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12 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The User Interface |
- User interfaces should be designed to match skills, experience, and expectations of its anticipated users.
- System users often judge system by its interface rather than its functionality.
- Poor user interface design is the reason why so many software systems are never used.
- Poorly designed interface can cause user to make catastrophic errors. |
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Human Factors in Interface Design
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- Limited short-term memory
- People make mistakes - People are different - People have different interaction preferences |
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Pressman's Golden Rules
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- Place user in control
- Reduce user's memory load - Make interface consistent |
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Place user in control
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- Define interaction modes in a waythat does not force a user into unnecessary or undesired actions.
- Provide for flexible interaction. - Allow user interaction to be interruptible and undoable. - Streamline interaction as skill levels advance and allow the interaction to be customized. - Hide technical internals from the casual user. - Design for direct interactionwith objects that appear on the screen. |
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Reduce User's Memory Load
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- Reduce demand on short-term memory
- Establish meaningful defaults. - Define shortcuts that are intuitive - Base visual layout on a real world metaphor - Disclose information in a progressive fashion |
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Make Interface Consistent
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- Allow user to put current task into a meaningful context
- Maintain consistency across a family of applications. - If past interactive model have created user expectations, do not change unless there is a compelling reason to do so |
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User Analysis
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- If you don’t understand what the users want to do with a system,you have no realistic prospect of designing an effective interface.
- User analyses have to be described in terms that users and otherdesigners can understand. - Scenarios where you describe typical episodes of use are one way ofdescribing these analyses. • Use cases! |
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Analysis Techniques |
- Task analysis • Model steps involved in completing a task - Interviewing and questionnaires • Ask users about work they do • Use open-ended questions • Group interviews / focus groups -> discuss with each other what they do - Ethnography • Observes user at work, question them • Valuable to find intuitively done steps + to understand role of social & organizational influences |
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UI Prototyping |
- Aim: allow users to gain direct experience with the interface - Without such direct experience, it is impossible to judge usability of an interface - Prototyping may be two-stage process: • Early in the process, paper prototypes may be used; • design is then refined, increasingly sophisticated automated prototypes |
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Prototyping Techniques |
- Paper prototyping • sketches of the interface + a storyboard to present a series of interactions • effective way of getting user reactions to a design proposal - Script-driven prototyping • set of scripts + screens using a tool such as Macromedia Director • when user interacts, screen changes to next display - Visual programming • language designed for rapid development - Internet-based Prototyping • web browser + associated scripts |
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UI Evaluation |
- Some evaluation of a suer interface design should be carried out to assess suitability - Full scale evaluation very expensive & impractical for most systems - Ideally, an interface should be evaluated against a usability specification • rarely done, though |
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UI Wrap-Up |
UI design process involves • user analysis • system prototyping • prototype evaluation - Create metaphors, use them consistently - UI critical for acceptance or failure of the whole project • Prototyping + high customer interaction advisable |
