Topic 1

Chapter 1

What is interaction design?

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 Chapter-1 What is Interaction Design?

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Good and poor design
1.3 What is interaction design
1.4 The user experience
1.5 The process of interaction design
1.6 Interaction design and the user experience

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Introduction

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1.2 Good and poor design

Develop interactive
products that are usable

Easy to learn
Effective to use
Providing enjoyable experience

Two examples of poorly designed products

 voice mail system (in hotels)
Ubiquitous remote control
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(i) Voice mail system Bad design
To find out if you have message

You read and follow the first step:

1. Touch 41: Pls enter room number

2. Touch *, your room number, and #
3. Password? To leave message, type pwd

It takes 6 steps to access a message and 5

steps to leave message

What is problematic
with this voice mail
system

Infuriating (make you furious)

Confusing
Inefficient
Difficult to use
You have to pick up handset to find out
and then go through a series of step
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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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 (ii) Remote control device

different

TiVo remote Standard remote

Buttons are large

Clearly labeled
Designed with a dizzying array
Logically arranged
Difficult to find the right ones
Easy to locate and
Frustrating for those who need
use
to put their reading glasses

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1.2.1 What to design Interactive products requires consideration
Who is going to be using them

How they are going to be used

Where they are going to be used

Understand the kind of activities people
are doing when interacting with product
Key
question for How do you optimize the users interaction
interaction with the system, nvironment or product?
design
Extend the users activities in effective,
useful, and usable ways

Taking into account what people are good and bad

Considering what might help people with the way they currently do things
Thinking through what might provide quality user experience
Listening to what people want and getting them involved in the design
Using tried and tested user –based techniques during the design process
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 http://www.baddesigns.com

http://www.baddesigns.com/books.html

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 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
From: www.baddesigns.com known convention
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 Good and bad design
• What is wrong with
the remote on the
right?
• 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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 Novel interface

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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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 Cell phone Public phone

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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 (2011)

• The design of spaces for human

communication and interaction
– Winograd (1997)

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1.3 What is interaction
design
User experience
that augment
the way people,
work,
communicate ,
and interact

Interactive
product

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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

HCI: Human Computer Interaction

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 Relationship between ID, HCI
and other fields
• Academic disciplines contributing to
ID: Interaction Design
– Psychology
– Social Sciences
– Computing Sciences
– Engineering
– Ergonomics (The applied science of equipment design)
– 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 in interaction design:

– HCI
– Ubiquitous Computing (Being or seeming to be everywhere at the
same time; omnipresent)

– Human Factors
– Cognitive Engineering
– Cognitive Ergonomics
– Computer Supported Co-operative Work
– Information Systems

Ubiquitous :Being
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24 at the same time; omnipresent
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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”

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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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 1.4 The user experience

How people feel

about a product
It meant how product and their
behaves and is used pleasure and
by people in the real satisfaction when
world using it

Every product that is used

by someone has user
experience:
Newspapers
Ketchup bottles
Reclining armchairs
Cardigan sweaters

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 The iPod Nano Touch

elegant pleasurable cool

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 Why was the iPod user
experience such a success?

• Quality user experience from the

start

• Simple, elegant, distinct brand,

pleasurable, must have fashion item,
catchy names, cool, etc.,

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 What is involved in the process
of interaction design

• Establishing requirements

• Developing alternatives

• Prototyping

• Evaluating

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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?
• 5/21/2012 versus 21/5/2012?
– 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

Refers to ensuring that interactive products are:

Easy to learn

Effective to use

Enjoyable

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 Usability goals
• Effective to use: how good a product is at doing what it is supposed to do

• Efficient to use: the way a product support users in carrying out their task.

• Safe to use: protecting the user from dangerous conditions and undesirable situation.

• Have good utility: the product provides the right kind of functionality. The
users can do what they need or want to do.

• Easy to learn: how easy a system is to learn to use.

• Easy to remember how to use: how easy a product is

to remember how to use, once learned.

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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
Desirable aspects
satisfying helpful fun
enjoyable motivating provocative
engaging challenging surprising
pleasurable enhancing sociability rewarding
exciting supporting creativity emotionally fulfilling
entertaining cognitively stimulating

Undesirable aspects
boring unpleasant
frustrating patronizing
making one feel guilty making one feel stupid
annoying cutesy
childish gimmicky

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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: the more visible function are, the more likely it is that the users will be able to
know what to do next.

• 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?

It is not visible as to what to do!

From:
www.baddesigns.com

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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 and what has been accomplished,
allowing person to continue with the activity

• 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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 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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 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 1.1
How does making a phone call differ when
using:
A public phone box
A cell phone

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ACTIVITY 1.1
How does making a phone call differ when using:
1)A public phone box
2)A cell phone

3)Comment

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 ACTIVITY 1.1

Apple s classic generation of iPods (e.g Touch, Nano, Suffle) have been
a phenomenal success. How do you think this happened

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ACTIVITY 1.1

How long do you think it should take to learn how to use the following interactive
products and how long does it actually take most people to learn them? How
memorable are they

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