SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

1. SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Tues, Jan 22, 2002

2. Administrivia • Course TAs: • Moryma Aydelott & Jean-Anne Fitzpatrick • Grading: • Individual assignments: 20% • Midterm: 30% • (Might be replaced with an individual assignment) • Project: • Many milestone assignments – required, must be done on time, but not graded –will receive comments/feedback instead. • Final project gets a grade at the end – counts 50%

3. Alternative names for this course • User Interface Design, Prototyping, and Evaluation • Human-computer Interaction

4. Why is HCI Important? It can determine who becomes president of the USA!

6. An Related Problem Evaluate the figures in a research paper

7. A Related Problem • What’s wrong with this table? • Redesign: add space between the columns.

8. Variations on the Theme

9. Variations on the Theme

10. Palm Beach Phone Book (a joke)

11. Problems • The instructions are misleading • Use of the phrase “vote for group” is misleading • Should say “vote for one” • Instructions only on lefthand side • Implies righthand side is different • The interleaving of holes is misleading • Only the president page has this layout • Other offices are one per page (with appropriate instructions) • The sample ballot looks different • No holes – the source of the problem • Did not lead to complaints

14. Other Issues • People vote infrequently • Have to re-learn the system each time • Rushed, uncomfortable circumstances • Palm Beach Demographics: Elderly

17. How to know if it will work? • Test out the design! • Have real people use it! • Try to match the appropriate demographics • Even a few tries can turn up major problems

18. An Informal Usability StudyBarbara Jacobowitz, CHI-WEB, Nov 10, 2000 • “I was able to print 10 different sample ballots from various sources. Last night, I ran them all by my mother (81) and a group of her friends (70-something to 80's). All are bright, literate, and none are legally blind. • They did reasonably well on 9 of the ballots. On one, 6 marked it incorrectly and didn't realize it, 2 did it correctly, but very slowly, and 2 had to ask me what to do. Guess which ballot it was?.” • Summary of a more formal study of punch-card voting: • http://www.osu.edu/units/research/archive/votedes.htm

19. Josephine Scott, CHI-Web, Nov 10, 2000 • “I spent fifteen years making the voting process accessible and usable for all. I have some very strong feelings as well as considerable experience. … • Usability standards must be higher for voting than any other function for the most obvious reasons. Users--in this case, voters, share the need for the clearest of design and instruction to cast a vote properly. Many do not speak English well, or see well, or are able to decipher difficult design cognitively, but they may be able to make as informed a choice for president as our snobbish "experts" who don't see a problem. … • Bad design like this exacerbates the problem. The glib notion that "there is no problem because you can see the arrow" or that voters who made this mistake must be stupid shows a lack of compassion. Let me suggest that it is simple compassion for the user that informs usability expertise. …”

20. More evidence that the ballot is misleading(New York Times, Nov 9, 2000) • Percent of ballots thrown out in Palm Beach County for the error of "overvoting" on Presidential candidates: 4.1% (19,120) • Percent of ballots thrown out in Palm Beach County for the error of "overvoting" on Senatorial candidates: 0.8% (3,783) • Percent of ballots thrown out in Sacramento County (CA) for the error of "overvoting" on Presidential candidates: 0.29% (1,147) • Percentage of (unofficial) re-count votes in Gore's favor: 70% (2,520) • Percentage of (unofficial) re-count votes in Bush's favor: 30% (1,063)

21. Blaming the User • A huge step backwards: • Cokie Roberts (appearing on David Letterman) “stupidity is not an excuse” • Well-designed user interfaces do not present situations in which it is easy to make mistakes • Alan Cooper’s mantra: software should not humiliate the user • In this class we assume: if the user does something “wrong,” it is the fault of the system designer

22. Readings • Do indicated readings before the class • Required: • Course Reader (available early next week) • Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Engineering • Strongly Recommended: • Shneiderman’s Designing the User Interface • www.uidesign.net • world.std.com/~uieweb/ • useit.com • There are many other wonderful books and websites

23. Course Schedule (Tentative) • Intro to HCI • UI Design Cycle, User-Centered Design • Goals, Personas, Task Analysis, Scenarios • Prototyping • Design Techniques • Heuristic Evaluation • Cognitive Issues and Human Abilities • Modes • Midterm • Usability Testing • Graphic Design/Multimodal UIs • Personalization/Social Aspects/Agents • Ubiquitous computing interfaces

24. Project Schedule (Tentative)Note: there will also be individual assignmentsDates shown are the week the item is due • Project proposals (3rd week) • Project personas and goals (4th week) • Scenarios, tasks, and initial sketches (5th week) • Individual design practice (6th week) • Midterm (8th week) • Lo-Fi prototype and test (8th week) • First interactive prototype (10th week) • Class presentation (10th week) • Project heuristic evaluation (11th week) • Second interactive prototype (12th week) • Usability test (14th week) • Class presentation (14th week) • Third prototype and project writeup (Finals week)

25. What is HCI? • A discipline concerned with • design • evaluation • implementation of interactive computing systems for human use • The study of major phenomena surrounding the interaction of humans with computers. Slide by James Landay

26. Organizational & Social Issues Task Design Technology Humans What is HCI?

27. What is an Interface? • Difficult to define • The window through which the human interacts with some application on the computer. • But … • really it is more complex than this • part of a larger context of interacting with other applications, other people, and the physical world.

28. Who builds UIs? • A team of specialists (ideally) • graphic designers • interaction / interface designers • technical writers • marketers • test engineers • software engineers Slide by James Landay

29. An Iterative Process Design Evaluate Prototype Slide by James Landay

30. User-centered Design • Take into account • Cognitive abilities • Organizational constraints • Customs and precendent • Keep users involved throughout project Slide by James Landay

31. User-centered Design • Standard Approach: • Needs assessment • Task analysis • Initial design • More modern approach (from Cooper’s Inmates book): • Needs assessment • Persona creation • Goal creation • Scenario and task creation • Initial design

32. Using Personas • Focus on specific aspects of a specific user’s characteristics, needs, and goals • The persona becomes as understandable as a character in a book or movie • Avoid “elastic user” • Design for the center of the distribution • The perpetual intermediates • Don’t focus on the edge cases

33. Designing for Goals • Goals are what one wants to do • Goals seldom change • Tasks are steps to get to the goals • Tasks change with the technology • Sometimes tasks are the opposite of goals • To get agreement, the lawyer argues • To achieve peace, the country sends in troops • Focusing on technology results in designing for tasks rather than goals.

34. Rapid Prototyping • Build a mock-up of design • Low fidelity techniques • paper sketches • cut, copy, paste • video segments • Interactive prototyping tools • Visual Basic, HyperCard, Director, Flash, etc. Slide by James Landay

35. Evaluation • Test with real users (participants) • Formally or Informally • “Discount” techniques • expert evaluation (heuristic evaluation) • walkthroughs • Build models • Less common

36. Assignment • Start thinking about projects and team members