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SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development. Marti Hearst Tues, Feb 17. 2004. Today. Locus of Attention Errors Modes. Raskin on Cognition. Cognitive Engineering Ergonomics: Takes into account the statistical variation of human variability

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SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

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  1. SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Tues, Feb 17. 2004

  2. Today • Locus of Attention • Errors • Modes

  3. Raskin on Cognition • Cognitive Engineering • Ergonomics: • Takes into account the statistical variation of human variability • Design a car seat that fits 95% of the population • Says that designing products that interact with us physically is reasonable straightforward • Cognetics: Ergonomics of the mind • The study of the “engineering scope of our mental abilities” • This is the applied side of cognitive science

  4. Raskin on Cognition • Cognitive Conscious / Unconscious • Examples? • What is the last letter in your first name? • You know it but weren’t consciously accessing this information a moment ago, but now you are. • How do your shoes feel right now? • How did “The Shining” make you feel? • Having a name on the “tip of your tongue” • Differences? • New situations/routines • Decisions / one standard choice • Sequential / simultaneous Image from Newsweek, Jan 2001

  5. Raskin on Cognition • Locus of Attention • What is it? • An idea/object/event about which you are intently and actively thinking. • The one entity on which you are currently concentrating • You see and hear much more • E.g., white noise • Turn the lights off, you have a full-fidelity recording of their sound in your mind, which fades quickly • Why locus? • Focus implies volition; locus not always under conscious control • Attention can be either active or “going with the flow” • Why is it important for HCI? Image from Newsweek, Jan 2001

  6. Raskin on Cognition • Locus of Attention • Why is it important for HCI? • Cannot be conscious of more than one task at a time • Make the task the locus of attention • Don’t count on people to read labels or directions • Beware of the power of mental habits • Repetitive confirmations don’t work • Take advantage of it • Do pre-loading while user thinking about next step • Streamline resumption of interrupted tasks

  7. Error Messages

  8. Cooper on error dialog boxes • Why are they problematic? • How related to locus of attention? • What are the alternatives? • Cooper is talking to programmers • “Silicon Sanctimony” • You should feel as guilty as for using a goto – an admission of failure in design

  9. Umm, thanks for the warning, but what should I do? What happens when you cancel a cancelled operation? Do I have any choice in this? Uhhh… I give up on this one

  10. Inane Dialog Boxes

  11. “HIT ANY KEY TO CONTINUE” Slide adapted from Saul Greenberg

  12. Modes • What are they? • The same user actions have different effects in different situations. • Examples: • Adobe reader example: vs. • Powerpoint drawing example • Keycaps lock

  13. Modes • When are they useful? • Why can they be problematic? • How can these problems be fixed?

  14. Modes • When are they useful? • Temporarily restrict users actions • When logical and clearly visible and easily switchable • Drawing with paintbrush vs. pencil • Autocorrect (if easy to switch the mode) • Why can they be problematic? • Big memory burden • Source of many serious errors • How can these problems be fixed? • Don’t use modes – redesign the system to be modeless • Redundantly visible • Raskin -- quasimodes

  15. Modal Blooper

  16. Modal Blooper(and other problems too)

  17. A Summary Statement • Raskin, p. 69 • “We must make sure that every detail of an interface matches both our cognitive capabilities and the demands of the task…”

  18. Toolglass + Magic Lenses • An innovative way to deal with modes: • Make selection of operations visible as you are doing the operations • Work by Fishkin, Stone, and Bier at Xerox PARC

  19. Toolglass & Magic Lenses Applying the fill-color tool A palette of tools Composing two tools – Fill-color and magnify

  20. Toolglass + Magic Lenses • Magic Lenses are windows which know about what’s below them, and/or what’s above them. • Using them makes the mode explicit • They can alter input, output, or both. • They can be combined • See video

  21. Next Time • Design Guidelines • Heuristic Evaluations

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