User Interface Design

Dr. Oliver Obst

Outline
Date Topic

19/02 26/02 05/03 12/03 19/03 26/03 02/04 -23/04 30/04 07/05 14/05 21/05 28/05 04/06

Overview, Introduction Concepts of Interaction Cognitive and perceptual issues of design Designing for collaboration and communication Understanding how interfaces affect users The process of interaction design Identifying needs and establish requirements Design, Prototype and Construction Quiz User-centred approach to interaction-design Introducing evaluation An evaluation framework Observing, testing and modelling users Project presentation nal project 50% quiz 30% assignment 10% proposal 10%

Important Dates

15/03: project proposal due (10%) 02/04: assignment 1 due (10%) 08/04 - 21/04: holidays 30/04: quiz (30%) 04/06: nal project due (50%), presentation

Organisation

Lecture: Mondays 3-6 Lab/Tutorial/Ws Tuesdays 2-3 or 4-5 (from next week) ??? Mon 1-2 / Tue 6-7

Literature

Interaction Design Preece, Rogers, Sharp (Wiley and Sons, 2002) [Link]
Ben Shneiderman Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction Addison-Wesley

Bad designs

Elevator controls and labels on the bottom row all look the same, so it is easy to push a label by mistake instead of a control button

People do not make same mistake for the labels and buttons on the top row. Why not?

From: [Link]
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Why is this vending machine so bad?

From: [Link]
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Need to push button rst to activate reader Normally insert bill rst before making selection Contravenes well known convention

Good design

Marble answering machine (Bishop, 1995) Based on how everyday objects behave Easy, intuitive and a pleasure to use Only requires one-step actions to perform core tasks

Good and bad design

What is wrong with the Apex remote? Why is the TiVo remote so much better designed?

Peanut shaped to t in hand Logical layout and color-coded, distinctive buttons Easy to locate buttons

What to design

Need to take into account:

Who the users are What activities are being carried out Where the interaction is taking place

Need to optimise the interactions users have with a product

So that they match the users activities and needs

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Understanding users needs

Need to take into account what people are good and bad at Consider what might help people in the way they currently do things Think through what might provide quality user experiences Listen to what people want and get them involved Use tried and tested user-centred methods

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Activity
How does making a call differ when using a: - Cell phone - Public phone box? Consider the kinds of user, type of activity
and context of use

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What is interaction design?

Designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives

Sharp, Rogers and Preece

The design of spaces for human communication and interaction

Winograd (1997)

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Goals of interaction design

Develop usable products - Usability means easy to learn, effective to
use and provide an enjoyable experience

Involve users in the design process

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Which kind of design?

Number of other terms used emphasising what is being designed, e.g.,

user interface design, software design, user-centred design, product design, web design, experience design (UX)

Interaction design is the umbrella term covering all of these aspects

fundamental to all disciplines, elds, and approaches concerned with researching and designing computer-based systems for people

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HCI and interaction design

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Relationship between ID, HCI and other elds

Academic disciplines contributing to ID:
Psychology Social Sciences Computing Sciences Engineering Ergonomics Informatics

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Relationship between ID, HCI and other elds

Design practices contributing to ID:
Graphic design Product design Artist-design Industrial design Film industry

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Relationship between ID, HCI and other elds elds that do interaction Interdisciplinary design:
HCI Human Factors Cognitive Engineering Cognitive Ergonomics Computer Supported Co-operative Work Information Systems

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Working in multidisciplinary teams

Many people from different backgrounds involved Different perspectives and ways of seeing and talking about things Benets

more ideas and designs generated

Disadvantages
difcult to communicate and progress forward the designs being create
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Interaction design in business

Increasing number of ID consultancies, examples of well known ones include: Nielsen Norman Group: help companies enter the age of the consumer, designing human-centered products and services Cooper: From research and product to goal-related design Swim: provides a wide range of design services, in each case targeted to address the product development needs at hand IDEO: creates products, services and environments for companies pioneering new ways to provide value to their customers

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What do professionals do in the ID business?

interaction designers - people involved in the design of all the interactive aspects of a product usability engineers - people who focus on evaluating products, using usability methods and principles web designers - people who develop and create the visual design of websites, such as layouts information architects - people who come up with ideas of how to plan and structure interactive products user experience designers (UX) - people who do all the above but who may also carry out eld studies to inform the design of products

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The User Experience

How a product behaves and is used by people in the real world
the way people feel about it and their pleasure and satisfaction when using it, looking at it, holding it, and opening or closing it every product that is used by someone has a user experience: newspapers, ketchup bottles, reclining armchairs, cardigan sweaters. (Garrett, 2003)

Cannot design a user experience, only design for a user experience

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Why was the iPod user experience such a success?

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What is involved in the process of interaction design

Identifying needs and establishing requirements for the user experience Developing alternative designs to meet these Building interactive prototypes that can be communicated and assessed Evaluating what is being built throughout the process and the user experience it offers
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Core characteristics of interaction design

Users should be involved through the development of the project Specic usability and user experience goals need to be identied, clearly documented and agreed at the beginning of the project Iteration is needed through the core activities

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Why go to this length?

