Human Computer

Interaction
Designing Systems that work for
People

1 Lecture 7- 2008/9
design rules

Designing for maximum usability

– the goal of interaction design

! Principles of usability
" general understanding

! Standards and guidelines

" direction for design

2 Lecture 7- 2008/9
types of design rules
! principles
" abstract design rules
" low authority
" high generality

generality
Guidelines

generality
! standards
" specific design rules

increasing
" high authority

increasing
" limited application Standards
! guidelines
" lower authority
" more general application increasing authority
increasing authority

3 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles to support
usability
Learnability
the ease with which new users can begin effective
interaction and achieve maximal performance

Flexibility
the multiplicity of ways the user and system exchange
information

Robustness
the level of support provided the user in determining
successful achievement and assessment of goal-directed
behaviour

4 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of learnability (1)

Predictability
! determining effect of future actions
based on past interaction history
! operation visibility

Synthesizability
! assessingthe effect of past actions
! immediate vs. eventual honesty

5 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of learnability (2)
Familiarity
! how prior knowledge applies to new system
! guessability; affordance

Generalizability
! extending specific interaction knowledge to
new situations

Consistency
! likeness in input/output behaviour arising from
similar situations or task objectives

6 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of flexibility (1)
Dialogue initiative
! freedom from system imposed constraints on input
dialogue
! system vs. user pre-emptiveness

Multithreading
! ability of system to support user interaction for more
than one task at a time
! concurrent vs. interleaving; multimodality

Task migratability
! passing responsibility for task execution between user
and system

7 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of flexibility (2)

Substitutivity
! allowing equivalent values of input and output
to be substituted for each other
! representation multiplicity; equal opportunity

Customizability
! modifiability of the user interface by user
(adaptability) or system (adaptivity)

8 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of robustness (1)
Observability
! ability of user to evaluate the internal state of
the system from its perceivable representation
! browsability; defaults; reachability;
persistence; operation visibility

Recoverability
! ability of user to take corrective action once
an error has been recognized
! reachability; forward/backward recovery;
commensurate effort

9 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Principles of robustness (2)

Responsiveness
! how the user perceives the rate of
communication with the system
! Stability

Task conformance
! degree to which system services support all of
the user's tasks
! task completeness; task adequacy

10 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Standards
! set by national or international bodies to ensure
compliance by a large community of designers
standards require sound underlying theory and slowly
changing technology

! hardware standards more common than software high

authority and low level of detail

! ISO 9241 defines usability as effectiveness, efficiency

and satisfaction with which users accomplish tasks

11 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Guidelines

! more suggestive and general

! many textbooks and reports full of
guidelines
! abstract guidelines (principles) applicable
during early life cycle activities
! detailed guidelines (style guides) applicable
during later life cycle activities
! understanding justification for guidelines
aids in resolving conflicts

12 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Golden rules and heuristics

! “Broad brush” design rules

! Useful check list for good design
! Better design using these than using
nothing!
! Different collections e.g.
" Nielsen’s
10 Heuristics
" Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
" Norman’s 7 Principles

13 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Shneiderman’s 8 Golden
Rules
1. Strive for consistency
2. Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
3. Offer informative feedback
4. Design dialogs to yield closure
5. Offer error prevention and simple error
handling
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
7. Support internal locus of control
8. Reduce short-term memory load

14 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Norman’s 7 Principles
1. Use both knowledge in the world and
knowledge in the head.
2. Simplify the structure of tasks.
3. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of
Execution and Evaluation.
4. Get the mappings right.
5. Exploit the power of constraints, both
natural and artificial.
6. Design for error.
7. When all else fails, standardize.

15 Lecture 7- 2008/9
Nielsen's Heuristics

1. Visibility of system 6. Recognition rather

status than recall
2. Match between 7. Flexibility &
system & real world efficiency of use
3. User control and 8. Minimalist design
freedom 9. Help error recovery
4. Consistency & 10. Help &
standards documentation
5. Error prevention

10 Lecture 2- 2008/9
1. Visibility of system
status

searching database for matches

11 Lecture 2- 2008/9
What is “reasonable time”?

! 0.1 sec: Feels immediate to the user.

