LESSON 1

The Purpose of the Course

●​ To be able to DESIGN:
○​ How the user interaction and experience should work and look?
●​ To be able to SELECT:
○​ What user interaction design is best for a given purpose in a context?
●​ To be able to EVALUATE:
○​ How good a specific user interaction is?

HOW PEOPLE INTERACT WITH COMPUTERS?

Good UI Design is important

●​ Examples of bad UI are easy
○​ Try to find examples of good UI… give example
●​ Good UI (very subjective):
○​ Easy, natural & engaging interaction
○​ Users can carry out their required tasks
○​ Accounts for human limitations
●​ Usefulness is often context-dependent!

Features of Modern HCI

●​ UCD (User Centered Design) Principles & Activities
○​ User involvement in development stages
○​ Design iteration
○​ Multi-disciplinary design teams - psychology, ergonomics, engineering & graphic
design
○​ Understand & specify context of use
○​ Specify user & organization requirements
 ○​ Produce prototypes: design solutions
○​ Evaluate designs with users against requirements

●​ Link to Software Engineering

○​ Separate but related concerns: systems vs. user
○​ Some overlap in techniques
■​ Use cases
■​ Iterative life cycle
○​ Multidisciplinary nature of HCI

●​ Evaluation-Centered
●​ Equally supportive of:
○​ top-down & bottom-up
○​ inside-out & outside-in development
Gathering Interaction Requirements Chapter 2
●​ Data Gathering Guidelines
○​ Set clear goals for the data collection
■​ Identify stakeholders’ needs
○​ Evaluate cost/benefit for your effort
■​ understand the tradeoffs
■​ use a combination of techniques
■​ balance specific goals and openness
○​ Run a pilot trial
○​ Record well – you won’t remember it well
●​ Data Gathering Methods
○​ Interviews & Focus groups
○​ Question-based surveys
○​ Contextual analysis

Interviews
●​ Degrees of structuring for different purposes
○​ structured - like a guided questionnaire
○​ semi-structured - basic script guides the conversation
○​ open-ended - still has a goal and focus; good in the initial stages
●​ Phone/skype, face-to-face
○​ one individual at a time
○​ avoids biases from other people
●​ Develop trust
○​ explain your goals to the interviewee
○​ feedback and results to the interviewee
●​ Focus groups & Interviews
○​ group of users to discuss a preliminary given issue
○​ facilitated
○​ interviews with 2 or more
○​ Both are:
■​ appropriate at almost any stage of the design
■​ conducting them earlier – better impact
■​ conducting them later – gather specific reactions to actual design
■​ optimal timing – early with mock-ups
■​ collect subjective data
■​ help understand the work practices
■​ finding out users’ tasks, roles, problems
○​ Focus groups are:
■​ difficult for geographically isolated
■​ difficult when target population is small
■​ alternative – online/phone interviews
 ○​ Pros & Cons:
■​ + Ideas of one can trigger ideas in others
■​ + Time and cost efficient
■​ + Incorrect facts can be corrected
■​ + Non-controversial issues – quickly resolved
■​ + Controversial issues quickly identified
■​ + Reach a not foreseen level of detail
■​ – Watch out for ‘groupthink’ and ‘sidetrack’
■​ – Ensure balance between talkers and shy users
■​ – Sometimes difficult to coordinate

○​ Select and Organize Groups:

■​ 6 to 12 participants - typically around 10
●​ Breaks with questionnaire or individual activities
●​ 3 to 5 groups
■​ Heterogeneous groups
●​ good mix of people
●​ each group – representative sample of target audience
●​ watch out for too heterogeneous groups – people who do not have
much in common
■​ Homogeneous groups
●​ each group is different demographics

○​ Group Facilitation
■​ One external, professional facilitator
●​ Encourage discussion
●​ Getting everyone to participate (no viewpoint lost)
●​ Get people respond on one another’s input
●​ Foster arguments (reveal controversial issues)
●​ Prevent arguments getting out of hand
■​ Observation room
■​ 2 to 3 observers mixed in the group

