Introduction to Usability Engineering

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Introduction to Usability Engineering

• CS 352
• Winter 2009

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Logistics CS352

• Email cjensen (at) eecs
• Office hours
• MW 11-1pm KEC 3061
• By Appointment
• TA Eunyoung Chung (Carrie)
• Email chung (at) eecs
• Office Hours ?

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Course Description

• This class will give you hands-on experience with
  usability evaluation and user-centered design. In
  this class you will not learn how to implement
  user interfaces, but rather how to design these
  based on the needs of users, which you will
  determine, and learn how to evaluate your designs
  rigorously. This is a class for those who wish to
  know more about usability, human-computer
  interaction, the psychological aspects of
  computing, evaluation, and/or experimentation.
• The bulk of your grade will be based on a group
  project, where you will propose, prototype, and
  evaluate your own novel IT solutions. These
  projects will be presented to the whole school at
  the end of the term.

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Course Objectives

• Learn how to do requirements gathering and
  interpretation
• Learn how to do prototyping and iterative design
• Learn how to apply usability testing methods, and
  legal and ethical requirements
• Learn about the evolution of user interfaces
• The goal of this class is to teach, in a hands-on
  manner, how to design a computer product
  properly.

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Learning Objectives

• At the completion of the course, students will be
  able to
• Describe the human centered design process and
  usability engineering process and their roles in
  system design and development.
• Discuss usability design guidelines, their
  foundations, assumptions, advantages, and
  weaknesses.
• Describe basics of human subjects research.
• Complete a basic human subjects research
  certification form.
• Design a user interface based on analysis of
  human needs and prepare a prototype system.
• Assess user interfaces using different usability
  engineering techniques.
• Make an oral presentation that justifies design
  decisions.

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Course Assignments and Grading

• This class is meant to be a hand-on course. This
  means that you will be required to work on group
  projects (3-4 person groups) and class-work (in
  addition to doing readings) outside of class
  time. This class will also be very interactive.
  Participation will count towards your final
  grade, and I want a healthy discussion in each
  class session.
• The grading breakdown will be as follows
• - Participation 10
• - Assignments 15
• - Midterm 1 20
• - Midterm 2 20
• - Project 35
• Proposal 20
• Prototype 25
• Evaluation Plan 25
• Evaluation 20
• Presentation 10

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Assumptions

• Prerequisites CS 161 or CS 295
• You should be very familiar with the following
  concepts and practices
• Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs)
• Basics of Programming, some VB or HTML
• Basics of some graphics manipulation package
• This is a 300-level class, I expect you to be
  responsible and keep up with the reading and
  complete your assigned work on time. Lectures
  will not cover all reading, I will focus on
  explaining material which is particularly
  difficult, or which is not well-explained in the
  book. You are still responsible for all materials
  for exams and your work.

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To the meat of the matter
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What is Usability Engineering?

• Usability Engineering is the process of
  Methodically designing systems which are
• Useful
• Usable
• Which includes
• Determining what is useful
• Determining what is usable
• Evaluating these two factors empirically

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Goals of Usability Engineering

• Nielsen
• Increase learnability
• Increase efficiency
• Increase memorability
• Decrease errors
• Increase satisfaction
• Preece
• Utility ?
• Effectiveness ?

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Why bother with usability engineering?

• Computers affect most people
• 89 of US has access to computers, 65 are online
  
• Have to deal with businesses government
  agencies
• Computers are everywhere!!! (help!)
• Not just white boxes
• Success often depends on ease of use, not power
  or features
• Learning to use a computer system is like
  learning to use a parachute if a person fails
  on the first try, odds are he wont try again.
  anonymous

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Usability as a Process

• Nielsen
• Identify who the users are
• Understand their activities
• Understand the context in which these take place
• Applying design principles and design techniques,
  like
• Scenarios
• Think-aloud protocols
• Heuristic Evaluation

• Preece
• Taking into account what people are good and bad
  at
• Considering what might help people with the way
  they currently do things
• Thinking through what might provide quality user
  experiences
• Listening to what people want and getting them
  involved in the process
• Using tried and tested user-based techniques
  during design process

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Usability by Other Names in Other Fields

