HCI:

CONCEPTUALIZING
INTERACTION
DESIGN
Dr Kami Vaniea

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Understanding the problem space

– What do you want to create?

– What are your assumptions?

– Will it achieve what you hope it will?

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From problem space to design space
• Having a good understanding of the
problem space can help inform the design
space
– e.g. what kind of interface, behavior, functionality to
provide

• But before deciding upon these it is

important to develop a conceptual model

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 Conceptual model
• A conceptual model is:
– “…a high-level description of how a system is
organized and operates” (Johnson and Henderson,
2002, p26)

• Enables
– “…designers to straighten out their thinking before
they start laying out their widgets”
(Johnson and Henderson, 2002, p28)

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In other words: have a plan for what
you are going to build and why

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 First steps in formulating a
conceptual model
• What will the users be doing when carrying out
their tasks?
• How will the system support these?
• What kind of interface metaphor, if any, will be
appropriate?
• What kinds of interaction modes and styles to
use?
- always keep in mind when making design decisions how
the user will understand the underlying conceptual model

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Think-pair-share
Design a new  What will the users be doing
stopwatch app when carrying out their tasks?
 How will the system support
these?
 What kind of interface
metaphor, if any, will be
appropriate?
 What kinds of interaction
modes and styles to use?

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Many of the methods we have already
learned can help you build a conceptual
model of what you want to build

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 Which interaction type to choose?
• Need to determine requirements and user needs

• Take budget and other constraints into account

• Also will depend on suitability of technology for

activity being supported

• This is covered in course when designing

conceptual models

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 Interface metaphors
• Conceptualizing what we are doing, e.g.
surfing the web
• A conceptual model instantiated at the
interface, e.g. the desktop metaphor
• Visualizing an operation, e.g. an icon of a
shopping cart for placing items into

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Video playing interface metaphors

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 Material Metaphors
• The card is a very popular UI

• Why?: Has familiar form factor

• Material properties are added,

giving appearance and
physical behavior, e.g. surface
of paper

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 Activity
• Describe the components of the
conceptual model underlying most online
shopping websites, e.g.
– Shopping cart
– Proceeding to check-out
– 1-click
– Gift wrapping
– Cash till?

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 Interface metaphors
• Interface designed to be similar to a physical entity but
also has own properties
– e.g. desktop metaphor, web portals

• Can be based on activity, object or a combination of both

• Exploit user’s familiar knowledge, helping them to

understand ‘the unfamiliar’

• Conjures up the essence of the unfamiliar activity,

enabling users to leverage of this to understand more
aspects of the unfamiliar functionality

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Benefits of interface metaphors
• Makes learning new systems easier
• Helps users understand the underlying
conceptual model
• Can be very innovative and enable the
realm of computers and their applications
to be made more accessible to a greater
diversity of users

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Problems with interface metaphors
• Break conventional and cultural rules
– e.g. recycle bin placed on desktop
• Can constrain designers in the way they conceptualize a
problem space
• Conflict with design principles
• Forces users to only understand the system in terms of the
metaphor
• Designers can inadvertently use bad existing designs and
transfer the bad parts over
• Limits designers’ imagination in coming up with new
conceptual models

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 First steps in formulating a
conceptual model
• What will the users be doing when carrying out
their tasks?
• How will the system support these?
• What kind of interface metaphor, if any, will be
appropriate?
• What kinds of interaction modes and styles to
use?
- always keep in mind when making design decisions how
the user will understand the underlying conceptual model

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 Interaction types
• Instructing
– issuing commands and selecting options
• Conversing
– interacting with a system as if having a conversation
• Manipulating
– interacting with objects in a virtual or physical space by
manipulating them
• Exploring
– moving through a virtual environment or a physical space

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 1. Instructing
• Where users instruct a system and tell it what to
do
– e.g. tell the time, print a file, save a file
• Very common conceptual model, underlying a
diversity of devices and systems
– e.g. word processors, VCRs, vending machines
• Main benefit is that instructing supports quick and
efficient interaction
– good for repetitive kinds of actions performed on
multiple objects

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Which is easiest and why?

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 2. Conversing
• Underlying model of having a conversation with
another human

• Range from simple voice recognition menu-driven

systems to more complex ‘natural language’ dialogs

• Examples include timetables, search engines,

advice-giving systems, help systems

• Also virtual agents, toys and pet robots designed to

converse with you

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Would you talk with Anna?

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 Pros and cons of conversational
model
• Allows users, especially novices and technophobes,
to interact with the system in a way that is familiar

– makes them feel comfortable, at ease and less scared

• Misunderstandings can arise when the system does

not know how to parse what the user says

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 3. Manipulating
• Involves dragging, selecting, opening, closing and
zooming actions on virtual objects

• Exploit’s users’ knowledge of how they move and

manipulate in the physical world

• Can involve actions using physical controllers (e.g.

Wii) or air gestures (e.g. Kinect) to control the
movements of an on screen avatar
• Tagged physical objects (e.g. balls) that are
manipulated in a physical world result in
physical/digital events (e.g. animation)
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 Direct Manipulation
• Shneiderman (1983) coined the term DM, came
from his fascination with computer games at the
time

– Continuous representation of objects and actions of

interest

– Physical actions and button pressing instead of

issuing commands with complex syntax

– Rapid reversible actions with immediate feedback on

object of interest

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 Why are DM interfaces so enjoyable?
• Novices can learn the basic functionality quickly

• Experienced users can work extremely rapidly to carry out a wide range of
tasks, even defining new functions

• Intermittent users can retain operational concepts over time

• Error messages rarely needed

• Users can immediately see if their actions are furthering their goals and if not
do something else

• Users experience less anxiety

• Users gain confidence and mastery and feel in control

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 What are the disadvantages with
DM?
• Some people take the metaphor of direct manipulation
too literally
• Not all tasks can be described by objects and not all
actions can be done directly
• Some tasks are better achieved through delegating
– e.g. spell checking
• Can become screen space ‘gobblers’
• Moving a mouse around the screen can be slower than
pressing function keys to do same actions

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 4. Exploring
• Involves users moving through virtual or physical
environments

• Physical environments with embedded sensor

technologies

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 Which conceptual model is best?
• Direct manipulation is good for ‘doing’ types of tasks,
e.g. designing, drawing, flying, driving, sizing windows
• Issuing instructions is good for repetitive tasks, e.g.
spell-checking, file management
• Having a conversation is good for children, computer-
phobic, disabled users and specialised applications (e.g.
phone services)
• Hybrid conceptual models are often employed, where
different ways of carrying out the same actions is
supported at the interface - but can take longer to learn

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Conceptual models: interaction and
interface
• Interaction type:
– what the user is doing when interacting with a system,
e.g. instructing, talking, browsing or other

• Interface type:
– the kind of interface used to support the mode, e.g.
speech, menu-based, gesture

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 Many kinds of interface types
available including…

• Command
• Speech
• Data-entry
• Form fill-in
• Query
• Graphical
• Web
• Pen
• Augmented reality
• Gesture
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 Class Practice
We all familiar with the platform face book. Using face
book as an example, identify the following Interaction
concepts in relation to face book
What are some of the things can do on facebook
What kind of interface metaphor, if any, has been
used on face book?
What kinds of interaction modes and styles have
been used in face book?