User Centered Design

1. User Centered Design Lecture # 5 Gabriel Spitz

2. Problem with User Interfaces • Nearly 25% of all applications projects fail • Overrun budgets due to frequent changes to functionality and task flow • Products are hard to learn and difficult to use • Users are often slowed down, they make mistakes and they are unhappy with the product – The product is not centered around their: • Needs – User wants to do A but system does not allow it • Capabilities – User can not see the handle (paint) • Experiences – User does not know what “expunge” means • It is not User Centered Gabriel Spitz

3. UI Design PrinciplesMeeting User Needs • Visibility - Expose the interaction to the user • Controllability - Let the user control the interaction • Learnability - Capitalize on what the user already knows • Consistency -Maintain consistency at the interface • Feedback – Keep the user in the loop • Memorability - Minimize reliance on user memory • Tolerance - Minimize the impact of user error • Aesthetic – Ensure good visual design; it matters • Affordance – Let controls guide the user • Know your user Gabriel Spitz

4. Example of a Poor Interface Design There is a nice hierarchy,but no headers.Users need to examineall the tabs Gabriel Spitz

5. To design a usable interface we need to adopt a User Centered Design approach (UCD) Gabriel Spitz

6. Example of a User Interface Design Concept: Active Time Out

7. Surgical Time Out • A mandatory pre-surgery verification checklist • Designed to: • Eliminate human errors • Ensure that valuable pre-surgery procedures were performed e.g., give antibiotic to reduce infection • Ensuring that everybody on the clinical team is aware of basic case information e.g., allergies • Provide an opportunity for a team introduction and a team huddle Gabriel Spitz

8. Surgical Time Out - Poster Gabriel Spitz

9. Observations on Poster Time-Out Usage • Time-out is always performed, but it is performed fast and often with minimal attention • The focus of many surgical teams is on the “Challenge” not on the data • Team members often move around during time-out and can easily miss an item (not hear it) • Team members seemed reluctant to challenge the time-out leader Gabriel Spitz

10. What is Needed • Help the teams focus to the challenges as well as the data • Ensure a common baseline understanding of the case details among team member • Increase the likelihood of detecting errors • Help team members challenge assumptions about the case Gabriel Spitz

11. Organization of an Interface Checklist Panel Checklist Focus Aras Challenge Category Challenge Cross Checked Information Option Selector

12. Initiating the process Mechanism User Intent

21. The Design of Active Time Out • Goal • Encourage users to perform the check • Ensure awareness of the detail • Provide a paper trail • Some UI design principles that were followed • Minimize interaction • Provide predictability as to how long the process will take • Compatibility with how people read • Provide a focal point for discussion • Overall design philosophy – focus on user Gabriel Spitz

22. What is User Centered Design • A design approach that place the user at the core of the design process • It is not centered on: • Technology or what a technology can do • Developer or what a developer knows how to do • Aesthetics or what looks beautiful • Although all of the above and more are important factors in the design Gabriel Spitz

23. Some Variations on UCD • Goal centered – Design toward what the user is trying to achieve • Usage centered – Design around how users will use an application or a product • Work centered – Design to optimize the work users perform • These approaches are user centered, but they conceptualize the user within a context of what users do • These approaches include usefulness in addition to usability as their goal Gabriel Spitz

24. Developer Centered Interface? • What makes this design more developer centric then user centric design? • Organization of the information • Use of technical jargon Gabriel Spitz

25. Objectives of User Centered Design • Support the design of products that: • Help users achieve their goals • Are compatible with users’ characteristics • Meet users’ needs Gabriel Spitz

26. Principles of User Centered Design (1) John Gould (1988) • Early focus on users • Establish direct contact with users to understand their characteristics, needs, and motivation • Specify measurable usability goals that the new system should meet • Integrated design • All aspects of usability evolve in parallel – displays, controls, documentation, etc. • All aspects of usability under one focus-Design, documentation, evaluation Gabriel Spitz

27. Principles of User Centered Design (2) • Early and continual evaluation • Measure the performance and reaction of the intended users when they do real work with simulation and prototypes of the user interface • Iterative design • The user interface as well as the functionality of the system is modified based upon results of users’ input and test results • Involve users in the design Gabriel Spitz

28. Why Involve Users in the Design • User Interface design is still a craft • Our ability to predict human behavior during interaction with a given UI is limited • Users’ needs extend over several domains including personal, professional, organizational • Users’ needs change from situation to situation and time to time • Our understanding of the processes underlying HCI are limited • We need users’ input and feedback Gabriel Spitz

29. Benefits of Involving the User • User inform designers about their jobs • What is involved in their jobs • What tools they use • How these tools are used • Users help developers identify what could be useful • What is missing in current application or tool • Users try prototype and comment on it • Developers make incremental changes and iterate Gabriel Spitz

30. Factors to Consider in User Centered Design Environmental Factors Organizational Factors Noise, lighting Training, job design, politics Health & Safety Factors Comfort Factors The User Stress Cognitive process / capabilities Equipment layout User Interface technologies Input devices, output displays, use of color, Task Factors Easy, complex, novel Gabriel Spitz

31. User-Centered Design at its best? • Developers working with target users • Help define what the system will do and how • Lots of iterative exploration and feedback • Think of the world from users’ perspective • Users and customers are not the same person • Understand work process • Points where human and computers interact Gabriel Spitz

32. Summary • User-centered design is different than traditional technology approaches • Leads to solving use problems up front • Cheaper • It involves users and know - how about users Gabriel Spitz