost or be
taken as souvenirs. Also, the need to identify the user before allowing the messages
to be played is essential in a hotel setting. When considering the design of an
interactive product, therefore, it is important to take into account where it is going
to be used and who is going to use it. The marble answering machine would be
more suited in a home setting – provided there were no children who might be
tempted to play with the marbles!

Click the link for the Video of Durrell Bishop's answering machine at [Link]
 2) Remote Control Device
Every home entertainment system, be it the TV, cable, smart TV, music
system, and so forth, comes with its own remote control device.
Each one is different in terms of how it looks and works. Many have been designed
with a dizzying array of small, multicolored, and double-labeled buttons (one on the
button and one above or below it) that often seem arbitrarily positioned in relation
to one another.
Many viewers, especially when sitting in their living room, find it difficult to locate
the right ones, even for the simplest of tasks, like pausing or finding the main
menu. It can be especially frustrating for those who need to put on their reading
glasses each time to read the buttons. The remote control device appears to have
been put together very much as an afterthought.

In contrast, much effort and thought went into the design of the TiVo remote
control. The buttons were large, clearly labeled, and logically arranged, making
them easy to locate and use in conjunction with the menu interface that appears on
the TV monitor. In terms of its physical form, the remote device was designed to fit
into the palm of a hand, having a peanut shape. It also has a playful look and feel
about it: colorful buttons and cartoon icons were used that are very distinctive,
making it easy to identify them in the dark and without having to put reading
glasses on.

How was it possible to create such a usable and appealing remote device
where so many others have failed? The answer is simple: TiVo invested the time
and effort to follow a user-centered design process. Specifically, TiVo's director of
product design at the time involved potential users in the design process, getting
their feedback on everything from the feel of the device in the hand to where best
to place the batteries – making them easy to replace but not prone to falling out. He
and his design team also resisted the trap of ‘buttonitis’ – to which so many other
remote controls have fallen victim – where buttons breed like rabbits, one for every
new function. They did this by restricting the number of control buttons embedded
in the device to the essential ones. Other functions were then represented as part of
the menu options and dialog boxes displayed on the TV screen, which could be
selected via the core set of physical control buttons. The result was a highly usable
and pleasing device that has received much praise and numerous design awards.

Dilemma

What is the best way to interact with a smart TV?

A challenge facing Smart TV providers is how to enable users to interact with
online content such that it can still be as easy and enjoyable to do as it was with
previous generations of TV, with a remote control device. Viewers can now select a
whole range of content via their TV screens, but it also involves having to type in
passwords and search terms, while scrolling through lots of menus, etc. In many
ways it has become more like a computer than a TV. This raises the question of
whether the remote control is the best input device to use for someone who is sat
on a sofa or chair that is some distance from the TV wide screen. Another
possibility is to add a keyboard and touch pad to the remote for menu/icon selection
and text input. However, this can be clunky and awkward to use, especially with
only one hand. An alternative is to provide an on-screen keyboard and number pad
– as Apple TV has done (see Figure 2). It has designed a slim line remote device that
controls the cursor on the TV screen.

However, to type requires pecking at a grid of alphanumeric letters/numbers

that is not the same as the conventional QWERTY keyboard on phones and
computers. This style of interaction can be painstakingly slow; it is also easy to
overshoot and select the wrong letter or number. Another option is to download an
app onto a smartphone and interact with the keypad as if texting. But the app has
to be opened each time to act as ‘a remote’ and is only as good as the person
whose smartphone it is.

Figure 2. (a) Interacting with digital content on a TV screen using Apple TV remote controller (b) The
online table of letters and numbers that the user has to select by pressing one button on the remote
(c) Minuum's small staggered keyboard

Source: Image (c) Courtesy of Whirls cape [Link]

Might there be a better way to choose between thousands of films or send an email
whilst sat on the sofa using the TV?
One innovative solution is Minuum's new keyboard that works a bit like a Wii
remote, except that you point at an online staggered line keyboard to select
characters. This layout seems more intuitive and faster to use on a small device,
especially with one
hand.
What to Design
Designing interactive goods necessitates understanding who will use
them, how they will be used, and where they will be utilized. Another
critical aspect is determining the kind of activities individuals engage
in while interacting with the items. The suitability of various interfaces
and configurations of input and output devices is determined by the
types of activities to be supported. For example, if the activity is to
allow individuals to bank online, a user interface that is safe,
trustworthy, and simple to use is required. Furthermore, an interface
that allows the user to learn more about the bank's offerings without
being invasive would be beneficial.

Learning Task
Learning task will be posted/announced in our official E-learning portal.

Assessment
Assessment will be posted/announced in our official E-learning portal.

Instructions on how to submit student output

Instructions will be posted in our VSUEE learning portal.