Midterm Review Session

1
Midterm Review Session

• November 2/3 2006

2
Norman Design of Everyday Things

• Key Terms
• Affordances
• Constraints
• Conceptual Models
• Mappings
• Visibility
• Feedback
• Consistency

3
ID 6.1 ID 6.3 Interaction Design

• Identifying Needs
• Prototyping (Developing alternative designs)
• Implementation (Building interactive versions of
  the design)
• Evaluating designs

4
IDEO

• Understand steps of iterative design Process
  (also covered in lecture)
• Needs -gt Design -gt Implement -gt Test
• HiFi / LoFi Prototype differences
• When to use particular methods (lecture, not
  really reading)

5
ID 7.4 Data Gathering

• Questionnaires
• Interviews
• Focus Groups and Workshops
• Naturalistic observation
• Studying documentation

6
ID 9.1 ID 9.3 User-Centered Approaches to
Interaction Design

• Know your users
• Iterate a lot
• Measure

7
ID 12.1 ID 12.5 Observing Users

• Observation types Quick and Dirty, Usability
  testing (video and logs), Field studies
• How to observe In controlled environments, In
  the field, Ethnography (this just means you are
  accepted by the group, as opposedto being an
  outsider)
• Data collection NotesCamera, AudioCamera,
  Video (and tradeoffs)
• Indirect observation Diaries, Interaction
  logging (in the program)

8
Hutchins

• What direct manipulation means (definition,
  properties)
• Virtues of direct manipulation according to
  Shneiderman
• Aspects of directness "distance" and
  "engagement
• Distance gulfs "Gulf of Evaluation" vs. "Gulf of
  Execution
• Forms of distance semantic and articulatory --
  what this distinction means and how the distance
  can be reduced
• Direct engagement" what it means and how it is
  produced
• Problems with direct manipulation, and
  reassessment of Shneiderman's claims

9
Cooper The Myth of Metaphor

• Understand Cooper's 3 paradigms of software
  interfaces.
• What do you get/lose by using a metaphor?
• What makes a good idiom?

10
Liddle "Design of the Conceptual Model"

• Understand the different between recognition and
  recall
• Be familiar with progressive disclosure
• Why did the Star system fail?
• Be familiar with the 3 phases of technology
  development (also covered in lecture)

11
Winograd The Alto and the Star

• Useful to know the main contributions of
  Alto/Star, such as
• direct manipulation
• WYSIWIG
• consistent commands

12
Doyle What Goes Wrong at Meetings"

• Practical tips for making your group meetings
  more effective
• common meeting problems
• advice for group member roles at meetings
• Interaction Method" for keeping meetings on
  track by splitting up roles

13
Norman BDS

• Design as practiced is different from design as
  taught
• In the actual situation, cultural, social, and
  organizational issues can dominate the
  user-oriented aspects of design.
• Understand the story of the Mac power switch and
  how it applies

14
Mullet Chapter 2

• Be familiar with the benefits of simplicity in
  visual design
• Be familiar with common visual design pitfalls
• Understand what it means to reduce, regularize
  and combine visual elements.

15
Mullet Chapter 4

• What does a good visual structure provide?
• Be familiar with the relevant/described gestalt
  principles of grouping
• Understand what a visual hierarchy is and the
  utility of balance, symmetry and negative space
  in creating it
• Be aware of common visual design problems errors
  in software interfaces

16
Waern

• Understand the overall Cognition system
• Yerkes-Dodson Law Performance vs Arousal
• Selective Attention Concept of needing to
  choose what to pay attention to
• Understand relationship between Effort and
  Attention
• Implications of above for HCI
• Quantitative aspects of vision/audition
• Understand the
• similarity law
• proximity law
• continuity law
• law of closure
• gestalt shifts
• impossible objects
• and how those principles apply to HCI design
• Understand Motor characteristics, especially
  Fitts law
• Understand how short term memory works (from
  lecture, but similar topic)

17
Van Duyne

• Stages of the iterative design process
• Design principles
• Types of rapid prototyping
• Stages of prototyping paper prototypes, medium
  and hi-fi prototypes
• Evaluation techniques think-aloud protocol,
  heuristic evaluation, expert reviews, formal
  usability studies understand what each technique
  is and to which situations it best applies

18
Rettig

• Problems with Hifi prototyping and advantages of
  doing Lofi first
• Tips for creating a paper prototype (useful for
  group project assignment)
• How to run user tests with a paper prototype
  (also useful)

19
Nielsen History

• Generations of user interfaces batch processing,
  command line, full screen, graphical, etc.
• Understand the hardware technology, operating
  mode, and UI paradigm of each
• Impact and contributions of various historical
  systems (e.g. Sketchpad, Augment, Alto/Star)
• Advantages of the GUI and direct manipulation
• History of interaction styles and evolutionary
  trends

20
Krug "How We Really Use the Web"

• People don't generally use your website the way
  you design it because
• They scan instead of reading details
• They satisfice" instead of making optimal
  choices
• They "muddle through" instead of figuring out how
  things really work

21
Hinckley"Input Technologies and Techniques"

• Be familiar with the various properties of input
  devices
• Why has the mouse stayed around so long? Why are
  keyboards hard to replace?
• Be familiar with Buxton's 3 state model for
  devices
• Understand Fitt's law and its implications

22
Dourish "Getting in Touch"

• Ever-lower cost of computation opens new uses
• Ubiquitous computing Use / Importance of
  context in software
• Virtual vs Physical interaction -- Tangible
  interfaces
• Virtual vs Augmented reality
• Ambient Interfaces