User Interface Strategies '88
A two-day national satellite TV course October 5 and 12, 1988
Organized by Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
Presenting
Thomas Malone, MIT
Donald Norman, University of California, San Diego
James Foley, George Washington University
This course is produced by the University of Maryland Instructional
Television (ITV) System and broadcast nationwide at more than 200 sites
on the AMCEE/NTU (National Technological University) Satellite
Network. For a copy of the full brochure and information on attending at
an AMCEE site in your area or at an ITV site in the Washington, DC
area, call the University of Maryland ITV office at (301) 454-8955. You
may consider arranging a private showing as a special event for your
organization, university, or company.
Overview: New user interfaces ideas have engaged many researchers,
designers, programmers, and users in the past year. These four leaders of
the field offer their perspectives on why the user interface is a central
focus for expanding the application of computers. Each will offer his
vision and suggest exciting opportunities for next year's developments.
Demonstrations, new software tools, guiding principles, emerging
theories, and empirical results will be presented.
Intended audience: User interface designers, programmers, software
engineers, human factors specialists, managers of computer, information,
and communications projects, trainers, etc.
---- October 5, 1988 ------------------------------------------------Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
Lecture 1: INTRODUCTION: User Interfaces Strategies
Lecture 2: HYPERTEXT: Hype or Help?
Thomas W. Malone, MIT
Lecture 3: COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK:
Using information technology for coordination
Lecture 4: COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK:
Design principles and applications
Discussion Hour
---- October 12, 1988 ----------------------------------------------Donald A. Norman, University of California, San Diego
Lecture 5: USER CENTERED SYSTEM DESIGN:
Emphasizing usability and understandability
Lecture 6: Practical principles for designers
Jim Foley, George Washington University
Lecture 7: Software tools for designing and implementing user-computer
interfaces
Lecture 8: User Interface Management Systems (UIMSs)
Discussion Hour
****** A longer version follows for those interested ************
----- October 5, 1988 ---------------------------------INTRODUCTION: NEW USER INTERFACE STRATEGIES
AND HYPERTEXT
Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
Why user interface issues are now recognized as the vital force
The three pillars: (1) Usability labs & interactive testing, (2) User interface
management systems, (3) Guidelines documents & standards
New menus, clever input devices, sharper displays, more color,
teleoperation, collaboration
UI vs AI: User interface goes a step beyond artificial intelligence
Hypertext: Hype or Help? Understanding new medias: When and how to
use hypertext. User interface design for hypertext; Automatic importing and
exporting
Ben Shneiderman is an Associate Professor in the Department of
Computer Science, Head of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory,
and Member of the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, all at the
University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Shneiderman is the author of
Software Psychology: Human Factors in Computer and Information
Systems (1980) and Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective
Human-Computer Interaction (1987).
COMPUTER SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK:
USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR COORDINATION
Thomas W. Malone, MIT
New applications have begun to appear that help people work together more
productively. Organizations are beginning to use new systems to (a)
increase coordination of design teams, (b) solicit input on new projects from
diverse sources, and (c) display and manipulate information more
effectively in face-to-face meetings. These new applications (often called
computer supported cooperative work or groupware) are likely to become
widespread in the next few years.
Types of groupware (face-to-face vs. remote; simultaneous vs. delayed).
Electronic meeting rooms (e.g., Xerox Colab, MCC, Univ. of Arizona,
Univ. of Michigan).
Asynchronous coordination tools (e.g., electronic messaging, collaborative
authoring, Information Lens (demo will be made), Coordinator).
Guidelines for designing organizational interfaces: (importance of
semi-formal systems, incremental adoption paths, user autonomy,
social and political factors).
Thomas W. Malone is the Douglas Drane Career Development Associate
Professor of Information Technology and Management at the MIT School
of Management. He serves on the editorial boards of Human-Computer
Interaction, Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and
Organizational Science. Before joining the MIT faculty, Professor Malone
was a research scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
----- October 12, 1988 --------------------------------------------USER CENTERED SYSTEM DESIGN:
EMPHASIZING USABILITY AND UNDERSTANDABILITY
Donald A. Norman, University of California, San Diego
The emphasis is on ways to make new devices easy to understand and easy
to use. This is done, to a large extent, by making the information necessary
to do the task available, thus minimizing the memory burden and learning
time. The ideal is that when one does a task, the knowledge required
should be that of the task: as much as possible, the tool itself should be
invisible.
The Seven Stages of Action: (1) Forming the goal; (2) Forming the
intention; (3) Specifying an action; (4) Executing the action; (5) Perceiving
the system state; (6) Interpreting the system state; (7) Evaluating the
outcome.
Direct Manipulation and the Model World Metaphor
Making the computer invisible -- letting the user work directly on the task.
Seven Principles for Transforming Difficult Tasks Into Simple Ones: (1)
Use Both Knowledge in the World and in the Head. (2) Simplify the
Structure of Tasks. (3) Make Things Visible: Bridge the Gulfs of Execution
and Evaluation. (4) Get the Mappings Right. (5) Exploit the Power of
Constraints, Both Natural and Artificial. (6) Design for Error. (7) When All
Else Fails, Standardize.
Donald A. Norman is Professor of Psychology at the University of
California, San Diego, where he is Director of the Institute for Cognitive
Science and chair of the interdisciplinary PhD program in Cognitive
Science. Prof. Norman received a BS degree from MIT and a MS degree
from the University of Pennsylvania, both in Electrical Engineering. His
doctorate, from the University of Pennsylvania, is in Psychology. He has
published extensively in journals and books, and is the author or co-author
of eight books. His most recent book (published in Spring, 1988), is The
Psychology of Everyday Things.
TOOLS FOR DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING
USER-COMPUTER INTERFACES
James D. Foley, The George Washington University
Design and implementation of successful user interfaces is facilitated by
appropriate software tools. The tools enhance designer and programmer
productivity, and simplify user interface refinement as experience is gained
with early users. The tools can also enforce user interface design precepts
by incorporating design decisions into the interface.
Graphics subroutine packages.
Window managers - client-server model of X Windows, services to the
application programmer.
Interaction technique libraries - procedures for presenting menus, dialogue
boxes, scroll bars, etc.
Application frameworks, such as Apple's MacApp.
Rapid prototyping systems - quick design of interactive system prototypes
by non-programmers.
User Interface Management Systems - higher-level specification, automatic
implementation.
Expert system tools - to give designer guidance/feedback on design, to give
user help and guidance.
Several system-building tools will be demonstrated (GWU's UIDE,
Help-by example, either Prototyper on the Mac or Bricklin's demo program
on the PC).
James Foley is Professor and chairman-elect at the Department of EE &
CS, George Washington University. He is co-author, with A. vanDam, of
Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics. His article "Interfaces for
Advanced Computing" appeared in the October 1987 Scientific American.
Foley is an associate editor of Transactions on Graphics, and a fellow of the
IEEE.