Chapter5 Topic1
Group assignment on Interaction Design Basics:
What is design?
Design something for a specific role or purpose or effect.
What is Interaction?
Generally an interaction is a kind of
"Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design"
To improve the usability of an application it is important to have a well designed
interface. Ben Shneiderman, provide’s"Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" as a
guide to a good interaction design.
1 Strive for consistency.
Consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar situations; identical
terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens; and consistent
commands should be employed throughout.
2 Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
As the frequency of use increases, so do the user's desires to reduce the number of
interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys,
hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user.
3 Offer informative feedback.
For every operator action, there should be some system feedback. For frequent and
minor actions, the response can be modest, while for infrequent and major actions, the
response should be more substantial.
4 Design dialog to yield closure.
Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and
end. The informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions gives the
operators the satisfaction of accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop
contingency plans and options from their minds, and an indication that the way is
clear to prepare for the next group of actions.
5 Offer simple error handling.
As much as possible, design the system so the user cannot make a serious error. If an
error is made, the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple,
comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error.
6 Permit easy reversal of actions.
This feature relieves anxiety, since the user knows that errors can be undone; it thus
encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. The units of reversibility may be a
single action, a data entry, or a complete group of actions.
7 Support internal locus of control.
Experienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in charge of the system
and that the system responds to their actions. Design the system to make users the
initiators of actions rather than the responders.
8 Reduce short-term memory load.
The limitation of human information processing in short-term memory requires that
displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be consolidated, window-motion
frequency be reduced, and sufficient training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics,
and sequences of actions.
Interaction Design Basics:
Interaction design is about creating interventions in often complex situations using
technology of many kinds including PC software, the web and physical devices
Design involves:
 achieving goals within constraints and trade-off between these
 understanding the raw materials: computer and human
 accepting limitations of humans and of design
 The design process has several stages and is iterative and never complete.
 Interaction starts with getting to know the users and their context:
 finding out who they are and what they are like ... probably not like you!
 talking to them, watching them
 Scenarios are rich design stories, which can be used and reused throughout
design:
 they help us see what users will want to do
 they give a step-by-step walkthrough of users' interactions: including what
they see, do and are thinking
 Users need to find their way around a system; this involves:
 helping users know where they are, where they have been and what they can
do next
 creating overall structures that are easy to understand and fit the users' needs
 designing comprehensible screens and control panels
 Complexity of design means we don't get it right first time:
 so we need iteration and prototypes to try out and evaluate
 but iteration can get trapped in local maxima, designs that have no simple
improvements, but are not good
 theory and models can help give good start points
Interaction modelling:
Examines the interactions between variables as the basis for predicting the impact of
multiple variables on a target population and on populations with difference
distributions of risk factors.
Intervention modelling:
Incorporates these interactions and aims to extrapolate the impact of multiple
interventions to new populations. The aim is to develop methods that will be useful
for modelling and comparing intervention strategies using existing data and standard
statistical methods.
The process of Design:
What is required?
Analysis
Design
Implement
And deploy
Prototype
What is required?
Is what are what are the system need, and what are the users needs, all the will
be identified after interviews and ethnography.
Analysis:
This stage is to identify the scenario tasks and analysis.
Design:
This stage is the guide line principles.
Implementation and Deployment:
Precise specification is where architectures provides documentation and help
guide.
Prototype:
Evaluation heuristics
Reference:
http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez