Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rogers, and Jenny Preece (2019)

Chapter 1
WHAT IS INTERACTION DESIGN?
 MIS373: HCI course outline
1.Foundation 3. DT Framework
Ch 1 Week 4+
• Introduction to HCI
• Interaction Design Ch. 2
• Usability & User Experience
• Accessibility & Inclusiveness
• User centered design 6. Implement 1. Empathy

2. Frameworks 2. Define
5. Test
Ch 2, 5, 8
Ch. 11
Ch. 14, 15
The Process of Interaction Design:
Frameworks:
User Centered Design (UCD)
Design Thinking (DT) 4. Prototype 3. Ideate

Ch. 7, 12, 13 Ch. 8 ,9 11

 Objectives
•Difference between good and poor interaction design.
•What interaction design is and how it relates to HCI and
other fields.
•Relationship between the user experience and usability.
•What accessibility and inclusiveness in relation to HCI.
•What and who is involved in the process of interaction
design.
•Different forms of guidance used in interaction design.
•Enable you to evaluate an interactive product and explain
what is good and bad about it in terms of the goals and
core principles of interaction design.

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 Introduction
•How many interactive products are there in
everyday use?
•Think for a minute about what you use in a
typical day?
•Think for a minute about how usable they are?
•How many are actually easy, effortless, and
enjoyable to use?
•Are there bad and good design? Example?

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 Bad designs
Elevator controls and labels on the bottom row all
look the same, so it is easy to push a label by
mistake instead of a control button.

www.baddesigns.com

People do not make same mistake for the labels and

buttons on the top row. Why not?

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Bad designs

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Bad designs

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Bad designs

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 Why is this vending machine so bad?

•Need to push button first

to activate reader

•Normally insert bill first

before making selection

•Contravenes well known

convention
www.baddesigns.com

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 Good design

•Marble answering machine (Bishop, 1995)

•Based on how everyday objects behave
•Easy, intuitive, and a pleasure to use
•Only requires one-step actions to perform
core tasks
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Good and bad design
Why is the TiVo remote
much better designed than
standard remote controls?
•Peanut shaped to fit in
hand
•Logical layout and
color-coded, distinctive
buttons
•Easy-to-locate buttons

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 Dilemma
Which is the best way to interact with a smart TV? Why?
• Pecking using a grid keyboard via a remote control
• Swiping across two alphanumeric rows using a
touchpad on a remote control
• Voice control using remote or smart speaker

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 What to design
Need to take into account:
•Who the users are
•What activities are being carried out
•Where interaction is taking place (context)

understand the kind of activities people are doing

when interacting with these products
Need to optimize the interactions users have with a
product:
•So that they match the users’ activities and needs

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 What to design
•What you can do using digital technology?
•send messages, gather information, write……..
•Types of interfaces and interactive devices?
•multi-touch displays, speech-based systems, handheld
devices, wearables, and large interactive……..
•How about the displays?
•via the use of menus, commands, forms, icons, gestures
•Furthermore, ever more innovative using novel
materials, such as e-textiles and wearables

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 What to design
•The Internet of Things (IoT): Interfaces for
everyday microwave, ovens, toasters, washing
machines …
•Self-checkouts at stores, airports, malls, libraries...
•More cost-effective and efficient,
•Impersonal and puts the onus on the person to
interact with the system.
•Therefore, pressing the wrong button can result in
a frustrating, and sometimes mortifying,
experience.

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 What to design
•How do you optimize the users’ interactions to make users’
activities effective, useful, usable and pleasurable ways?”
•Designer should be more principled in deciding which
choices to make by basing them on an understanding of
the users. This involves the following:
•Considering what people are good and bad at
•Considering what help people with the way they
currently do things
•Thinking through what provide quality user experiences
•Listening to what people want and getting them
involved in the design
•Using user-centered techniques

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 What is interaction design?

“Designing interactive products to support the

way people communicate and interact in their
everyday and working lives.”
Sharp, Rogers, and Preece (2019)

“The design of spaces for human communication

and interaction.”
Winograd (1997)

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 What is interaction design?
•“Terms what is being designed, including:
•user interface design (UI), software
design, user-centered design, product
design, web design, user experience
design, and interactive system design.
•Interaction design describe the field,
including its methods, theories, and
approaches.
•UX refer to the profession.
•the terms can be used interchangeably.
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 Goals of interaction design

Develop usable products

•Usability means easy to learn, effective to

use, and provides an enjoyable experience

Involve users in the design process

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 Which kind of design?
Number of other terms used emphasizing
what is being designed, for example:
•User interface design, software design,
user-centered design, product design, web
design, experience design (UX)

Interaction design is the umbrella term

covering all of these aspects:
•Fundamental to all disciplines, fields, and
approaches concerned with researching and
designing computer-based systems for people

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Interaction design

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Relationship between ID, HCI, and
other fields−academic disciplines
Academic disciplines contributing to ID:
• Psychology

