Design and evaluation Cognition, Communication, and Collaboration

1
Design and evaluationCognition, Communication,
and Collaboration

• Victor Kaptelinin
• October 31, 2006

2
Outline

• The process of interaction design (contd)
• Cognition
• (designing for) Communication and collaboration

3
The process of interaction design
4
Design and SDLC
design
Early prototype(s)
Formative evaluation
Advanced prototype(s)
Concept
Summative evaluation
Requirement specification
Implementation
Problem identification
Deployment
User studies
Adoption
PRACTICE (real world)
5
Lifecycle models

• Show how activities are related to each other
• Lifecycle models are
• management tools
• simplified versions of reality
• Many lifecycle models exist, for example
• from software engineering waterfall, spiral,
  JAD/RAD
• from HCI Star, usability engineering

6
A simple interaction design model
Identify needs/ establish requirements
(Re)Design
Evaluate
Build an interactive version
Final product
Exemplifies a user-centered design approach
7
Traditional waterfall lifecycle
Requirements analysis
Design
Code
Test
Maintenance
8
A Lifecycle for RAD (Rapid Applications
Development)
Project set-up
JAD workshops
Iterative design and build
Engineer and test final prototype
Implementation review
9
Spiral model (Barry Boehm)

• Important features
• Risk analysis
• Prototyping
• Iterative framework allowing ideas to be checked
  and evaluated
• Explicitly encourages alternatives to be
  considered
• Good for large and complex projects but not
  simple ones

10
Spiral Lifecycle model
From
cctr.umkc.edu/kennethjuwng/spiral.htm
11
The Star lifecycle model

• Suggested by Hartson and Hix (1989)
• Important features
• Evaluation at the center of activities
• No particular ordering of activities. Development
  may start in any one
• Derived from empirical studies of interface
  designers

12
The Star Model (Hartson and Hix, 1989)
task/functional analysis
Implementation
Requirements specification
Evaluation
Prototyping
Conceptual/ formal design
13
Cognition

• What is cognition?
• What are users good and bad at?
• Mental models
• External cognition
• Using this understanding to inform system design

14
Core cognitive aspects

• Attention
• Perception and recognition
• Memory
• Reading, speaking and listening
• Problem-solving, planning, reasoning and
  decision-making, learning
• Here we focus on attention, perception
  recognition, memory

15
Attention Design implications

• Make information salient when it needs attending
  to
• Use techniques that make things stand out like
  colour, ordering, spacing, underlining,
  sequencing and animation
• Avoid cluttering the interface - follow the
  google.com example of crisp, simple design
• Avoid using too much because the software allows
  it

16
Memory

• Involves encoding and recalling knowledge and
  acting appropriately
• We recognize things much better than being able
  to recall things
• The rise of the GUI over command-based interfaces
• Better at remembering images than words
• The use of icons rather than names
• 7/-2 Misuses

17
Mental models

• Craik (1943) described mental models as internal
  constructions of some aspect of the external
  world enabling predictions to be made
• Involves unconscious and conscious processes,
  where images and analogies are activated
• Deep versus shallow models (e.g. how to drive a
  car and how it works)
• Transparency

18
External cognition

• Concerned with explaining how we interact with
  external representations (e.g. maps, notes,
  diagrams) and how they extend our cognition
• What computer-based representations can we
  develop to help even more?
• External representations
• Remind us that we need to do something (e.g. to
  buy something for mothers day)
• Remind us of what to do (e.g. buy a card)
• Remind us when to do something (e.g. send a card
  by a certain date)

19
Usability principles (Nielsen, PRS ch. 1)

• Visibility of system status
• Match between system and the real world
• User control and freedom
• Consistency and standards
• Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from
  errors
• Error prevention
• Recognition rather than recall
• Flexibility and efficiency of use
• Aesthetic and minimalist design
• Help and documentation

20
Communication and collaboration

• Conversation with others
• Awareness of others
• How to support people to be able to
• talk and socialise
• work together
• play and learn together

21
Conversational rules

• turn-taking to coordinate conversation
• Back channeling to signal to continue and
  following
• Uh-uh, umm, ahh
• farewell rituals
• Bye then, see you, yer bye, see you later.
• implicit and explicit cues
• e.g. looking at watch, fidgeting with coat and
  bags
• explicitly saying Oh dear, must go, look at the
  time, Im late

22
Technology-mediated conversation

• Do same conversational rules apply?
• Are there more breakdowns?
• How do people repair them?
• Phone?
• Email?
• Instant messaging
• SMS texting?

23
Design implications

• How to support conversations when people are at
  a distance from each other
• Many applications have been developed
• Email, videoconferencing, videophones, computer
  conferencing, instant messaging, chatrooms,
  collaborative virtual environments, media spaces
• How effective are they?
• Do they mimic or extend existing ways of
  conversing?

24
Synchronous CMC

• Conversations are supported in real-time through
  voice and/or typing
• Examples include video conferencing and chatrooms
• Benefits
• Can keep more informed of what is going on
• Video conferencing allows everyone to see each
  other providing some support for non-verbal
  communication
• Chatrooms can provide a forum for shy people to
  talk more
• Problems
• Video lacks bandwidth
• Difficult to establish eye contact
• People can behave badly when behind the mask of
  an avatar

25
Asynchronous CMC

• Communication takes place remotely at different
  times
• Email, newsgroups, computer conferencing
• Benefits include
• Read any place any time
• Flexible as to how to deal with it
• Powerful, can send to many people
• Can make saying things easier
• Problems include
• FLAMING!!!
• Spamming
• Message overload
• False expectations as to when people will reply

26
New communication technologies

• Move beyond trying to support face-to-face
  communication
• Provide novel ways of interacting and talking
• Examples include
• SMS texting via mobile phones
• Online chatting in chatrooms
• Collaborative virtual environments
• Media spaces

27
Awareness of others

• Involves knowing who is around, what is
  happening, and who is talking with whom
• Peripheral awareness
• keeping an eye on things happening in the
  periphery of vision
• Overhearing and overseeing - allows tracking of
  what others are doing without explicit cues
• Media spaces
• Notification systems