SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

1. SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Thurs, Feb 5, 2004

2. Cooper on Designing for Goals • We do tasks to achieve goals – don’t equate them! • Traveling safely in 1849 vs. 1999 • Goal of good design: help users achieve practical goals while not violating their personal goals • No “unnatural acts” • Distinctions: • Personal goals • Corporate goals • Practical goals • False goals • Example: goal-directed tv news system

3. Think Outside-in versus Inside-out • Do not expect others to think or behave • as you do • as you would like them to • Assess the meaning of the displays and controls based on what a user can be assumed to know, not based on what you know

4. Example: Playing Pictionary Getting into someone else’s head

5. However (from Cooper) • Being a victim of a problem does not necessarily bestow the power to see the solution • An individual is not always representative • Company president example

6. Personas (from Cooper) • “Hypothetical Archetypes” • Archetype: (American Heritage) • An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype • An ideal example of a type; quintessence • A precise description of a user and what they want to accomplish • Imaginary, but precise • Specific, but stereotyped • Real people have non-representative quirks

7. The Essence of Personas • Describe a person in terms of their • Goals in life (especially relating to this project) • Capabilities, inclinations, and background • People have a “visceral” ability to generalize about real and fictional people • We can have detailed discussions about what Harry Potter, Scarlett O’Hara, or Colin Powell will think or do. • They won’t be 100% accurate, but it feels natural to think about people this way

8. Reasons for Personas • A compromise design pleases no-one • The broader you aim, the more likely you miss the bulls-eye • 50% of the people 50% happy doesn’t work • Car example – soccer mom, carpenter, dot-com exec • “Every time you extend functionality to include another constituency, you put another speed bump of features and controls across every other user’s road.” • A targeted design can achieve • 10% people 100% ecstatic • Examples: • Ram pickup truck • Sony aibo • There is no such thing as an average user

9. Reasons for Personas Examples of results of targeted design • Dodge Ram pickup • Roller suitcases • Sony Aibo • Isn’t useful for anything • Not fuzzy and warm • Too delicate to let children use it, but • Passionate fan clubs • Brisk sales despite steep price – and prices now coming down

10. Reasons for Personas • Avoid the “elastic user” • If the description is not specific, it can easily wiggle to suit the design needs of the moment Piston analogy • Helps prevent designer / programmer from imagining they are the user Image from www.howstuffworks.com

11. Reasons for Personas • Puts an end to feature debates • Makes hypothetical arguments less hypothetical • Q: “What if the user wants to print this out?” • A1: “The user won’t want to print often.” • A2: “Emilee won’t want to print often.” • User Persona, not Buyer Persona • This is one way HCI differs from marketing • Eventually it pays off in more sales

12. Case Study using Personas • Sony TransCom’s P@ssport • Initial design: Conventional solution • Deep hierarchy of screens • “Uninformed consent” • Reflected the internal design of the software • This design decision forced them to throw out the natural choice of a touchscreen • 3D graphics, artistic icons, map-and-globe metaphor • But no substance • “Painting the corpse”

13. Case Study using Personas • Procedure: • Interviews inside Sony • What are their goals? • What is the project history? • Interviews in the field • Airline personnel, particularly flight attendants • Every new story lead to a new persona • 30 personas at one point • Eventually, see commonalities, collapse them down • 4 passengers, six airline employees • Passengers are the hard part

14. Case Study using Personas • Passenger Personas • Chuck Burgermeister • Ethan Scott • Marie Dubois • Clevis McCloud • Goal: satisfy all of them, make no one unhappy, but don’t have to make any of them exceptionally happy • (contradiction of earlier point – captive audience) • Interesting development: one persona became a “common denominator” and a “touchstone”

15. Course Scheduler Example • Explanation and Justification • Target user base: UCB Students • Developed from • 8 interviews • personal experience as students • Discovered differences in approaches to tasks and needs • Some students shop around and interact intensively with the course scheduling system • Others consider only a narrow range of courses and/or have strict requirements to fill • Diversity in student body • Age, educational status, computer experience • Must work for all students since it is a must-use application

16. Case Study using Personas • Interesting design decisions • No navigation • Only one screen • This isn’t really accurate – they had different screens for different kinds of entertainment • This means – not very many movies to choose from – and is not what a computer scientist would design for • Physical knob like a radio dial • Few clicks means touchscreen is ok • Content provided much of the value • Movie vendors surprised the designers by being enthused about having to supply content • Consequence of the fact that every movie is carefully marketed already • Other interfaces needed for airline personnel

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25. Course Scheduler Example • Sample Scenario • Alicia is new to the registration process Its Monday morning and Alicia has just spent the weekend partying and getting to know more of her dorm-mates. Alicia has her first Tele-Bears session this morning and although she already has three good classes in mind, she needs to find 1 more, but she'll have to figure out her GE requirements first. Alicia logs onto the system. First, she signs up for Nutritional Science 10 because apparently heaps of cute water-polo guys take this class. Alicia is thinking about majoring in French Literature and so she signs up for English 1A which she must take before taking anymore English classes. Alicia then signs up for her third class, Biology 1A because she might want to major in this too. Then Alicia browses for her last class by searching all the GE classes, and decides to sign up for American Studies 10. Unfortunately this class must be really popular because its already full! So, Alicia decides to go on the waitlist for it just in case. She then adds another GE class that looked quite interesting called Film 24. This class is a Freshman Seminar on Film so Alicia hopes that she'll get to watch some cool movies! Someone is yelling Alicia's name down the hall, so she logs off.

26. Course Scheduler Example • Sample Scenario • Mike needs to make a minor schedule change • Mike is already well into his second week of this semester. As usual, Mike had no problem signing up for his classes as he had planned them ahead of time out in Excel. Unfortunately he needs to switch sections for his Dynamics and Control of Chemical Processes class. Mike is loving the lecture and enjoying the laboratory for the class, but the T.A who is teaching his discussion section is clearly inexperienced. Mike quickly logs onto Tele-Bears and changes to the discussion section on Fridays at 9am. Although Mike is certain that this small change to his schedule doesn't conflict with his job, he reviews his schedule and, satisfied that this is fine, prints out his new schedule and logs off Tele-Bears.

27. Cooper on Scenarios • Daily Use • Fast to learn • Shortcuts and customization after more use • Necessary Use • Infrequent but required • Nothing fancy needed • Edge Cases • Ignore or save for version 2 • Example: image cropping application • It works so intuitively, it feels like magic

28. Cooper’s Perpetual Intermediaries Beginners Intermediates Experts Programmers design for experts

29. Perpetual Intermediaries Beginners Intermediates Experts Marketers design for beginners

30. Perpetual Intermediaries Beginners Intermediates Experts People spend most of their time as intermediates

31. Perpetual Intermediaries Beginners Intermediates Experts Paradoxical Curves

32. Let’s practice creating personas