Chapter 1:

What is interaction design?

what you use in a typical day: cell (mobile) phone, computer, personal organizer,
remote control, coffee machine, ATM, ticket machine, library information
system, the web, photocopier, watch, printer, stereo, DVD player, calculator,
video game . . . the list is endless. Now think for a minute about how usable they
are. How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable to use? All of them,
several, or just one or two? This list is probably considerably shorter. Why is this
so?

Think about when some device caused you considerable grief—how much time
did you waste trying to get it to work? Two well-known interactive devices that
cause numerous people immense grief are the photocopier that doesn’t copy the
way they want and the VCR or DVD that records a different program from the
one they thought they had set or none at all. Why do you think these things
happen time and time again? Moreover, can anything be done about it?

Many products that require users to interact with them to carry out their tasks,
e.g. buying a ticket online from the web, photocopying an article, setting the
alarm on a digital clock, have not necessarily been designed with the users in
mind. Typically, they have been engineered as systems to perform set functions.
While they may work effectively from an engineering perspective, it is often at
the expense of how the system will be used by real people. A main aim of
interaction design is to redress this concern by bringing usability into the design
process. In essence, it is about developing interactive products1 that are easy,
effective, and enjoyable to use—from the users’ perspective.

In this chapter we begin by examining what interaction design is. We look at the
difference between good and poor design, highlighting how products can differ
radically in how usable they are. We then describe what and who is involved in
the process of interaction design. The user experience, which has become a 1
 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: www.baddesigns.com

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Why is this vending machine
so bad?
• Need to push
button first to
activate reader
• Normally insert
bill first before
making selection
• Contravenes well
known convention
From: www.baddesigns.com

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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

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Good and bad design
• What is wrong with
the Apex remote?
• Why is the TiVo
remote so much
better designed?
– Peanut shaped to fit
in hand
– Logical layout and
color-coded,
distinctive buttons
– Easy to locate buttons

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 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 optimize 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-centered 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 (2007)

• 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 emphasizing
what is being designed, e.g.,
– user interface design, software design, user-centered
design, product design, web design, experience
design (UX)
• Interaction design is the umbrella term
covering all of these aspects
– fundamental to all disciplines, fields, 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 fields
• Academic disciplines contributing
to ID:
– Psychology
– Social Sciences
– Computing Sciences
– Engineering
– Ergonomics
– Informatics

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Relationship between ID, HCI
and other fields
• 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 fields

• Interdisciplinary fields that ‘do’

interaction 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
• Benefits
– more ideas and designs
generated
• Disadvantages
– difficult 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”

QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
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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 field 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
• Specific usability and user experience goals
need to be identified, 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 fit with what people want,
need and may desire
– appreciate that one size does not fit 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 people’s 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 Anna’s
appearance be like
for other countries,
like India, South Africa,
or China?

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 Usability goals

• Effective to use
• Efficient 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?
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

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 User experience goals
• satisfying • aesthetically pleasing
• enjoyable • supportive of creativity
• engaging • supportive of creativity
• pleasurable • rewarding
• exciting • fun
• entertaining • provocative
• helpful • surprising
• motivating • enhancing sociability
• emotionally fulfilling • challenging

• boring • annoying
• frustrating • cutsey

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Usability and user experience
goals
• Selecting terms to convey a person’s 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 do’s and don’ts 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 floor you want?

• Nothing happens. Push any other

button? Still nothing. What do you
need to do?
From:
www.baddesigns.comIt 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 flashes
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 difficult
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?
• Where do you plug the
mouse?

• Where do you plug the

keyboard?

• top or bottom connector?

• Do the color coded icons

help?

From: www.baddesigns.com

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 How to design them more
logically
(i) A provides direct
adjacent mapping
between icon and
connector

(ii) B provides color

coding to associate
the connectors with
the labels

From: www.baddesigns.com

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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 first initial of the command
for an operation – ctrl+C, ctrl+S, ctrl+O
• Main benefit 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 find 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
– Difficult 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
designer’s preference

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 Keypad numbers layout

• A case of external inconsistency

(a) phones, remote controls (b) calculators, computer keypads

1 2 3 7 8 9
4 5 6 4 5 6
7 8 9 1 2 3
0 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
• Used mainly as the basis for
evaluating systems
• 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 efficiency 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 wide-reaching disciplines and fields

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