OVERVIEW
1. Gould & Lewis’ 3 Key Principles for
Designing for Usability
2. HCD Before HCI
3. Poor diffusion of HCI research into practice
4. Three waves of HCI research and practice
• The late arrival of design
• The promise of research through design
• The contribution of practitioner communities:
Personas as an example
3 Key
Principles
THREE KEY PRINCIPLES FOR USABILITY
Good and Lewis’ principles are thoroughly institutionalised in HCI value systems
1.
Early [- and continual -] focus on users (and tasks, v1 only) [V2? & V3]
2.
Empirical Measurement
3.
Iterative Design
V1: Gould, J., and Lewis, C. (1985) “Designing for usability: Key principles and what designers think,”
Communications of the ACM, 28(3), 300-311.
V2: Gould, J (1988) “How to Design Usable Systems in M. Helander (Ed.)
Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, 1st Edition, North-Holland, 757–789.
V3: Gould, J., Boies, S.J. and Ukelson, J. (1997) “How To Design Usable Systems” in M. Helander, T.K.
Landauer, & P.V. Prabhu (Eds). Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Edn, 231-254.
For 12 years, principles had “stood up to the passage of time”
Cockton, G. “Revisiting Usability’s Three Key Principles”, CHI 2008 Extended Abstracts,
Eds. M. Czerwinski, A. M. Lund & D.S. Tan, 2473-2484. (academia.edu)
WERE THESE THREE PRINCIPLES
1.
2.
3.
4.
Derived from prior concepts?
Grounded in primary experience?
Synthesised from secondary literature?
Proposed tactically to achieve political ends?
1. NOT CONCEPTUALLY DERIVED
Exempt on grounds of home discipline, psychology
 Prefered provisional demonstration over argument
 “ours are not universal truths”
 “principles of design are arguable, of course”
As empiricists, Gould and colleagues would not rely on
derivation via conceptual analysis
 disdain for “power of reason”
2. NO PRIMARY EVIDENCE
“sufficiently rigorous and conform to the traditional scientific
approach”
 This claim fails as the examples neither test nor reveal the principles, hence
no scientific grounding
Principles are post hoc garnishes
 “principled type of thinking” emerged within evolving processes
 Few examples on the nature and proven impact of an early
focus on users or tasks (pre-design), but many on prototyping
(“hallway” and “storefront methodologies”)
No examples of successful effective use of empirical measurement in driving
iteration, which instead was driven by ‘unmeasured’ formative feedback,
 Unlike Whiteside, Bennett and Holtzblatt (1988)
 who suspended it (HCI Remixed, MIT Press)
3. SECONDARY LITERATURE IGNORED
Two principles had for existed
30 years in design literature
 Designing for People
Henry Dreyfus, 1955
Focus on people
 Joe and Josephine
Iterative design
No empirical measurement
of performance!
 just anthropometrics
Disdain for design(ers) impeded design-led HCI for over a decade
(despite e.g., 1996 Terry Winograd’s Bringing Design to Software)
4. LOOKS POLITICAL
“real control of the user interface to the people who
had responsibility for [it]”
The Three Key Principles gave key control over UI
elements of the development process
 Enough to “ensure” and “assure” without recourse to
marginalised “power of reason”
 Design was only controllable architecturally, due to
separable UIs (ITS, an example of a marginalised “power of
technology to succeed”), so was only practically feasible
without back end reengineering (e.g. one failed project)
AND LOOK WHAT THEY MISSED …
Some prescient details of technology probes (2003),
appropriation and experience design
 Executive appropriation: from remote dictation to voicemail
 User suggestions/ dissatisfaction: pending message box,
self/others’ message editing; Illinois system: ‘empirically
determined required improvements … adding functions’
 Fun at EXPO 92: laughter, empowerment, quality of life,
lingering to learn
More effective than early focus on users/tasks
 75% effort after installation (1997 Handbook v2)
Hilary Hutchinson, Wendy Mackay, Bo Westerlund, Benjamin B. Bederson,
Allison Druin, Catherine Plaisant, Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Stéphane
Conversy, Helen Evans, Heiko Hansen, Nicolas Roussel, and Björn
Eiderbäck. 2003. Technology probes: inspiring design for and with
families. CHI'03, 17-24, ACM.
MORE CREDIBLE PRINCIPLES ARE
1. Ask and Consult
2. Watch and Listen
3. Fix what needs fixing
In other words
1. Acknowledge two principles from Dreyfus: user/usage focus
and iteration
2. Drop empirical measurement
3. And perhaps learn something about (engineering) design
HCD
before HCI
80AD: DE ARCHITECTURA
Vitruvius clearly separated intended value from
design concepts, that is, ends from means
in architecture, as in other arts, two
considerations must be constantly kept in view;
namely, the intention, and the matter used to
express that intention: but the intention is
founded on a conviction that the matter wrought
will fully suit the purpose; he, therefore, who is not
familiar with both branches of the art, has no
pretension to the title of the architect (1.1.3)
Gwilt 1826 translation at penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/vitruvius/1*.html
MID 19TH CENTURY SHAKERS’
GUIDING DESIGN PRINCIPLES
1. Regularity is beautiful
2. The highest beauty lies in harmony
3. Beauty arises from practicality
4. Order is the origin of beauty
5. That which is most practical
is also most beautiful
DESIGN: A CONCISE HISTORY
THOMAS HAUFFE, LAURENCE KING, 1998.
http://www.shakerworkshops.com/cart
/new_images_in_db/13F07.jpg
1950S: ERGONOMICS AND
HUMAN FACTORS
“Fit the Machine to Man, not
Man to the Machine”
Hywell Murray
Visible, tangible, directly
measurable
Newtonian - size, weight,
reach, force
Occupational - stress,
reliability, acceptability
UCD WAS
BLINKERED TO
(THE PAST OF)
DESIGN
THE RESULT OF
BLINKERS WAS …
POOR
DIFFUSION OF HCI
RESEARCH INTO
PRACTICE
MANY STUDIES OF POOR DIFFUSION
• Victoria Bellotti. 1988. Implications of current design
practice for the use of HCI techniques. People and
Computers IV, 13-34, Cambridge University Press.
• Research into design for research for design
• Buckingham Shum, S. 1996. Analyzing the Usability of
a Design Rationale Notation. Design Rationale:
Concepts, Techniques, and Use, T. P. Moran and J. M.
Carroll, (Eds.) 185-215, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Research through design for research for design
DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION
Process by which an an innovation is communicated through certain
channels over time among the members of a social system. (Rogers)
 Perspective: the spreading of innovations as a phenomenon
 Innovation: idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an
individual or other unit of adoption (Rogers)
 Two reflections by Arnold Vermeeren for TwinTide COST project (2009-13)
 IBM Netherlands’ usability group wanting to install a usability lab
 ABN AMRO Bank wanting to introduce usability work into the process of developing
their software for employees
 More factors than ‘just’:
 Matching an approach’s resources with the work
 Results from a process of adoption, adaptation, implementation
INNOVATION DECISION PROCESSES
1. Agenda setting
2. Matching
3. Redefining innovation/restructuring organization
4. Routinizing
INNOVATION DECISION PROCESSES
ORGANIZATION VIEW
1.
Agenda setting stage

