CS422 - Human Computer

Interaction

Instructor: Mehwish Aziz

Spring: Fall 2010
Lecture 22-25
Design Rules

Chapter 7
 Design Rules
 Design Rules: mechanism to restrict the domain of
design options
 – preventing design options leading to
unusable systems


 Designing for maximum usability

– the goal of interaction design
•
• Principles of usability
– general understanding
•
• Standards and guidelines
– direction for design
•
 Types of Design Rules
• principles
– abstract design rules
– low authority
G u id e lin e s
– high generality

inc reas inggenerality

generality
• standards
– specific design rules

increasing
– high authority S ta n d a rd s
– limited application
• guidelines
increasing authority
– lower authority in c re a s in g a u t h o rit y

– more general application

 Using design rules
•
•
Design rules

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• suggest how to increase usability

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• differ in generality and authority

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 Principles to Support
Learnability

Usability
 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
 Principles of Learnability
Learnability concerns the feature of interactive


system that
– Allow novice users to understand how to
use it initially
– Then how to attain a maximal level of
performance
– Summary of mapped design principles are
as follows:


Predictability


– determining effect of future actions based

on past interaction history
– operation visibility
•
 Principles of Learnability
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
 Principle of Learnability -
• Predictability
• Predictability of interactive system means
that
 - user’s knowledge of interaction history
is
 sufficient to determine result of his
future interaction with it


• Predictability is a user-centered concept

 - it is deterministic behavior from the
perspective of the user

 Principle of Learnability -
• Predictability
For example, lets take a mathematical
puzzle like Sudoku;
 - It would present you with the
sequence of numbers which is certainly
deterministic
 - Now, you are tested on predictability
for judging what should be the missing
numbers to be filled with given sequence


• Predictability deals with user’s ability to

 - determine the effect of operations on
the system
 Principle of Learnability –
•
Synthesizability
Synthesis is the ability of the user to assess
the effect of the past operations on the
current state.
 - i.e. when an operation changes some
aspect of internal state, its important that
change is seen by user
 - relates to immediate/ eventual
honesty


• Principle of honesty relates to ability of user

interface to provide
 - observable and informative account of
 Principle of Learnability –
•
Synthesizability
Principle of honesty relates to ability of user
interface to provide
 - observable and informative account of
such change
 - In best circumstance, this notification
can come immediately, requiring no
further interaction initiated by the user.
 - At the very least, notification should
appear eventually, after explicit user
directive to make change observable.
•
 Principle of Learnability –
•
Synthesizability
• An example for distinction between
immediacy and eventuality can be defined
as a
- Comparison between command
language interface and visual
desktop interface like moving a
file from one directory to another
- Which of the interface will be
immediately honest and
eventually honest?
•
 Principle of Learnability –
•
Synthesizability
For example, versions earlier than v7 of
Apple Macintosh Finder
 - performing an operation to create a
new folder in another folder doesn’t
necessarily result in new folder icon’s being
visible in original folder
 - This caused users to be not too sure
for new folder creation – leading too many
untitled and empty folders
 - They wouldn’t know to search for
latest addition in open folder – feature

 Principle of Learnability –
• Synthesizability
To help in understanding benefit of immediate over
eventual honesty
 - Examine typical global search and replace
function in a word processor
 - for instance, you observed that there is
repetition of “the the” instead of only “the” – so
you applied a search and replace function when
proofreading
 - This function didn’t reveal the changes
made to you and caused a careless typing error
like:
“We will prove the theorem holds as a corollary of

the following lemma”

Is transformed to


 Principle of Learnability -
• Familiarity
New users of a system bring with them a
wealth of experience across a wide
number of application domains
 - this experience is obtained both
through interaction in real world and
through interaction with other computer
systems


• Familiarity for a new user

 - correlation between user’s existing
knowledge and knowledge required for
effective interaction
 - For example, metaphor such as
typewriter metaphor for word processor
and digital surface mapping on
 Principle of Learnability -
• Familiarity
Another related principle of Familiarity is
affordance i.e.
 - appearance of an object stimulating a
familiarity with its behavior
 - For instance, a web page showing a
hyperlink with a different color and
underline maps it as an external link from
the page
 - Thus, effective use of affordance that
exist for interface objects can enhance the
familiarity of interactive system
 - Can you suggest some specific
interface of any application using the
concept of affordance to improve
 Principle of Learnability -
Generalizability
• Users try to extend their knowledge of
specific interaction behavior to situations
that are similar but previously un-
encountered
– Generalizability supports this activity,
leading to a more complete predictive
model of the system
–
– Generalization can be applied to similar
situations or different situations with
similar goals
–
 Principle of Learnability -
Generalizability
• One example of generalizability across a
variety of applications is the attempt to
provide copy/cut/ paste operations in
same way
•
• An advantage of using standards and
guidelines is that
 - they increase the generalizability
across a wide variety of applications
within the same environment
 Principle of Learnability -
•
Consistency
Consistency relates to likeness in behavior
arising from similar situations or similar task
objectives
•
• Consistency is a very important principle when
talking about
 - UI design
 - Command Naming
 - Provides systems – principle of
§ Familiarity: With respect to past real-
world experience
§ Generalizability: With respect to
experience with same system or set of
 Principle of Learnability -
•
Consistency
Consistency can be expressed in terms of the
form of input expressions or output responses
 - with respect to the meaning of actions in
some conceptual model of system


 - For an input response, for directional

information such as moving within text or
deleting some unit of text,normally articulated
by up, down, left, right keys.