• Social Sciences

• Computing Sciences

• Engineering

• Ergonomics

• Informatics

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Relationship between ID, HCI and other
fields−design practices
Design practices contributing to ID:
• Graphic design

• Product design

• Artist-design

• Industrial design

• Film industry

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Relationship between ID, HCI and other
fields−interdisciplinary fields
Interdisciplinary fields that ‘do’ interaction design:
•HCI
•Ubiquitous Computing
•Human Factors
•Cognitive Engineering
•Cognitive Ergonomics
•Computer Supported Co-operative Work
•Information Systems

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Working in multidisciplinary teams
•Many people from different backgrounds involved
•Different perspectives and ways of seeing
and talking about things

Benefits
• More ideas and designs generated
Disadvantages
• Difficult to communicate and progress forward the designs
being create

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Interaction design in business
Large number of ID consultancies. Examples of well
known ones include:
•Nielsen Norman Group: “help companies enter the
age of the consumer, designing human-centered
products and services”

•Cooper: “From research and product to goal-related

design”

•IDEO: “creates products, services and

environments for companies pioneering new ways
to provide value to their customers”

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 The user experience (UX)
How a product behaves and is used by people in
the real world
• The way people feel about it and their pleasure and satisfaction
when using it, looking at it, holding it, and opening or closing it
• “Every product that is used by someone has a user experience:
newspapers, ketchup bottles, reclining armchairs, cardigan
sweaters.” (Garrett, 2010)
• “All aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its
services, and its products. (Nielsen and Norman, 2014)

Cannot design a user experience−only can design for a

user experience, In particular, one cannot design a sensual
experience, but only create the design features that can
evoke it.

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 The user experience (UX)
•Designers sometimes refer to UX as UXD. The
addition of the D to UX is meant to encourage
design thinking that focuses on the quality of the
user experience rather than on the set of design
methods to use has stressed for many years.

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 Defining user experience
How users perceive a product, such as whether a
smartwatch is seen as sleek or chunky, and their emotional
reaction to it, such as whether people have a positive
experience when using it. (Hornbæk and Hertzum, 2017)

Hassenzahl’s (2010) model of the user experience

• Pragmatic: how simple, practical, and obvious it is for the user to
achieve their goals
• Hedonic: how evocative and stimulating the interaction is to users

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Why was the iPod user experience
such a success?

•Quality user experience from

the start
•Simple, elegant, distinct
brand, pleasurable, must
have fashion item, catchy
names, cool...

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Core characteristics of interaction design

•Users should be involved throughout the

development of the project

•Specific usability and user experience goals

need to be identified, clearly documented,
and agreed to at the beginning of the project

•Iteration is needed through the core activities

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 Why?
Help designers:
•Understand how to design interactive products
that fit with what people want, need, and may
desire
•Appreciate that one size does not fit all (for
example, teenagers are very different to grown-ups)
•Identify any incorrect assumptions they may
have about particular user groups. (for example, not
all old people want or need big fonts)
•Be aware of both people’s sensitivities and their
capabilities

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 Accessibility and inclusiveness
Accessibility: the extent to which an interactive
product is accessible by as many people as
possible
•Focus is on people with disabilities; for instance,
those using android OS or apple voiceover

Inclusiveness: making products and services

that accommodate the widest possible
number of people
•For example, smartphones designed for all and
made available to everyone regardless of their
disability, education, age, or income

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 Disabilities
• Whether someone is disabled changes over time with
age, or recovery from an accident

• The severity and impact of an impairment can vary

over the course of a day or in different environmental
conditions

• Disabilities can result because technologies are

designed to necessitate a certain type of interaction
that is impossible for someone with an impairment

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 Understanding disability
Disabilities can be classified as:
• Sensory impairment (such as loss of vision or hearing)
• Physical impairment (having loss of functions to one or more
parts of the body after a stroke or spinal cord injury)
• Cognitive (including learning impairment or loss of
memory/cognitive function due to old age)
Each type can be further defined in terms of capability:
• For example, someone might have only peripheral vision, be
color blind, or have no light perception
Impairment can be categorized:
• Permanent (for instance, long-term wheelchair user)
• Temporary (that is, after an accident or illness)
• Situational (for example, a noisy environment means that a
person can’t hear)

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 Being cool about disability
•Prosthetics can be
designed to move beyond
being functional (and
often ugly) to being
desirable and fashionable

•People now refer to

“wearing their wheels,”
rather than “using a
wheelchair”

Fashionable leg cover designed by Alleles Design Studio

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 Cultural differences
5/21/2015 versus 21/5/2015?

• Which should be used for international services and

online forms?

• Why is it that certain products, like smartphones, are

universally accepted by people from all parts of the world,
whereas people from different cultures react to websites
differently?

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 Usability goals

•Effective to use (effectiveness)

•Efficient to use (efficiency)
•Safe to use (safety)
•Having good utility (utility)
•Easy to learn (learnability)
•Easy to remember how to use (memorability)

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 Usability and user experience goals
•Selecting terms to convey a person’s feelings,
emotions, and so forth can help designers
understand the multifaceted nature of the user
experience
•How do usability goals differ from user experience
goals?
•Are there trade-offs between the two kinds of goals?
(for example, can a product be both fun and safe?)

