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USER NEEDS AND BEHAVIORWXGB6303

User Centered Interface Design

Users, Interactions and Experiences

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Interaction Design

Defines the behavior of information products and systems that library users/researchers can interact. The practice typically centers around complex technology systems, its focus is on defining the complex dialogues that occur between people and interactive interface – from software to mobile communications. Approaching design from a user-centered perspective, while endeavoring to balance users’ needs with technological capabilities

An interface has to be matched to the task it will support, as well as to the users who will work with it.

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Interactive Design

To increase user productivity and satisfactionMinimize the learning curve Increase the accuracy and efficiency of a task

without diminishing usefulnessImprove usability and users experience of the

information product (by researching and understanding certain user’s needs and preferences and tailor the design according to these needs and preferences)

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User-Centered

Involving real users in the design process, the design team will gain the ability to better understand user goals and experiences.

The users focus is primarily on getting things done, not on “information search and retrieval”. The user does not want to have to think about the process of search and retrieval, and designers should keep this in mind.

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Relationship with Interface Design

Interaction design is always associated with the design of system interfaces in a variety of media.

It concentrates on the aspects of the interface that define and present its behavior overtime, with a focus on developing the system to respond to users’ experiences.

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Users Issues

Models and User Behaviors

This highlights the significance of models and user behaviors to analyze both the technical and pedagogical dimensions. Technical – they are the indicator of load determinants

for network and server traffic predictions. Pedagogical – understand human behavior in order to

ensure that the pedagogy is suitable for users. Understanding of the user behavior allows for the

planning and timely delivery of information resources and services

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User Issues

Information Seeking

How users seek information as part of their daily task through the web interface by analyzing browser based actions and events.

Combined studies (Ellis, Aguilar, Wilson, Dervin, Kuthlau) on information seeking behaviors suggested that people who use the web as an information resource for personal or social goals engage in a range of complementary modes of information seeking, varying from undirected viewing that does not pursue a specific information need, to formal searching that retrieves focused information for action or decision making. Each mode of information seeking on the Web is distinguished by the nature of information needs, information seeking tactics, and the purpose of information use.

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Users Issues

Types of Users

The web interface has to cater to their preferred different starting points. Novice or first timers usually benefit from a guided tour,

or in-depth overview of the benefits and features of the site with provision of contact for further assistance.

Web searchers are users with specific goals and they expect the site to help them find exactly what they’re looking in a fast and efficient manner.

Web browsers usually aren’t looking for anything specific, but are open for something that grabs their interest, hence web content and design are critical to lure users.

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Interactions Issues

Interaction design elements The interaction design processes that help to produce good interfaces. An

interface has to be matched to the task it will support, as well as to the users who will work with it. The graphic design of an interface involves decisions about issues such as where to put things on the screen, what size and font to use, and what colors will work best. For these questions as for other, more substantive design issues, intelligent borrowing should be your first approach. But that often leaves you with a lot of decisions still to be made. Here are a few principles of graphic design that will not only make your interface more attractive, but will also make it more usable. Each principle is accompanied by a description of WHY it's important, so you'll be able to consider the tradeoffs when there's a conflict between two principles or between a design principle and a borrowed technique. Bringing users in the interface design process.

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Interactions Issues

Information Visualization It is a process of transforming information into a visual form

enabling the user to observe, browse and visualize better, to understand and make sense of the information. In particular, it is about displaying complex data in as much detail as possible without distracting the viewer / user. It typically employs computers to process the information and computer screens to view it using methods of interactive graphics, imaging, and visual design. It relies on the visual system to perceive and process the information.

Visualization is more than pretty pictures. This is not to lessen the importance of visual aesthetics. The latter is quite important in making the user like to look at the information. However, the beauty of an effective visualization is more than skin deep.

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Usability Issues

Usability is the measure of the quality of the user experience when interacting with the Web site User Interfaces and Evaluation

This will focus on three approaches to evaluating an interface in the absence of users. The first approach is the cognitive walkthrough, a task-oriented technique that fits especially well in the context of task-centered design. The second approach is action analysis, which allows a designer to predict the time that an expert user would need to perform a task, and which forces the designer to take a detailed look at the interface. The third approach is heuristic evaluation, a kind of check-list approach that catches a wide variety of problems but requires several evaluators who have some knowledge of usability problems.

Evaluating user interfaces is all about facilitating how the user specifies what is required to achieve usability / functionality

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Performance, Evaluation and Acceptance Metrics

Basic guide to actively improve the usability of user interfaces:

Simplicity – great user interfaces reduce complexity and ambiguity and clearly guides users towards accomplishing difficult tasks.

Platform Standard – Rich-client applications should follow the user interface design guidelines for the platform which they are intended.

Consistency – important element in user interface design. It is better for related things to work in the same way throughout the user interface than to be inconsistent, even if it is slightly flawed. Users learning system s tend to try doing the same things to invoke similar functionality; have them succeed.

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Performance, Evaluation and Acceptance Metrics

Basic guide to actively improve the usability of user interfaces:

Education – Improves learnability of the application. The ability to put oneself in the mindset of a first-timer user is required to improve the UI from the perspectives of the users, which is not always easy.

Information Error Messages – must be correctly generated when testing error conditions. An informative reason why the error occurred in very simple terms, often helpful to include a suggestion as to how the error may be rectified.

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Remember

Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, not more difficult. As usability-conscious designers, we can make our users’ lives easier by thinking about the way people interact with our websites, providing clear direction, and then putting the burden of sorting out the details in the hands of the computers, let computers handle the information reformatting -not the users.