SEG 3210 User Interface Design

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SEG 3210User Interface Design Implementation

• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Abdulmotaleb El Saddik
• University of Ottawa (SITE 5-037)
• [phone] x 6277
• elsaddik _at_ site.uottawa.ca
• abed _at_ mcrlab.uottawa.ca
• http//www.site.uottawa.ca/elsaddik/

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Unit E Design Guidelines

• A General Meta-Guideline
• Interaction Styles vs. Interaction Elements
• Coding Techniques and Visual Design
• Response Time
• Feedback and Error Handling
• Command-Based Interfaces
• Menu Driven Systems
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Forms-Based Interfaces
• Organizing a Windowing Interface
• Question and Answer Interfaces
• Information Query Interfaces
• Voice I/O
• Natural Language Interfaces
• Localization and Internationalization
• On-Line Help
• Guidelines and Standards Documents

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15. Localization and Internationalization

• This section is important if software may ever
  possibly have users with different
• Countries
• Languages
• Cultures
• Locale
• Set of features that can be varied depending on
  the language and culture of the user or the data
• Internationalization
• The process of designing software so that it can
  be easily adapted to different locales
• Localization
• The process of adapting software so it can be run
  in different locales

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Design of internationalized software

• Special care must be taken when integrating 3rd
  party software
• May not follow the same internationalization
  standards as you want
• Do not make the functionality dependent on the
  format of data, or vice-versa.
• Create a resource file for each locale and
  language
• All strings to be displayed (except data) are
  taken from this file
• English is just one possible language
• The system will read the appropriate
  configuration file when it is installed or run
• Design screen layouts so they can automatically
  adapt to different text ...
• Amounts (some languages are more wordy than
  others)
• Orientations (some run right-left or bottom-top)
• Think carefully when designing keyboard shortcuts
• English mnemonics wont work in other languages
• Keyboard layouts can be totally different

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Design of internationalized software

• Understand and apply all local and international
  standards
• (official and de-facto)
• Employ professional translators who understand
  the technology and are willing to test the
  application
• Avoid text that is difficult to translate
• Limit use of acronyms
• Do not string more than two nouns together
• Keep text simple and short but avoid telegraphic
  style
• Except for single fill-in-the-blank proper
  nouns, avoid constructing text piece-by-piece
  within your code.
• Ensure all language versions are thoroughly
  tested
• Have all language versions ready for release at
  the same time
• Being a release behind causes significant
  frustrations
• Beware of numerous cultural differences
• Trash can or mail boxes are not universal
• Black cat means bad luck in North America, good
  luck in the UK.
• The colour red has numerous conflicting
  connotations
• Keep away from metaphors involving
  culture-specific games or activities

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Design of internationalized software

• Allow for the display of different ...
• Sets of diacriticals (accents)
• Each language has its own set
• E.g. In Arabic, characters look different
  depending on their position relative to others
• E.g. in Thai, diacritics can be stacked on top of
  each other several levels
• Also in Thai, spaces separate syllables, not
  words
• ABCD AB CD A BCD mean different things,
  causing problems at line breaks
• Some languages run top-bottom
• Date and time formats
• Allow for various orders of components, and
  different words (e.g. for months)
• Allow for 12 and 24 hour clocks
• Allow for time zones, but avoid hard-coded
  abbreviations such as GMT which may not be
  unique around the world.

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Design of internationalized software

• Character sets
• e.g. Latin, Japanese, Arabic
• !, ? and are not consistently used among
  languages
• In Spanish ?
• In French, a space precedes a ?
• Numeric formats
• Different symbols separate thousands
• comma, period, space, nothing
• Different symbols designate the decimal point.
• Currency formats
• Allow for different symbols and locations
• Different ways of expressing US1000
• 1000 (In the US, or in Canada and the UK if the
  application doesnt mix currencies)
• US1000 (In English Canada, if the application
  mixes currencies)
• 1000 (Inmost French locales)
• 1000 USD when mixing large numbers of currencies
• Telephone number and postal code formats
• Dont constrain what characters can be entered

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Design of internationalized software

• Prepare to handle different collating sequences
  when sorting

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16/17. Help Documentation

• Why do systems have Help Documentation?
• Users require different types of support at
  different times
• User Support may be provided by help and/or
  documentation
• Help problem-oriented and specific
• Documentation System-oriented and general
• User Support can be in two forms
• Hardcopy user Manuals
• Brief getting started notes
• Introductory Tutorial
• Thorough Tutorial
• Quick Reference Manual
• Detailed Reference Manual
• Online Material
• User manual help facility
• Tutorials
• Demonstration

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Requirements of Help and Documentation

• Availability
• Continuous access concurrent to main application
• Accuracy and Completeness
• Help matches actual system behavior and covers
  all aspects of system behavior
• Consistency
• Different parts of the help system and any paper
  documentation are consistent in content,
  terminology and presentation
• Flexibility
• Allows users to interact in a way appropriate to
  experience and task
• Unobtrusiveness
• Does not prevent the user continuing with work
  nor interfere with application

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Approaches to user Support

• Command Assistance and Command Prompts
• User requests help on particular command.
• E.g. DOS help, UNIX man
• Good for quick reference
• Provide information about correct usage when an
  error occurs
• Good simple syntactic errors
• Assumes user knows what to look for
• knowledge of command
• On-line Tutorials
• User works through basics of application in a
  test environment
• Useful but are often inflexible
• On-line Help/Documentation
• Paper documentation is made available on computer
• Hypertext used to support browsing
• Continually available in common medium, but can
  be difficult to browse

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16 . On-Line Help

• Some interesting findings about a particular help
  system
• 5-20 of user interactions typically involved
  help
• 10-20 of messages were never accessed
• 10 of messages accounted for 90 of requests
• Most users were unhappy with the help system
• Questions users ask when they go to help
• Task achievement (70)
• How do I do this, or should I do this?
• State identification (20)
• Where am I, or What is this?
• Exploration
• What can I do with this program?
• Diagnostic
• What is wrong?

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Guidelines for help

• Make help easy to access
• Advertise the help system
• Provide several ways to gain access
• Make it fast
• Couple help with the system
• Integrate help and error handling
• Make help active so it gives suggestions
• Organize help around tasks and goals
• Provide a variety of navigational aids
• Hyperlinks
• Full text keyword searches
• Outlines
• Organize help using increasing levels of detail
• Make help consistent in style
• Use a professional writer
• Make help complete and accurate

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17. Guidelines and Standards Documents

• Characteristic of Guideline High in generality
• Principle Requires interpretation to apply
• Rule Simple to apply
• Characteristic of Standard High in authority
• Standards and guidelines
• Are dependent on context
• Have exceptions
• Often conflict
• Are generally based on sound research
• But the research may be misapplied
• e.g. Often guidelines say Display 7 /-2 menus
  due to short term memory
• The real reason is to prevent confusion

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Some benefits of standards

• Improved usability
• Standards have been carefully developed
• Common terminology
• Means of comparison among applications
• Easier deign and maintenance
• You know what things should look like
• A common identity among applications
• Reduction in training
• Things are the same within and across
  applications
• Customer satisfaction
• Safety
• Errors less likely to be made due to familiarity
• Typical standards documents
• ISO 9241
• IBM Common User Access Guide
• Inside Macintosh (Apple)
• The Windows Interface An Application Design
  Guide (Microsoft)
• SUN Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines

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