•How easy is it to measure usability versus user

experience goals?

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 User experience goals
Desirable aspects
Satisfying Helpful Fun
Enjoyable Motivating Provocative
Engaging Challenging Surprising
Pleasurable Enhancing sociability Rewarding
Exciting Supporting creativity Emotionally fulfilling
Entertaining Cognitively stimulating Experiencing flow

Undesirable aspects
Boring Unpleasant
Frustrating Patronizing
Making one feel guilty Making one feel stupid
Annoying Cutesy
Childish Gimmicky

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 Design principles
•Generalizable abstractions for thinking about different
aspects of design

•The do’s and don'ts of interaction design

•What to provide and what not to provide at the interface

•Derived from a mix of theory-based knowledge,

experience, and common-sense

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 Visibility - poor interface
• This is a control panel for an elevator

• How does it work?

• Push a button for the floor you want?

• Nothing happens. Push any other button?

Still nothing. What do you need to do?

•It is not visible as to what to do!

www.baddesigns.com

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Visibility - Improving on a poor interface
…with this elevator, you need to insert
your room card in the slot by the buttons
to get the elevator to work!
How would you make this action more visible?
• Make the card reader more obvious
• Provide an auditory message that says
what to do (which language?)
• Provide a big label next to the card reader
that flashes when someone enters
• Make relevant parts visible
• Make what has to be done obvious

www.baddesigns.com

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What do I do if I am wearing black?

Invisible automatic
controls can make it
more difficult to use

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 Feedback
•Sending information back to the user about
what has been done
•Includes sound, highlighting, animation, and
combinations of these

•For example, when screen button is clicked, it

provides sound or red highlight feedback:
“ccclichhk”

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 Constraints

•Restricting the possible actions that can be

performed

•Helps prevent user from selecting incorrect

options

•Physical objects can be designed to constrain

things. (for example, there being only one way you can
insert a key into a lock)

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Logical or ambiguous design?

• Where do you plug

the mouse?
• Where do you plug
the keyboard, in the
top or bottom
connector?
• Do the color-coded
icons help?
www.baddesigns.com

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How to design them more logically
(A) provides direct
adjacent mapping
between icon and
connector

(B) provides color coding

www.baddesigns.com
that associates the
connectors with the
labels
www.baddesigns.com

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 Consistency
• Design interfaces to have similar operations and
use similar elements for similar tasks. (for example,
always use Ctrl key plus first initial of the command for an
operation: Ctrl+c, Ctrl+s, Ctrl+o)

• The main benefit is that consistent interfaces are

easier to learn and use

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When consistency breaks down

• What happens if there is more than one

command starting with the same letter? (for
example, save, spelling, select, style)

• You have to find other initials or combinations of

keys, thereby breaking the consistency rule (for
example, Ctrl+s, Ctrl+Sp, Ctrl+shift+l)

• Increases learning burden on user, making

them more prone to errors

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Internal and external consistency

• Internal consistency refers to designing

operations to behave the same within an
application
▪ Difficult to achieve with complex interfaces

• External consistency refers to designing

operations, interfaces, and so on to be the
same across applications and devices
▪ Very rarely the case, based on different designer’s
preference

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Keypad numbers layout

A case of external inconsistency

(a) phones, remote controls (b) calculators, computer keypads

1 2 3 7 8 9
4 5 6 4 5 6
7 8 9 1 2 3
0 0

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 Affordances: to give a clue
•Refers to an attribute of an object that allows people to
know how to use it. (For example, a mouse button invites
pushing, a door handle affords pulling)

•Norman (1988) used the term to discuss the design of

everyday objects

•Has since been popularized in interaction design to

discuss how to design interface objects (for example,
scrollbars to enable moving up and down; icons to click on)

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What does “affordance” have to offer
interaction design?
• Interfaces are virtual and do not have affordances like
physical objects
• Norman argues that it does not make sense to talk
about interfaces in terms of ‘real’ affordances
• Instead, interfaces are better conceptualized as
‘perceived’ affordances:
• Learned conventions of arbitrary mappings between action
and effect at the interface
• Some mappings are better than others

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 Activity
Virtual affordances
• How do these screen objects afford?
• What if you were a novice user?
• Would you know what to do with them?

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 Key points
• Interaction design is concerned with designing interactive products to
support how people communicate and interact in their everyday and
working lives
• It is concerned with how to create quality user experiences for services,
devices, and interactive products
• It is multidisciplinary, involving many inputs from wide-reaching
disciplines and fields
• Optimizing the interaction between users and interactive products
requires consideration of a number of interdependent factors, including
context of use, types of activity, UX goals, accessibility, cultural
differences, and user groups.
• Design principles, such as feedback and simplicity, are useful heuristics
for informing, analyzing, and evaluating aspects of an interactive
product.

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