IMS5401 Web-based Systems Development

1. IMS5401Web-based Systems Development Topic 3: Development for the web 3(d) User Interaction

2. Agenda • From interface design to interaction design • Guidelines and processes for interaction design • Specialised usability and interaction issues • Conflict and compromise in interaction design

3. 1. From interface design to interaction design • History • Human factors and ergonomics • Screen design • Interface design • HCI • Aims of HCI • Safety • Utility • Effectiveness • Efficiency • Usability • Appeal

4. Fundamental issues in interaction design • Human senses and perception • What do we see/(hear)? • How do we connect/relate things we see and hear? • Human cognition and memory • How do we interpret what we see/hear? • What do we retain and recall of what we see/hear? • Patterns/metaphors/mental models • Focus on functional elements (form vs function) • User-centred design: What does my user see/hear? (not what do I see/hear)

5. ‘New’ issues for web-based interaction design • Users and the nature of their use • User motivation (do you want to change it)? • Range of user types and experiences? • Frequency/purpose of site usage? • The web as a medium • Data-oriented vs page-oriented design • Forms of representation – numeric/text to multimedia • Design technology – browsers, HTML, scripts, etc • The development environment • User-developer relationship?

6. Scope of interaction design • User interaction with site may be affected by all design elements • Content (quantity, type, form, etc) • Layout and organisation of content (site structure, page structure, etc) • Appearance and graphic design (fonts, colours, styles, etc) • Architecture and navigation • Contribution of design elements to user interaction is specific to site type, site purpose, and site user

7. 2. Guidelines and processes for interaction design • Interaction design has many aspects, many of which are highly specialised • Importance of interaction design and its different aspects varies enormously from function to function (eg games design as an extreme: function= interaction design) • Extensive (and expanding) literature on each of these aspects • Some “gurus” in particular aspects of interaction design

8. Some gurus of aspects of interaction design • Visual representation of information - Edward Tufte • Design principles - Donald Norman • Computer interface design - Ben Shneiderman • Web site graphic design style - David Siegel, Lynda Weinman • Web site usability - Jakob Nielsen • Web site architecture and navigation - Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville • Which guru should you follow? Depends on your purpose and the particular aspect of interaction design which matters

9. Key basic elements of interaction design process • Understanding the users and what they want • Developing alternative designs • Prototyping designs • Evaluating designs • Iterative development

10. Interaction design methods • Still not much around • Ideas/approaches tend to be biased towards the site purpose (and the relevant guru) • See references for examples • You may find others you like (better?)

11. 3. Specialised usability and interaction issues • Does your site have to work with special types of audiences with particular characteristics? • Some common specialised audiences: • People with physical problems with interaction • Internationalised or globalised audience • Inexperienced audiences • Personalised audiences

12. Designing for physical limitations or disabilities • Common types of disability: • Blindness, limited vision, colour blindness • Limited mobility • Deafness • Design considerations • User comprehension of content • Facilities for user input and control • Guidelines • W3C

13. Designing for global audiences • Issues with content • Making the site content fit with local needs and customs (dates, times, places, currency, people, relevance, etc) • Issues with language and layout • Language and meaning • Fluency, expressions and idiom • Translations and multi-lingual sites • Issues with colours, icons, images • Meaning and symbolism • Internationalisation versus localisation

14. Designing for inexperienced audiences • Who are they likely to be and what will they want? • Site content - how familiar? • Web conventions and standards - how self-explanatory? • Guidance and direction • Help and explanations

15. Designing for personalised audiences • Personalising the interface and the content - how important? • Finding out about the user - direct methods • Finding out about the user - indirect methods (cookies, etc) • Establishing trust - user identification and privacy issues • Conversational interfaces(?)

16. 4. Conflict and compromise in interaction design • Conflicting needs for web site interaction design arise from the blend of: • The amount of information a site contains • The range of users a site attracts • The variety of information purposes a site supports • Any interaction design solution (content, style, architecture) must normally be a compromise between these conflicting needs • (Note difference to traditional interface design)

17. Design compromises and user needs • How does a designer decide where the compromises need to be made? • Which information comes first? • Which user group comes first? • Which information use comes first? • Good design involves identifying and articulating the conflicts and establishing a basis for deciding on the trade-offs

18. User profiles as a basis for determining design trade-offs • User profiling is a technique used to help articulate design needs and priorities • Concept originally comes from graphic design • Aims to identify and describe the main ‘typical’ users, information needs and usage patterns which the site aims to support • Use these as the basis for identifying conflicting design needs and deciding what compromises have to be made

19. Building user profiles • Develop outlines of key characteristics of the main user groups for the site • Typically expressed as descriptions of imaginary individuals representing key user groups • Characteristics may relate to things such as: • personal attributes (age, gender, income, job, etc) • preferences (tastes, attitudes, etc), • life experiences (maturity, interests, etc), • specific information needs and interests • usage patterns for information needs • Use market research techniques (focus groups, etc) to develop and test

20. Examples of user profiles: Monash or SIMS web sites • Who are the ‘typical’ users? • Categories of students, etc • What are their ‘typical’ information needs? • Types of information needed, etc • What are their ‘typical’ usage patterns? • Time/frequency of usage, etc • How do they ‘typically’ like that information to be presented? • Style, structure, architecture, etc • See tute exercise

21. Using user profiles • Profiles are used by designers to: • Identify the site design features which are likely to appeal to each user; • In cases of conflict, decide which user/usage pattern is most important • Develop storyboards for each user – tracking how they will travel through the site • Identify points of commonality and difference • Determine design compromises as required • Test against typical ‘real’ users

22. Creativity and compromise • ‘Standardisation’ (‘commodification’) of web site design is a controversial topic in interaction design • Creative designers (form-oriented) hate compromise which destroys design elegance • Functional designers hate disfunctional design which spoils user interaction • Will standards kill web design? (or will non-standard designs kill web applications?) • Return to Sydney Opera House/Federation Square/etc