The Golden Age of Usability Ben Shneiderman bencs.umd.edu Director, HumanComputer Interaction Labora

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The Golden Age of UsabilityBen Shneiderman
(ben_at_cs.umd.edu)Director, Human-Computer
Interaction Laboratory Professor, Department of
Computer ScienceMember, Institutes for Advanced
Computer Studies Systems ResearchUniversity
of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
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From Logic to Passion
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From Academic to Political
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Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
Interdisciplinary research community -
Computer Science - Psychology - Library
and Information Services
(http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil)
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User Interface Design Goals

• Cognitively comprehensible Consistent,
  predictable controllable
• Affectively acceptable Mastery,
  satisfaction responsibility
• NOT Confusion, frustration
  remorse

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Design Issues

• Input devices strategies
• Keyboards, pointing devices, voice
• Direct manipulation, menus, forms, commands
• Output devices formats
• Screens, windows, color, sound
• Text, tables, graphics, instructions, messages,
  help
• Communication Collaboration
• Manuals, tutorials, training

(Designing the User Interface 3rd Edition)
www.aw.com/DTUI
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Scientific Approach (beyond user friendly)

• Specify users and tasks
• Predict and measure
• time to learn
• speed of performance
• rate of human errors
• human retention over time
• Assess subjective satisfaction
  (Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction)
• Accommodate individual differences
• Consider social, organizational cultural
  context

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Commercial Practice - Usability Engineering

• User-centered design processes
• User and Task Analysis - Hackos and Redish
• Contextual Design - Beyer and Holtzblatt
• Participatory Design - Muller
• LUCID Logical User Centered Interaction Design -
  Charlie
• Guidelines documents and processes
• Expert reviews and usability testing
• User interface building tools

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Logical User Centered Interaction Design

• Design Methodology
• Management strategy to highlight usability
  engineering
• Processes, Deliverables, and Reviews
• Stage 1 Develop Product Concept
• Stage 2 Research Needs Analysis
• Stage 3 Design Concepts Key Screen Prototype
• Stage 4 Iterative Design Refinement
• Stage 5 Implement Software
• Stage 6 Provide Roll-Out Support
• (Kreitzberg, Cognetics Corp, 1996,
  www.cognetics.com)

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Information Visualization

• The eye
• the window of the soul,
• is the principal means
• by which the central sense
• can most completely and
• abundantly appreciate
• the infinite works of nature.
• Leonardo da Vinci
• (1452 - 1519)

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Information Visualization Using Vision to Think

• Visual bandwidth is enormous
• Human perceptual skills are remarkable
• Trend, pattern, exception, gap, jump, outlier
• Color, size, shape, movement, proximity
• Human image storage is fast and vast
• Opportunities
• Spatial layouts window coordination
• Information visualization
• Scientific visualization and simulation
• Telepresence and augmented reality
• Virtual Environments

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Information Visualization Design Principles

• Direct manipulation strategies
• Visual presentation of query components
• Visual presentation of results
• Rapid, incremental and reversible actions
• Selection by pointing (not typing)
• Immediate and continuous feedback
• Reduces errors
• Encourages exploration

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Visual Information Seeking Mantra

• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand
• Overview, zoom filter, details-on-demand

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LifeLines Personal Graphical Histories

• Parallel lines color/size coded grouped in
  categories
• Relationships among lines is viewable
• Related documents are viewable on-demand
• Zooming or hierarchical browsing allows
  focuscontext
• Examples
• Youth histories medical records
• Personal resumes, student records performance
  reviews
• Challenges
• Aggregation alerts Overview detail
  views
• Easy import export
• www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/Research/1997/patientrecord.ht
  ml

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Its Time to Get Angry About the Quality of
User Interfaces
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The Problem

• Computing and information systems are too
  difficult to install, learn, and use.
• Poor designs, system failures, user confusion,
  errors, and network delays are a national
  problem.
• User frustration and failure are a threat to the
  economy, safety and health
• Privacy and security abuses impede electronic
  commerce and medical informatics

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Proposal White House Conference on Usability

• Fall 1998
• Include
• industry leaders
• government policy makers
• academic researchers
• Establish Goals
• Call for Action

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Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

• "The diffusion of information... I deem one of
  the essential principles of our government"
  --1st Inaugural Address, 1801.

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National Goals

• To ensure that all Americans have access to and
  can use online information, communication,
  entertainment, and services.
• To offer safe and reliable designs for
  life-critical applications in medical,
  transportation, disaster relief, and military
  systems.
• To facilitate the growth of electronic commerce
  and medical informatics by ensuring privacy and
  security.

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National Goals

• To support education, medicine, office
  automation, manufacturing, and other applications
  by ensuring comprehensibility through consistent,
  predictable, and controllable user interfaces.
• To raise the level of computer user mastery,
  satisfaction, and responsibility.

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Actions Government, Industry Academia

• Raise the importance of and expectations for
  usability and quality in system design.
• Encourage industry to voluntarily develop
  strategies to ensure, measure, and warrant
  usability and high quality.
• Develop non-governmental consumer agencies to
  evaluate and endorse products.

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Actions Government, Industry Academia

• Require professional certification for designers
  and system architects
• Prescribe Societal Impact Statements with open
  discussion in the early stages for new public
  infrastructure systems.
• Encourage state education authorities to set
  goals for technology integration in K-12
  curricula.

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Actions Government, Industry Academia

• Train teachers in computing skills and
  information technology use in education.
• Increase support for research and education in
  human-computer interaction.
• Give awards for best products and processes.

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Closing Philosophy

• How do we use the power of technology
• without adapting to it so completely
• that we ourselves behave like machines,
• lost in the levers and cogs,
• lonesome for the love of life,
• hungry for the thrill of directly
• experiencing the vivid intensity of the
• ever-changing moment.
• Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1992

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Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory
www.cs.umd.edu/hcil
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For More Information

• Visit the HCIL website for 140 papers info on
  videos http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil
• See Chapter 15 on Info Visualization
  Shneiderman, B., Designing the User Interface
  Strategies for Effective Human-Computer
  Interaction Third Edition (1998)
  http//www.aw.com/DTUI
• Look for our new book of readings Card, S.,
  Mackinlay, J., and Shneiderman, B.
  Information Visualization Using Vision to Think