• Usability Engineering
• Human-computer interaction
• Computer-human interaction
• Human-machine interaction
• Ergonomics
• Interaction Design
• User-interface design
• User-centered design

• Informatics/information systems/library science
• Psychology/cognitive science
• Ergonomics
• Industrial engineering/design
• Architecture
• Art
• Social sciences

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Historical Perspective
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• Why?
• Get a sense of where we are
• Things havent always been this way, wont always
  stay this way, computers and interaction evolving
• Understand lessons from history
• Understand why we are here
• Avoid repeating same mistakes
• See that the history of computing is tied to the
  history of computer usability

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History of computer interaction
?
WIMP (Windows)
User Adoption (not productivity!)
Command Line
Educated
Batch
Professionals
Experts
?
1940s 1950s
1980s - Present
1960s 1970s
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Eniac (1943) - Gen 0

• A general view of the ENIAC, the world's first
  all electronic numerical integrator and computer.

From IBM Archives.
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Mark I (1944)

• The Mark I paper tape readers.

From Harvard University Cruft Photo Laboratory.
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Stretch (1961)

• A close-up of the Stretch technical control
  panel.

From IBM Archives.
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Debugging

• Grace Hopper 1945

(Photo courtesy of the United States Naval
Historical Center)
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Batch Processing Gen 1

• Computer performed one task at a time
• No interaction once computation started
• Switches, wires, punch cards and tapes for I/O
• Very limited, highly trained group of operators

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Command Line (Mid 1960s) Gen 2

• Computers hit big business
• More varied tasks text processing, editing,
  email etc
• Need for interactivity
• Used by secretaries, salesmen, accountants, CS
  students etc
• Reduced training

Need for HCI
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The Ubiquitous Glass Teletype

• 24 x 80 characters
• Up to 19,200 bps (Wow - was big stuff!)

Source http//www.columbia.edu/acis/history/vt100
.html
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Generation 4 A computer in every home

• Pushing beyond Computing in Business
• Need to do more with less
• Need to rethink usability
• Little or no training for users
• More diverse populations
• More diverse uses

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WIMP / GUI

• Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers
• Graphical User Interface
• WIMP interface emulates existing work practices
• Direct manipulation
• Desktop metaphor
• Why was this such an innovation?
• What were the innovations making this possible?

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Ivan Sutherland

• SketchPad - 1963 PhD thesis at MIT
• Hierarchy - pictures subpictures
• Master picture with instances (ie, OOP)
• Constraints
• Icons
• Copying
• Light pen input device
• Recursive operations

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Douglas Engelbart

• The Problem (early 50s)
• ...The world is getting more complex, and
  problems are getting more urgent. These must be
  dealt with collectively. However, human abilities
  to deal collectively with complex / urgent
  problems are not increasing as fast as these
  problems.
• If you could do something to improve human
  capability to deal with these problems, then
  you'd really contribute something basic.
• ...Doug Engelbart

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The First Mouse (1964)
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Xerox Star - 1981

• First commercial PC designed for business
  professionals
• desktop metaphor, pointing, WYSIWYG, high degree
  of consistency and simplicity
• First system engineered for usability
• Paper prototyping and analysis
• Usability testing and iterative refinement

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Xerox Star Desktop
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Lessons form Xerox Star?

• Usability matters, usability sells
• Star flopped, but Mac succeeded
• Cost 15,000
• Lacked spreadsheet, standard business software
• Usability can be engineered
• Birth of HCI as a design discipline

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Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
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Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
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Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
1987
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
Mac OS 5.0
Windows 2.0
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Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
1987
1992
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
Mac OS 5.0
Windows 3.0
Mac OS 7
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Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
1987
1992
1998
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
Mac OS 5.0
Windows 3.0
Mac OS 7
37
Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
1987
1992
1998
2007
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
Mac OS 5.0
Windows 3.0
Mac OS 7
38
Evolution from Xerox Star?
1981
1985
1987
1992
1998
2007
Windows 1.0
Mac OS 1.0
Mac OS 5.0
Windows 3.0
Mac OS 7
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Where do we go next?
?
WIMP (Windows)
User Productivity
Command Line
Batch
?
1980s - Present
1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s
Time
40
Examples of new paradigms

• Mobile computing
• Wearable computing
• Tangible computing
• Ubiquitous computing
• and many more.