Problem in organization that needs to be solved

Confrontation with innovation uncovers a thus far unknown need
2.
Matching stage

Figure out whether it seems worthwhile to adopt an innovation

Imagining the consequences of implementing it in the organization
3.
Redefining/restructuring stage

Finding a solution for an imperfect match between organization and
innovation

Re-invent the innovation

Restructure the organization
4.
Routinizing stage

Innovation becomes part of daily life
DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION
ORGANIZATION VERSUS INDIVIDUAL VIEW
O RG A N IZ AT IO N V IE W
Agenda setting
Matching
Redefine/restructure
Routinize
I N D I V I D U A L’ S V I E W
Knowledge/awareness
Persuasion
Decision making
Implementation
Confirm
INFLUENCES ON ADOPTION DECISIONS
Adoption-relevant attributes of innovations, as perceived by members of social system:
 Relative advantage
 Compatibility
 Complexity
 Trialibility
 Observability
Change agent success factors, relation of change agent to ‘client’
 Empathy (do they respect each other)
 Homophily (are they alike?)
 Credibility (in the client’s eyes)
 Opinion leaders (importance of what they do?)
CHANCES OF
SUCCESSFUL
DIFFUSION HAVE
INCREASED
After Three Waves
of HCI, we’re
almost there
WAVE 0 (1970S) BEFORE HCI
 Practice-based research
 Research through design
 Example UI designs and elements
 Guidelines from practitioners
 Attacked in 1980s for lack of
evidence base (by psychologists with
a lack of design base)
www.infomagic.net/~grog
TIMESHARING
WAVE 1 (1980S)
 Dominance of Cognitive Psychology
 Modelling devices, users
and interactions
 Research for design
 Engineering Psychology mind-set
optimised efficiency, effectiveness
and satisfaction
 Pragmatic user testing filled gaps
that psychology and engineering
could not fill
PERSONAL COMPUTERS
http://www.sapdesig
nguild.org/communit
y/images/hum_inf_p
roc.gif
WAVE 2 (1990S)