○​ During a Focus Group Session

■​ Avoid suggestive questions
■​ Clarify reason of question
■​ Phrase questions in terms of probes – e.g, “why …”
■​ Pay attention to non-verbal aspects
■​ Be aware of personal biases
■​ Give summaries in your own words at intermediate points

●​ Question-based Surveys
○​ Good for:
■​ demographics
 ■​ evaluation of specific features or properties
○​ Questionnaires and surveys
■​ unambiguous questions
■​ gathering more precise information
■​ on-line questionnaires
○​ Question types (closed & open questions)
○​ Scales (for precision & effort needed to decide on a response)
○​ Qualitative vs. quantitative data

○​ Questions
■​ Closed questions:
●​ select an answer from a set of alternative replies
●​ may require just “yes” or “no”
●​ some form of a rating scale associated
■​ Open questions:
●​ typically start with phrases such as:
○​ “What do you . . . ,”
○​ “How do you . . . ,”
○​ “What ways . . . .”
●​ provide richer data than closed questions
●​ more time consuming to analyze
○​ decide on some grouping and classifying

○​ Questions Scales(½)
■​ Simple rating scale, e.g. checklists
●​ easy to analyze (count the number of responses in each category)

■​ Complex rating scales

●​ a multipoint rating scale semantic differential (users select a point
along a scale)

■​ Semantic differentials
●​ with seven points, five-point or three-point scales
●​ best results if the two end points are very opposed
■​ Likert scale (attitudinal scale)
●​ a set statements with semantic differential
 ●​ measure user’s attitude, preferences, and subjective reactions
●​ measure the strength of users opinion - by counting the number of
responses at each point in the scale
●​ typically 5-point scale: strongly disagree ⬄strongly agree
●​ calculating a numeric value (adding ‘+’ and ‘-’ scores divided by
the number of users) - can be misleading

○​ Questionnaire TIps
■​ Avoid complicated questions
■​ Clear and unambiguous questions
■​ Avoid negative questions
■​ Alternate open and closed questions
■​ As few questions as possible (~ 2 A4)
■​ Additional info, e.g. “any other comments” option
■​ Pilot the questionnaire before giving it to users
●​ test whether the questions gather the need info
●​ decide on statistics to apply before finalizing the questionnaire
●​ balanced mix of closed and open questions
●​ balance positive and negative questions
■​ Examples of Questions
●​ Do you think this is a good interface? - fair, good, valuable, useful
●​ Do you use a mouse or keyboard more?
●​ When you used the second interface was it responding good to
you?
●​ Which of the following is not a problem in using the system?
●​ Which of the following you are least likely to consider a favorite:
drop-down menus, adaptive menus, scrolling?
●​ Message 1:
○​ Many of the human error and machine misuse are design errors
○​ Designers help things work with good conceptual model
○​ Designers decide on a range of users as the design audience
 ○​ Because users usually:
■​ have lousy memory
■​ don’t always see everything
■​ get confused of too many things
■​ get tired and bored
■​ don’t pay attention always
■​ get easily distracted
○​ …and machines always offer more
■​ New form factor:
●​ larger memories / faster systems
●​ miniaturization
●​ ↓ power requirements
■​ Deeply connected
●​ new display & input technologies
●​ embedding of computation into appliances
■​ Pervasive
●​ specialize computer hardware new functions
●​ ↑ networked + distributed computing
■​ Broadened user base
●​ ↑ adopting of computers & access by those currently denied
●​ Message 2
○​ You are NOT the USER if you are DESIGNER and you always need different
glasses
●​ Message 3:
○​ Design model
■​ conceptual model on which the design of the system is based
○​ User’s model
■​ model that the user develops on the basis of experience with the system
○​ System image
■​ all aspects of the system that the user experiences