Help designers:
understand how to design interactive products that t with what people want, need and may desire appreciate that one size does not t all
e.g., teenagers are very different to grown-ups

identify any incorrect assumptions they may have about particular user groups
e.g., not all old people want or need big fonts

be aware of both peoples sensitivities and their capabilities

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Are cultural differences important?

5/21/1960 versus 21/5/1960?

Which should be used for international services and online forms?

Why is it that certain products, like the iPod, are universally accepted by people from all parts of the world whereas websites are reacted to differently by people from different cultures?

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Anna, IKEA online sales agent

Designed to be different for UK and US customers What are the differences and which is which? What should Annas appearance be like for other countries, like India, South Africa, or Australia?

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Usability goals
Effective to use Efcient to use Safe to use Have good utility Easy to learn Easy to remember how to use

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Activity on usability
How long should it take and how long does it actually take to: - Using a DVD to play a movie? - Use a DVD to pre-record two programs? - Using a web browser tool to create a website?

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User experience goals

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! satisfying enjoyable! ! engaging ! ! pleasurable ! exciting! helpful! ! ! ! entertaining! motivating !! emotionally fullling ! ! annoying aesthetically pleasing supportive of creativity rewarding fun provocative surprising enhancing sociability challenging

! boring ! !

frustrating! !

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Usability and user experience goals

Selecting terms to convey a persons feelings, emotions, etc., can help designers understand the multifaceted nature of the user experience How do usability goals differ from user experience goals? Are there trade-offs between the two kinds of goals?
e.g. can a product be both fun and safe?

How easy is it to measure usability versus user experience goals?

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Design principles

Generalizable abstractions for thinking about different aspects of design The dos and donts of interaction design What to provide and what not to provide at the interface Derived from a mix of theory-based knowledge, experience and common-sense

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Visibility
This is a control panel for an elevator How does it work? Push a button for the oor you want? Nothing happens. Push any other button? Still nothing. What do you need to do?
From: [Link]

It is not visible as to what to do!

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Visibility
! you need to insert your room card in the slot by the buttons to get the elevator to work! "

How would you make this action more visible?

make the card reader more obvious

provide an auditory message, that says what to do (which language?) provide a big label next to the card reader that ashes when someone enters

make relevant parts visible make what has to be done obvious

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What do I do if I am wearing black?

Invisible automatic

controls can make it more difcult to use

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Feedback

Sending information back to the user about what has been done Includes sound, highlighting, animation and combinations of these

e.g. when screen button clicked on provides sound or red highlight feedback:
ccclichhk

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Constraints

Restricting the possible actions that can be performed Helps prevent user from selecting incorrect options Physical objects can be designed to constrain things

e.g. only one way you can insert a key into a lock

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Logical or ambiguous design?

From: [Link] Where do you plug the mouse? Where do you plug the keyboard? top or bottom connector? Do the color coded icons help?

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How to design them more logically

(i) A provides direct adjacent mapping between icon and connector (ii) B provides colour coding to associate the connectors with the labels
From: [Link]

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Consistency

-

Design interfaces to have similar operations and use similar elements for similar tasks For example:
always use ctrl key plus rst initial of the command for an operation ctrl+C, ctrl+S, ctrl+O

Main benet is consistent interfaces are easier to learn and use

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When consistency breaks down

What happens if there is more than one command starting with the same letter?
e.g. save, spelling, select, style

Have to nd other initials or combinations of keys, thereby breaking the consistency rule
e.g. ctrl+S, ctrl+Sp, ctrl+shift+L

Increases learning burden on user, making them more prone to errors

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Internal and external consistency

Internal consistency refers to designing operations to behave the same within an application
Difcult to achieve with complex interfaces

External consistency refers to designing operations, interfaces, etc., to be the same across applications and devices
Very rarely the case, based on different designers preference

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Keypad numbers layout

A case of external inconsistency
(a) phones, remote controls (b) calculators, computer keypads

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 9

7 8 9 4 5 6 1 2 3 0

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Affordances: to give a clue

Refers to an attribute of an object that allows people to know how to use it

e.g. a mouse button invites pushing, a door handle affords pulling

Norman (1988) used the term to discuss the design of everyday objects Since has been much popularised in interaction design to discuss how to design interface objects
e.g. scrollbars to afford moving up and down, icons to afford clicking on

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What does affordance have to offer interaction design?

Interfaces are virtual and do not have affordances like physical objects Norman argues it does not make sense to talk about interfaces in terms of real affordances Instead interfaces are better conceptualized as perceived affordances
Learned conventions of arbitrary mappings between action and effect at the interface Some mappings are better than others

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Activity
Physical affordances:
How do the following physical objects afford? Are they obvious?

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Activity
Virtual affordances
How do the following screen objects afford? What if you were a novice user? Would you know what to do with them?

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Usability principles
Similar to design principles, except more
prescriptive systems

Used mainly as the basis for evaluating Provide a framework for heuristic evaluation
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Usability principles (Nielsen 2001)

Visibility of system status Match between system and the real world User control and freedom Consistency and standards Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors Error prevention Recognition rather than recall Flexibility and efciency of use Aesthetic and minimalist design Help and documentation
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Key points

Interaction design is concerned with designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives It is concerned with how to create quality user experiences It requires taking into account a number of interdependent factors, including context of use, type of activities, cultural differences, and user groups It is multidisciplinary, involving many inputs from widereaching disciplines and elds
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