Turn to the social
Ethnomethodology prominent
Field replaces lab
Contextual Design
 Field understandings produce
greater improvements than lab
testing
 Gould et al. experienced this too,
but clung to their principles
LOCAL AND WIDE AREA
NETWORKS
https://quriosity.files.word
press.com/2010/06/whe
nuserhitsmachinexeroxstill
s.png
WAVE 3 (2000S+)
 Affective psychology
 user experience
 Value, values and worth
 Critical design: Arts & Humanities
 Feminism, Post-Colonialism, Sexuality, …
 Sustainable computing
 Design lead Interaction Design
 And loads more …
http://gil.poly.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2014/12/ob
jectsview2Crisper.png
INTERNET AND
INTERACTIVE DIGITAL MEDIA
Did someone
say Design?
ISO 9241-210:
HUMAN-CENTRED DESIGN PROCESSES FOR INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS
early focus on users and tasks
iterative design
empirical measurement
http://www.system-concepts.com/assets/images/usability/usability%20diagram%20for%20blog.jpg
But you can’t do
design research,
can you?
ART & DESIGN RESEARCH
 Christopher Frayling. 1994,
Research in Art and Design
Royal College of Art Research Papers, 1(1)
http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/384/
 Based on Herbert Read on Art Education
 Research into Art and Design
 Research for Art and Design
 Research through Art and Design
 HCI ousted ‘through’ and focused on ‘for’ with very
little ‘into’.
Definitions of
research
don’t help
very much
Art in
Fact
and
Film
Design
then
and
Now
Science:
Ideal and
Reality (bit
arty really)
Research
for
Art
Science left
art behind
All art cannot
be research
…
since a
long
time
back
Artist
Designer
Scientist
Practitioner
Practices
Research
Into
Through,
and For
Design
Research
and the
Object
But some can
Seeing into
and through
And there has
been clear
design
research …
Telling what
The Best Bits ←
→ The Rushed Bits
FRAYLING: THE BEST BITS
What actually gets done, past and present in art, design and science
 Fictions, ideals, post-rationalisations, [identities], realities
 Institutions, especially ones for Art and Design Education (Read), and more recently
for Art and Design research
Insights and Issues
 Unconscious subjectivity in all practices, the creative in all practice, intuitions
without any second thought, the fear and loathing of research, toxic mental
lucubrations (artificial light), uncomfortable verbalisation, artefacts that speak for
themselves, [faithful] expression and autobiography versus [forced distanced]
reconstruction
Research as a worthy objective
 Beyond preparation (e.g., reference materials) in the spirit of research to actual
research for a worthwhile purpose beyond status, promotion and funding
FRAYLING’S RUSHED BITS (1)
Last page of 5 [my glosses on Originality, Significance and Rigour]
 We don’t need to be scared of (or protected from) research, let the debate begin
Research into Art and Design
 Humanities and Human Science studies of art and design outside of the designer
 Searching for/after, original sense of research, looking for, not finding
 Objectivity, originality, significance and rigorous planning and practices are most
possible here, writing reveals thoughts
Research through Art and Design
 Creative practices make internal external for some purpose beyond a made object
 Exploring via creative practices and [erudite] critical reflection,
but not rigorous planning throughout
 Subjectivity is inescapable here, making reveals thoughts review reveals originality
and significance
FRAYLING: RUSHED BITS
Research for Art [and Design]
 Common place practices within practice, not necessarily original,
significant or rigorous, can only be scholarly research when it has a
purpose beyond one project, person or studio
 Searching or constructing support for creative practices
 Subjectivity is inescapable when constructing and using created resources
 Challenges for design rationale and evaluation of supportive resources
 Searching and making reveals possibilities that must be realised by others
 Dilemmas over autobiographical personal development as communicable
