Message Design and Content Creation: Info Design

1. Message Design and Content Creation:Info Design 12 February 2008 Kathy E. Gill

2. Agenda • Reading Review • Lecture • Lab • Team/Project Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

3. Recap: Our goal is flow • The process of an optimal experience • The activity feels seamless • It is intrinsically enjoyable • Individual loses self-consciousness Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

4. Five Tests of Effectiveness (1/2) • Time to learn How long does it take for typical members of the community to learn how to complete task? • Speed of performance How long does it take to perform relevant benchmarks? • Rate of errors by users How many and what kinds of errors are commonly made during typical applications? Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

5. Five Tests of Effectiveness (2/2) • Retention over time Frequency of use and ease of learning help make for better user retention • Subjective satisfaction Allow for user feedback – interviews (focus groups), online surveys (both free-form comments and satisfaction scales). Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

6. Design for Diversity • Personality differences • Cultural and international diversity • Users with disabilities • Elderly users • Anything else? Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

7. Raskin’s Rules • The user should set the pace of the interaction • Error avoidance, facilitated with “undo/redo” • Accessible to the naïve, efficient for the expert Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

8. Errors are not mistakes! • Mistakes are the result of conscious deliberation • Slips result from automatic behavior • Norman’s Types: capture, description, data-driven, associative activation, loss-of-activation and mode errors Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

9. Good Error Messages • Polite • Illuminating • Treat the user with respect Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

10. Design for Error • Minimize occurrence by understanding the causes of errors • Make detection and recovery easier • Change the attitude toward error from “stupid user” to “stupid design” Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

11. One small problem: • When you design an error-tolerant system, people come to rely on that system (it had best be reliable!) • Anti-lock brakes (ABS) • Blade guard on circular saw • Anything else? Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

12. To increase errors, add a little: • Social pressure • Time pressure • Economic pressure In other words, real life! Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

13. Resultant design philosophy: • Put knowledge in the world (iow, make options visible) • Remember the three questions: • Where am I, where can I go, where have I been? • Design for errors Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

14. Sitemaps (1/2) • Organizing content – the backbone of your information architecture • It is human tendency to organize things to make them easier to retrieve Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

15. Sitemaps (2/2) • How to learn how people think about your content • Observe • Visit competitor web sites • Evaluate server logs • Card sorts Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

16. Card sort (1/3) • List of information by topic • Cards (or post-it notes for affinity diagram) • Group • Name the group Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

17. Card sort (2/3) • Look for patterns – dominant organization scheme • Adjust for consistency • ID categories that don’t match • May be features • May just be oddball • Test the resulting patterns Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

18. Card sort (3/3) • Category refinement = taxonomy • Examples: • http://eat.epicurious.com/ • http://www.outpost.com/ • http://www.bestbuy.com/ • http://news.google.com/ Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org

19. Next Week: • Personas Kathy E. Gill, uwdigitalmedia.org