No additional feedback needed.
! 1.0 sec: Tolerable, but doesn’t feel
immediate. Some feedback needed.
! 10 sec: Maximum duration for keeping
user’s focus on the action.
! For longer delays, use % done
progress bars.
12 Lecture 2- 2008/9
2. Match between the
system and the real world

Socrates: Please select command mode

Student: Please find an author named
Octavia Butler.
Socrates: Invalid Folio command: please

13 Lecture 2- 2008/9
3. User control and
freedom

! Provide exits for mistaken choices

! Enable undo, redo
! Don’t force users to take a particular
path

14 Lecture 2- 2008/9
10. Help and
documentation

21 Lecture 2- 2008/9
We should wonder…..

! If this is a sensible heuristic set

" Coverage
" Uniqueness
" Ease of use

22 Lecture 2- 2008/9
4. Consistency and
standards

15 Lecture 2- 2008/9
5. Error prevention

People make errors.

Yet we can try to prevent them.
How might you go about trying
preventing errors?

16 Lecture 2- 2008/9
6. Recognition rather
than recall

Ex: Can’t copy info from one window to

another
Violates: Minimize the users’ memory
load

17 Lecture 2- 2008/9
7. Flexibility and efficiency
of use

! Provide short cuts

! Enable macros

18 Lecture 2- 2008/9
8. Aesthetic and
minimalist design

19 Lecture 2- 2008/9
9. Help users recognize,
diagnose, and recover from
errors
SEGMENTATION VIOLATION! Error
#13

ATTEMPT TO WRITE INTO

READ-ONLY MEMORY!

Error #4: NOT A TYPEWRITER

20 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Phases of a heuristic
evaluation
1. Pre-evaluation training - give
evaluators needed domain knowledge
and information on the scenario
2. Evaluate interface independently
3. Rate each problem for severity
4. Aggregate results
5. Debrief: Report the results to the
interface designers

23 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Severity ratings

Each evaluator rates individually:

0 - don’t agree that this is a usability problem
1 - cosmetic problem
2 - minor usability problem
3 - major usability problem; important to fix
4 - usability catastrophe; imperative to fix
Consider both impact and frequency.

24 Lecture 2- 2008/9
25 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Styles of Heuristic
evaluation
! Problems found by a single inspector
! Problems found by multiple inspectors

! Individuals vs. teams

! Goal or task?

! Structured or free exploration?

26 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Problems found by a single
inspector
! Average over six case studies
" 35% of all usability problems;
" 42% of the major problems
" 32% of the minor problems
! Not great, but
" finding some problems with one evaluator is
much better than finding no problems with
no evaluators!

27 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Problems found by a single
inspector
! Varies according to
" difficulty of the interface being evaluated
" the expertise of the inspectors

! Average problems found by:

" novice evaluators - no usability expertise - 22%
" regular specialists - expertise in usability - 41%
" double specialists - experience in both usability and
the particular kind of interface being evaluated - 60%
• also find domain-related problems

! Tradeoff
" novices poorer, but cheaper!

28 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Problems found by a single
inspector
! Evaluators
miss both easy
and hard
problems
" ‘best’
evaluators
can miss
easy
problems
" ‘worse’
evaluators
can
discover
hard
problems

29 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Problems found by multiple
evaluators
! 3-5 evaluators find 66-75% of usability problems
" different people find different usability problems
" only modest overlap between the sets of
problems found

30 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Problems found by multiple
evaluators
! Where is the best cost/benefit?

31 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Individuals vs. teams

! Nielsen
" recommends individual evaluators inspect
the interface alone

! Why?
" evaluation is not influenced by others
" independent and unbiased
" greater variability in the kinds of errors found
" no overhead required to organize group
meetings

32 Lecture 2- 2008/9
Self Guided vs. Scenario
Exploration
! Self-guided
" open-ended exploration
" Not necessarily task-directed
" good for exploring diverse aspects of the interface, and to
follow potential pitfalls

! Scenarios
" step through the interface using representative end user
tasks
" ensures problems identified in relevant portions of the
interface
" ensures that specific features of interest are evaluated
" but limits the scope of the evaluation - problems can be
missed

33 Lecture 2- 2008/9
How useful are they?
! Inspection methods are discount methods for
practitioners. They are not rigorous scientific methods.
" All inspection methods are subjective.
" No inspection method can compensate for
inexperience or poor judgement.
" Using multiple analysts results in an inter-subjective
synthesis.
• However, this also
a) raises the false alarm rate, unless a voting system is
applied
b) reduces the hit rate if a voting system is applied!
" Group synthesis of a prioritized problem list seems to
be the most effective current practical approach.

34 Lecture 2- 2008/9