HCI as a kind of design

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HCI as a kind of design

• COMM/INFO 345
• http//www.infosci.cornell.edu/courses/info345/200
  7sp/

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Last time

• HCI is important
• People, activities, contexts, technologies
• HCI is design
• We will work hard, learn much, have fun
• Do human subjects training

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Today HCI is design

• Design is everywhere
• Universal problems, goals, principles
• What makes HCI different?
• From physical to virtual
• A first look at some useful design ideas

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Claim design is everywhere

• Electronics
• Tools
• Fashion
• Architecture
• Information
• Home products
• Software

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Domains have much in common

• Similarities in goals, process, attitude
• Similarities in desirable attributes
• Similarities in useful principles
• Similarities in mistakes
• Ergo use your personal experience!

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Design is about creation

• "Design is the human power to conceive, plan, and
  realize products that serve human beings in the
  accomplishment of any individual or collective
  purpose."
• Necessity is the mother of invention
• Design transforms the world changes
• Ask the buggy whip makers if they like it

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Design is usually evolutionary

• Lots of reasons lets enumerate
• Getting things right the first time is hard
• We can speed up evolution
• Considering multiple alternatives
• Using iterative design processes
• Remember all design is a sausage factory

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Weird example lecture design!

• Who are the users?
• What are the actions/uses?
• What is the context?
• What are the technologies?

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Affordances and constraints

• Signs are warnings of design weakness!

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No sign needed
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Design is constrained

• What can people do? (Accessibility)
• What can the technology do?
• Resources available to design team
• Current knowledge? Culture? Fashion?
• Ignore constraints at your peril

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Mappings and tradeoffs
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Design is about tradeoffs

• Balancing constraints
• Balancing needs of users
• Its not obvious who are the users
• Who uses a bank branch?
• Normans Seattle vs. Los Angeles
• Tradeoffs are likely to be done better when
  consciously made

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Design involves evaluation

• Commodity, Firmness, Delight
• Vitruvius on virtuous architecture
• Buildings should serve their purpose well
• Buildings should be strong, have integrity
• Buildings should bring delight to users

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The criteria are semi-universal

• COMM/INFO345 on virtuous lotsofstuff
• Lotsofstuff should serve its purpose well
• Lotsofstuff should be strong, have integrity
• Lotsofstuff should bring delight to users
• With your neighbors
• Choose 1 or more examples of lotsofstuff
• How hard are the principles to translate?

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Translating to HCI?

• DIS Usable learnable, effective, accommodating
• Neilsen Usability learnability, efficiency,
  memorability, errors, satisfaction
• Some bias here.
• Wheres the context?
• Game design, anyone?
• http//intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/

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Building useful things

• Norman chapter 1
• Affordances, Mapping, Visibility
• Feedback, Conceptual models
• DIS lists 12, some overlap with Norman
• A lot of people talk about this online
• Seek them out

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7 stages of action a framework
Goals
Evaluation of the interpretations
Intention to act
Interpreting the perception
Sequence of actions
Execution of the action sequence
Perceiving the state of the world
The World
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Gulfs of Execution Evaluation
Goals
Evaluation of the interpretations
Intention to act
GULF OF EXECUTION
Interpreting the perception
GULF OF EVALUATION
Sequence of actions
Execution of the action sequence
Perceiving the state of the world
The World
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The Gulf of Execution

• Does the system provide actions that correspond
  to the users intentions?
• The difference between intentions and allowable
  actions is the Gulf of Execution

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The Gulf of Evaluation

• Does the system provide a representation that can
  be readily perceived and interpreted in terms of
  the users intentions and expectations?
• The Gulf of Evaluation reflects the amount of
  effort that the person must exert to interpret
  the system state and determine how well the
  intentions have been met.

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The Seven Stages as Design Aids
Ask yourself how easily can the user
Determine the function of the system?
Tell if the system is in the desired state?
Tell what actions are possible?
Determine a mapping from system state to
interpretation
Determine a mapping from intention to physical
action?
Perform the action?
Tell what state the system is in?
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From physical to virtual

• We are physical, embodied creatures
• The move to the virtual requires careful thinking
  about good design principles

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Affordances in HCI

• Largely physical constraints
• How to leverage the idea in virtual contexts?
• A small example greyed out boxes
• A more radical idea tangible computing
• Ishii
• Wii

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Mappings and HCI

• Start with the numbers 1, 2, 3, ..., 9
• Alternate turns, take one number at a time
• A player wins with any 3 numbers that sum to 15
• e.g., 1, 3, 9, 5 wins because 195 equals 15
• If numbers are all used with no winner, the game
  is a draw

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OK, now try it another way
3
4
8
1
5
9
2
6
7
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Mappings in HCI

• Good mappings give value
• Indirect action requires good mappings
• So does working with information
• How do we do mappings in HCI?
• Labels
• Metaphors (e.g., spreadsheets and desktops)

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Feedback in HCI

• People who feel no pain
• Designs that fail to provide feedback
• Did I save?
• Markup vs. WYSIWYG
• How to provide feedback?
• Visibility! (Again, with Clippy)

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Design mistakes also universal

• Norman, chapter 6
• Some categories
• Problems underspecified
• Not considering tradeoffs
• Making bad tradeoffs
• Design is just plain hard

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Interface hall of f(sh)ame

• Our goal become attuned
• Find examples of good and bad design
• Artifacts are fine remember, design has many
  universal aspects
• Software and websites perhaps better
• Explain why, in terms of some set of desirable
  attributes or principles
• Suggest how to fix it.

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Visibility and the alarm clock
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What if its dark or Im ½ blind?
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Suggestion improve visibility
PM
ALARMOFF
And lets not get started on time setting
controls see Normans brutal critique of the
digital watch
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Now, you do it

• Find an example
• Critique it
• Suggest improvements
• Use a little more text than I did, because people
  will view these online
• Very soon, we will post and share these online,
  perhaps in class as well

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Main ideas from today

• Design is everywhere
• Problems, goals, methods semi-universal
• The lack of physicality of HCI is virtue, vice
• Become attuned, use your own experience
• Collect a series of interesting design cases
  this is an assignment
• Next Geri Gay guest lecture, project prep

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(Most of the) Credits

• http//www.fashion-era.com/Trends_2006/2_fashion_t
  rends_2006_colours_fall.htm
• http//www.fs.cornell.edu/fs/facinfo/fs_facilInfo.
  cfm?facil_cd2087
• http//www.reallivepreacher.com/taxonomy/term/6
• http//www.crankyprofessor.com/archives/000844.htm
  l
• http//headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_us
  ers/2007/01/what_comes_afte.html
• http//www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html
• http//www.baddesigns.com/ranges.html
• http//loki.lokislabs.org/weblog/archives/2003/11/
  18/competing_definitions_of_design.php
• http//www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog
• http//www-users.itlabs.umn.edu/classes/Fall-2006/
  csci5115/