knowledge, what someone is, rather than what they think [really?]
 Working paper fizzles out in consideration of research for art
 “Needs a great deal of further research”
FILLING FRAYLING IN AND OUT
Historical
Aesthetics
Perception
Perspectives
(PESTLE,
Ethics, …)
Current
Practice
INTO
STEM
opportunities,
Action research in
the studio (LAB)
Reference
materials for
artwork
Other
research
imperatives
Re-usable
design
knowledge
and
methods
THROUGH
FOR
YEE: MODES NOT EXCLUSIVE
INTO
THROUGH
FOR Design
FOR the world
FOR Science
Underpinning Conceptual Frameworks?
Methodological innovation in practice-based design doctorates,
Journal of Research Practice, 6(2), Article M15. Online Journal.
OTHER FRAMEWORKS (YEE 2010)
• Cross (1999): Research foci on
• People (designers), process (designing), product (designs)
• Fallman (2008) Holistic model (but still gappy)
• Research within design practice (through for a project, does not meed
Frascati definition of research), in design studies (into), and design
exploration (through for critique, public, etc.)
• Koskinen et al. (2011) (not in Yee 2010), research loci:
• lab, field, showroom
• Divergence or refinement?
CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN RESEARCH
BRINGING IN DESIGN MEANS
• Research into design
• Research through design
• As well as research for design
• also making research for design really for DESIGN
• not for some imaginary engineering design ideal with
fully rationalised and evidenced decisions that are
demonstrably optimal
• False understandings have impeded diffusion of
HCI research
Designers are
not waiting for
researchers
PRACTITIONERS
MADE PERSONAS
ROUTINE
PERSONA LIFECYCLE
Phase 1: Family Planning (planning a
persona effort)
Phase 2: Conception and Gestation
(creating personas)
Phase 3: Birth and Maturation
(launching and communicating
personas)
Phase 4: Adulthood
(using personas)
Phase 5: Lifetime Achievement and
Retirement (ROI and reuse of
personas)
A COMMUNITY EFFORT, PRACTITIONER CONTRIBUTIONS
PERSONA EXAMPLE (1)
http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/03/16/a-little-thing-about-personas/
PERSONA EXAMPLE (2)
www.pleiportal.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/workshop-persona-example-med.jpg
PERSONA EXAMPLE (3)
http://blog.highlandbusinessresearch.com/2007/12/
PERSONA SKELETONS
How to
express
your
personas
Decide on
content
and layout
pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/wiki/uploads/CPSC681/topic-wanpersonas.pdf – quoted from Pruitt and Adlin book
Five
Histories
HISTORIES OF HCI, HCD AND MORE
•
Pre-HCI Computing
•
Pre-HCI Design and Human Factors/Ergonomics
•
HCI and HCD and more human sciences
•
Art and Design Research
•
IxD and practitioner communities (e..g, UXPA, IxDA)
So What?
HUMAN SCIENCES ARE ENOUGH FOR
•
Research into Design
• But HCI scientists have tried to research for design
solely through the application of human sciecne
(but even then they had to design)
•
This could use data from a research through design
study
•
This could provide insights on adoption and diffusion
for research for design initiatives.
HUMAN SCIENCES NOT ENOUGH FOR
•
Research through Design
• Experienced competent effective designers are
needed to deliver complete coherent designs to a
high standard of production
Research for design
•
•
Experienced competent effective designers are
needed to demonstrate how new approaches can
become methods in use
Be Nice to
Designers
Learn about
Learn from
Learn with
Suspect your
discipline
Know its
limits
Critique
eveything
Find and
question
assumptions
Are you
researching?
(When) are you
human-centred
or focused?
Whose design
process is it?
SUMMARY
•
User-Centred Design isn’t enough
 Not enough design (HCI smothered it)
•
Poor diffusion of HCI research into practice
 Not enough real design (HCI invents/simplifies)
•
After Three waves of HCI research and practice
 HCI has time for design realities (research into)
 HCI can benefit from design (research through)
 HCI may even support design (research for)
 If not, Interaction Design will continue to progress
on its own
Questions?
THANK
YOU