 - For output responses, an example could

be a warning system of aircraft. On same
control panel – a warning signal is color coded
 Principles of Flexibility
Flexibility


– Refers to multiplicity of ways in which

the end-user and system exchange
information
– Summary of various principles relating
flexibility are explained below


Dialogue initiative


– freedom from system imposed

constraints on input dialogue
– system vs. user pre-emptive



 Principles of Flexibility


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

i.e. either internalized by the user or
system or shared between them

 Principles of Flexibility


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)
 Principles of Flexibility – Dialogue
Initiative
Dialogue initiative


– When considering interaction between

user and system as a dialogue partners
– its important to consider which
partner has the initiative
– System pre-emptive like a modal
dialogue box
– User pre-emptive like user may be
entirely free to initiate any action
towards the system
– From user’s perspective, a system-driven
interaction hinders flexibility whereas a
user-driven interaction favours it
 Principles of Flexibility –
Multithreading
Multi-threading


– Multi-threading of the user-system

dialogue allows for interaction to
support more than one task at a time
– Concurrent multi-threading allows
simultaneous communication of
interaction between separate tasks
– Interleaved multi-threading permits a
temporal overlap between separate
tasks, but stipulates that at any given
instant dialogue is restricted to a single
task
– Multi-modality of a dialogue is related to
multi-threading. For instance, opening a
 Principles of Flexibility – Task
Migratability
Task Migratability


– Concerns the transfer of control for

execution of tasks between system and
user
– It should be possible for the user or
system to pass the control of a task
over the other or promote the task from
a completely internalized one to a
shared and cooperative venture
– For example, spell checking a document
is an example of the need for task
migratability.
– In safety-critical applications, task
migratability can decrease the
 Principles of Flexibility –
Substituitivity
Substituitivity


– Requires that equivalent values can be

substituted for each other
– For instance, $ is normally used for
payment in e-shops where any user
who doesn’t know conversion rate for
his/her own nationality may find
difficulty using it
– Substituitivity can minimize user error
and cognitive effort
– Substituitivity with respect to the output
or system’s rendering of state
information

 Principles of Flexibility –
Substituitivity
Substituitivity


– Representation multiplicity supporting

Substituitivity e.g. indicating
temperature of ice cream on the
terminal of cold area so that quality
assurance user can easily track it
– Equal opportunity blurs the distinction
between input and output at the
interface i.e.
– User has the choice of what’s input and
output, in addition output can be re-
used as input

 Principles of Flexibility –
Customizability
Customizability


– Modifiability of the user interface by the

user or system
–
– From the system side, we are not concerned
with the modifications that would be
attended to by a programmer actually
changing the system and its interface
during system maintenance.
–
– User-initiated modification i.e. adaptability –
to adjust form of input and output
–
– Customization could be very limited by
 Principles of Flexibility –
Customizability
Customizability


– System-initiated modification i.e.

adaptivity – automatic customization of
user interface by the system
– Decisions on adaptation can be based on
user expertise or observed repetition of
certain task sequences
– User plays an explicit role in adaptability
whereas his role is more implicit in an
adaptive interface
–
–
 Principles of Robustness
Robustness


– Features that support successful

achievement and assessment of the goals


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;
 Principles of Robustness
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
 Principles of Robustness -
Observability

Observability
– ability of user to evaluate the internal
state of the system from its perceivable
representation
– Evaluation allows the user to compare
current observed state with his
intention within task-action plan
• possibly leading to a plan revision
– Five other principle related to
Observability are browsability; defaults;
reachability; persistence; operation
visibility
– Operation visibility also relates to ?????
 Principles of Robustness -
Browsability

Observability
– Allows the user to explore the current
internal state of the system via limited
view provided at the interface

–
– Complexity of domain doesn’t allow
interface to show all relevant domain
concepts at once
• Reason of use of task
 Principles of Robustness -
Defaults

Observability
– Availability of defaults can assist user by
passive recall
• For instance, suggested response to
question is considered correct
instead of recalled

–
– Reduces number of physical actions
necessary to input value
 Principles of Robustness -
Reachability

Observability
– Possibility of navigation through
observable system state

–
– In an interactive system affects the
recoverability of the system
 Principles of Robustness -
Persistence

Observability
– Deals with the effect of a communication
act and ability of user to make use of
that effect

–
– Vocal communication effect receiver’s
memory
 Principles of Robustness -
Recoverability

Recoverability
– Ability to reach a desired goal after
recognition of some error in a previous
interaction

–
– Two directions of recovery – forward and
backward
 Principles of Robustness -
Recoverability

Recoverability
– Recoverability is connected to fault
tolerance, safety, reliability, and
dependability

–
– When recovery is initiated by user, it
determines the intent of the user’s
recovery actions