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Usability Paradigms and Principles

The document discusses usability paradigms and principles in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), focusing on how to develop and measure the usability of interactive systems. It outlines various paradigms of interaction that have evolved with technology, such as batch processing and ubiquitous computing, and presents key principles for usability including learnability, flexibility, and robustness. Each principle is further broken down into specific attributes that enhance user interaction and system effectiveness.

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Blessing Muskwe
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6 views14 pages

Usability Paradigms and Principles

The document discusses usability paradigms and principles in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), focusing on how to develop and measure the usability of interactive systems. It outlines various paradigms of interaction that have evolved with technology, such as batch processing and ubiquitous computing, and presents key principles for usability including learnability, flexibility, and robustness. Each principle is further broken down into specific attributes that enhance user interaction and system effectiveness.

Uploaded by

Blessing Muskwe
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Usability Paradigms and

Principles
Human Computer Interaction
Introduction
• Concerns
• How can an interactive system be developed to ensure its usability?
• How can the usability of an interactive system be demonstrated or measured?
• Approaches
• Paradigms for usability
• examples of successful interactive techniques
• Principles for usability
• theoretically driven from psychological, computational and sociological knowledge
Paradigms
• Paradigms - Predominant theoretical frameworks or
scientific world views
• e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian (relativistic) paradigms
in physics
• Understanding HCI history is largely about understanding
a series of paradigm shifts
Paradigms of Interaction
• New computing technologies arrive, creating a new
perception of the human—computer relationship.
• We can trace some of these shifts in the history of
interactive technologies.
Examples of Paradigm Shifts
• Batch processing
• Time-sharing - single computer supporting multiple users
• Networking
• Graphical display (WIMP)
• WWW (http)
• Ubiquitous Computing
• PCs - Demonstrated that a system is more powerful as it becomes easier to
user, Future of computing in small, powerful machines dedicated to the individual
Examples of Paradigm Shifts
• Video Display Units
• The Metaphor - Relating computing to other real-world activity
• file management on an office desktop
• word processing as typing
• financial analysis on spreadsheets
• Direct Manipulation
• Language vs Action
• Multimodality
• A mode is a human communication channel
• Emphasis on simultaneous use of multiple channels for input and output
• Ubiquitous Computing – IoT, mobile phones etc.
• Sensor-based and Context-aware Interaction
Principles to support usability
• A structured presentation of general principles to apply during design of an
interactive system. The three main principles are:
• Learnability
• the ease with which new users can begin effective interaction and achieve maximal
performance
• Flexibility
• the multiplicity of ways the user and system exchange information
• Robustness
• the level of support provided the user in determining successful achievement and
assessment of goal-directed behaviour
Principles of Learnability
• Predictability
• determining effect of future actions based on past interaction history
• operation visibility
• Synthesizability
• assessing the effect of past actions
• immediate vs. eventual honesty
Principles of learnability
• Familiarity
• how prior knowledge applies to new system
• guessability; affordance
• Generalizability
• extending specific interaction knowledge to new situations
• Consistency
• likeness in input/output behaviour arising from similar situations or task
objectives
Principles of flexibility
• Dialogue initiative
• freedom from system imposed constraints on input dialogue
• system vs. user pre-emptiveness
• Multithreading
• ability of system to support user interaction for more than one task at a time
• concurrent vs. interleaving; multimodality
Principles of flexibility
• Task migratability
• passing responsibility for task execution between user and system
• Substitutivity
• allowing equivalent values of input and output to be substituted for each other
• representation multiplicity; equal opportunity
• Customizability
• modifiability of the user interface by user (adaptability) or system (adaptivity)
Principles of robustness
• Observability
• ability of user to evaluate the internal state of the system from its perceivable
representation
• browsability; defaults; reachability; persistence; operation visibility
• Recoverability
• ability of user to take corrective action once an error has been recognized
• reachability; forward/backward recovery; commensurate effort
Principles of robustness
• Responsiveness
• how the user perceives the rate of communication with the system
• Stability
• Task conformance
• degree to which system services support all of the user's tasks
• task completeness; task adequacy
The End

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