Terms

• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)• Usability• Usability-Centered Design• User-Centered Design • Interaction Design• Experience Design• Person-Centered Design

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

‘Concerned with the design, evaluation, implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.’ ACM SGICHI

‘The study of people, computer technology, and the way these influence one another. We study HCI to determine how we an make this computer technology more usable by people.’

Dix, quoted in Human-Computer Interaction, ed. By Baecker et al.

‘ACM SIGCHI brings together people working on the design, evaluation, implementation, and study of interactive computing systems for human use.’

http://www.acm.org/sigchi/

Recurring HCI Issues

• Is there a theoretical base to HCI?– or does it simply draw on cognitive

psychology, design disciplines, computer science…

• What is the relationship between academics/researchers and practitioners?– And between research and research

findings and practice

User-Centered Design I

• TraditionalTech-drivenComponent-focusedLimited interdisc. coopFocus on internal archNo speclzn in user

experienceSome competitive focusDevelpmt prior to user

validationProduct defect view of qualityLimited focus on user

measurementFocus on current customers

• UCDUser driven

Solutions focused

Multidisc teamwork

Focus on externals design

Focus on competition

Develop user validated designs

User view of quality

Prime focus on user measurement

Focus on current and future customers

--Vredenberg p. 2

User-Centered Design II

• User Centered Design (UCD) is an approach that supports the entire development process with user-centered activities, in order to create applications which are easy to use and are of added value to the intended users.

• There are four important UCD principles: – A clear understanding of user and task requirements – Incorporating user feedback to refine requirements

and design – Active involvement of user to evaluate designs – Integrating user centered design with other

development activities --UsabilityNet.org

Task Centered Design • This project is a hands-on exercise on task-centered design

and prototyping, which is the first step in an iterative user-centered system design. … You begin your design by getting to know the intended users, their tasks, and the working context of their actions. Only then do you consider what the actual system design should look like, where you would base the design on real people, real tasks, and real needs. User centered system design is not an academic process where some cookbook formula can be applied. Nor is it an intuitive process where a programmer can sit in their office and think they know what the user and their tasks are. Rather, it is a hands-on process that requires you to go out and identify actual users, talk to them about what tasks they are trying to do, and understand the entire context of their work. You then base your designs on this information. Because your initial designs will be crude and problem-prone, you will have to identify potential usability problems by continually evaluating your design and by crafting new designs. This is called iterative design.

--Saul Greenberg

Interaction design

– ‘Designing interactive products to support people in their everyday and working lives….creating user experiences that enhance and extend the way people work, communicate, and interact.’ Architecture, not civil engineering. Preece p. 6

– “There is no commonly agreed definition of interaction design; most people in the field, however, would probably subscribe to a general orientation towards shaping software, websites, video games and other digital artifacts, with particular attention to the qualities of the experiences they provide to users. The word “interaction” in interaction design captures the time-based, and at the same time, nonlinear nature of the digital, a quality that sets it apart from most if not all other design materials.”

Jonas Löwgren http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/002589.php

Experience design

– “Experience Design 1 is a book about today's intersection of disciplines, such as: interaction design, information design, visual design, and more related methodologies are just parts of the whole. Practiced by many people around the world, experience design is as much an approach and ethic, as it is a field of work. Experience Design 1 It is a way not only a way of designing online experience (such as websites), as but more importantly, it is a way of approaching all design, including products, services, environments, and events.”

– “‘Experience design‘ [has] emerged as a community of practice driven by digital and related design professionals who believe that deeply understanding people is the key to great design in any medium. … Experience is the personal connection with the moment … every aspect of living is an experience, whether we are the creators or simply chance participants.” http://www.experiencedesignbooks.com/

Person-Centered design?

Don Norman -- Human Centered DesignProfessor EmeritusDepartments of Cognitive Science and Psychology, UCSD

"People Propose, Science Studies, Technology Conforms"My person-centered motto for the 21st century

“My goal is to humanize technology, in part by making it disappear from sight, replaced by a human-centered, task-based family of information-appliances. Easy to learn, easy to use. Easy to understand. But with all the power of enhanced communication, computational systems. Information appliances, where the computer disappears into the tool and becomes invisible.”

Configuring the User

• Developing a shared vision of the user within the organization/design team– Information about the user– Who speaks “for” the user?– Who decides among competing possible

views of users, or among potential users?

• The mutual, shifting allocation of capabilities, tasks between user and system– Often not yet defined in prototyping stage– Getting users to behave “correctly,” users

“don’t understand…”

Usability test of two camera phones

• Goal: “ to compare the usability of two camera-phone products – the Nokia 7650 and the Sony-Ericsson T68i.”– “This test was not commissioned by either Nokia or Sony-

Ericsson. The test was independent research undertaken by 3G LAB using the currently released editions of each product. The test focuses solely on the camera function of each product…Recommendations made in this report are based on the results of this test.”

• Questions:– Which phone would users choose if they were to

purchase one of the two camera phones being tested– Why?– How did we measure this?– What conclusions can be drawn from this test?– What recommendations can be made based on the

results?

Limits

• First time users• Small # of users• Tested camera capability only in

camera-phones• Pre-established tasks• Question: would they BUY it?• Lab conditions including tripod• “They said they would most commonly

use a camera phone at a party or on holiday.”

Evaluation Criteria

• Researchers:– screen size/quality– physical holding position, feels best– ‘looks’ best overall– “ makes you feel in control?” (ease of use)

• Users: “why users chose the Nokia phone.”– Onscreen User Interface (UI) Usability – menus, feedback

on actions, options given– Speed – of response to actions, processing of

actions/images– Quality of colour screen – size, clarity– Quality of camera images – coupled with screen quality– Physical position of camera – holding, camera position– Build quality of the handset – keypad, other buttons and

joystick

“Learning from the work of others”

• 9 teams, same scenario• Found total of 300 valid problems • Only one team found 25% of the

problems; all the others found fewer• Why?

– Created 51 different tasks from the same test scenario– which tasks are critical?

• Quality of reports: 5-to 52 pages

What makes a report useful to clients?

• “What makes”:– Executive summary– Positive findings– Screen shots

• Other report?– Clarity about what they did, recs based only

on this test– Direct quotes from users– Table presents steps/tasks graphically– Clear side-by-side discussion of the two

phones– Clear findings and recommendations