INGRESO, JORIZH T.

1-1 BSITGEN

WEEK 11

INTERACTION DESIGN

Interaction design can be understood in simple (but not simplified) terms: it is the design of the
interaction between users and products. Most often when people talk about interaction design, the
products tend to be software products like apps or websites. The goal of interaction design is to create
products that enable the user to achieve their objective(s) in the best way possible.

If this definition sounds broad, that’s because the field is rather broad: the interaction between a user
and a product often involves elements like aesthetics, motion, sound, space, and many more. And of
course, each of these elements can involve even more specialised fields, like sound design for the
crafting of sounds used in user interactions.

As you might already realise, there’s a huge overlap between interaction design and UX design. After all,
UX design is about shaping the experience of using a product, and most part of that experience involves
some interaction between the user and the product. But UX design is more than interaction design: it
also involves user research (finding out who the users are in the first place), creating user personas
(why, and under what conditions, would they use the product), performing user testing and usability
testing, etc.
WEEK 12

SOFTWARE PROCESS

The design phase of software development deals with transforming the customer requirements as
described in the SRS documents into a form implementable using a programming language.

The software design process can be divided into the following three levels of phases of design:

Interface Design

Interface design is the specification of the interaction between a system and its environment. this phase
proceeds at a high level of abstraction with respect to the inner workings of the system i.e, during
interface design, the internal of the systems are completely ignored and the system is treated as a black
box. Attention is focussed on the dialogue between the target system and the users, devices, and other
systems with which it interacts. The design problem statement produced during the problem analysis
step should identify the people, other systems, and devices which are collectively called agents.

Architectural Design

Architectural design is the specification of the major components of a system, their responsibilities,
properties, interfaces, and the relationships and interactions between them. In architectural design, the
overall structure of the system is chosen, but the internal details of major components are ignored.

Detailed Design

Design is the specification of the internal elements of all major system components, their properties,
relationships, processing, and often their algorithms and the data structures.
WEEK 13

DESIGN RULES

Nielsen and Molich's 10 User Interface Design Guidelines

These 10 rules of thumb further iterate upon Shneiderman’s eight golden rules 4 years after Shneiderman’s
initial publication.

Visibility of system status. Users should always be informed of system operations with easy to understand
and highly visible status displayed on the screen within a reasonable amount of time.

Match between system and the real world. Designers should endeavor to mirror the language and concepts
users would find in the real world based on who their target users are. Presenting information in logical order
and piggybacking on user’s expectations derived from their real-world experiences will reduce cognitive
strain and make systems easier to use.

User control and freedom. Offer users a digital space where backward steps are possible, including undoing
and redoing previous actions.

Consistency and standards. Interface designers should ensure that both the graphic elements and
terminology are maintained across similar platforms. For example, an icon that represents one category or
concept should not represent a different concept when used on a different screen.

Error prevention. Whenever possible, design systems so that potential errors are kept to a minimum. Users
do not like being called upon to detect and remedy problems, which may on occasion be beyond their level
of expertise. .

Recognition rather than recall. Minimize cognitive load by maintaining task-relevant information within the
display while users explore the interface. Human attention is limited and we are only capable of maintaining
around five items in our short-term memory at one time.

and efficiency of use. With increased use comes the demand for less interactions that allow faster
navigation. This can be achieved by using abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands and macro
facilities. Users should be able to customize or tailor the interface to suit their needs so that frequent actions
can be achieved through more convenient means.

Aesthetic and minimalist design. Keep clutter to a minimum. All unnecessary information competes for the
user's limited attentional resources, which could inhibit user’s memory retrieval of relevant information.

Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors. Designers should assume users are unable to
understand technical terminology, therefore, error messages should almost always be expressed in plain
language to ensure nothing gets lost in translation.

Help and documentation. Ideally, we want users to navigate the system without having to resort to
documentation. However, depending on the type of solution, documentation may be necessary. When users
require help, ensure it is easily located, specific to the task at hand and worded in a way that will guide them
through the necessary steps towards a solution to the issue they are facing.
WEEK 14

IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT

Programming tools for interactive systems provide a means of effectively translating abstract designs
and usability principles into an executable form. These tools provide different levels of services for the
programmer.

Windowing systems are a central environment for both the programmer and user of an interactive
system, allowing a single workstation to support separate user-system threads of action simultaneously.

Interaction toolkits abstract away from the physical separation of input and output devices, allowing the
programmer to describe behaviors of objects at a level similar to how the user perceives them.

User interface management systems are the final level of programming support tools, allowing the
designer and programmer to control the relationship between the presentation objects of a toolkit with
their functional semantics in the actual application.
WEEK 15

EVALUATION TECHNIQUES

*Cognitive Walkthrough (Proposed by Polson et al.)

- evaluates design on how well it supports user in learning task

- usually performed by expert in cognitive psychology

- expert ‘walks though’ design to identify potential problems using psychological principles

- forms used to guide analysis

For each task walkthrough considers

-what impact will interaction have on user?

-what cognitive processes are required?

-what learning problems may occur?

Heuristic Evaluation (Proposed by Nielsen and Molich.)

usability criteria (heuristics) are identified design examined by experts to see if these are violated

Example heuristics

- system behaviour is predictable

- system behaviour is consistent

- feedback is provided

Heuristic evaluation `debugs' design.

Review-based Evaluation

- Results from the literature used to support or refute parts of design.

- Care needed to ensure results are transferable to new design.

- Model-based evaluation

- Cognitive models used to filter design options (e.g. GOMS prediction of user performance.)

- Design rationale can also provide useful evaluation information

UNIVERSAL DESIGN

Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed,
understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or
disability. An environment (or any building, product, or service in that environment) should be designed
to meet the needs of all people who wish to use it. This is not a special requirement, for the benefit of
only a minority of the population. It is a fundamental condition of good design. If an environment is
accessible, usable, convenient and a pleasure to use, everyone benefits. By considering the diverse
needs and abilities of all throughout the design process, universal design creates products, services and
environments that meet peoples' needs. Simply put, universal design is good design.

- Universal design is designing systems so that they can be used by anyone in any circumstance.

- systems are those that use more than one human input channel in the interaction.

These systems may, for example, use:

- speech

- non-speech sound

- touch

- handwriting

- gestures.

Universal design means designing for diversity, including:

- people with sensory, physical or cognitive impairment

- people of different ages

- people from different cultures and backgrounds

WEEK 17
USER SUPPORT

User support provides technical help (assistance) to System user. To answer question or resolve the
system problem for users. It is a service provided by a hardware or software company that provides
registered users with help and advice about their product.

A support system provides tools and technologies to leverage the power of the human capacity to think
and to solve problems. In so doing, a support system augments and enhances selected mental capacities
involving memory, computation, analysis, visualization, representation, reasoning, and evaluation.
Levels of technology can range from simple pencil-and-paper tools to high-performance digital
computing systems with scanners, printers, flat screens, voice and gesture interfaces, and projection
systems.

* Users have different requirements for support at different times.

* User support should be:

- available but unobtrusive

- accurate and robust

- consistent and flexible.

* User support comes in a number of styles:

- command-based methods

- context-sensitive help

- tutorial help

- online documentation

- wizards and assistants

- adaptive help.

* Design of user support must take account of:

- presentation issues

- implementation issues.