College of Information &

Communication Technology
 Understand the concept of interactive
system and human-centered design
 Learn the types of interactive system
 Know the next generation of
interactive system
 Understand the user-centered design
 Know the difference between human-
centered design and user-centered
design
 Any system that accepts input from the
user and provides information as output
to the user.
 Interactive systems are computer systems
characterized by significant amounts of
interaction between humans and the
computer
➢ Example of interactive system:
 • Operation System (MacOS, Windows)
 • Editors (CAD/CAM)
 • Computer Games
 • Web browsers
 • Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
 a. Command line system - The earliest interactive
systems, which tightly controlled the interaction
between the human and the computer. The user
was required to know the commands that might be
issued and how the arguments were to be ordered.
Example: UNIX operating system and DOS (Disk
Operating System).
 b. Menu-, form-, and dialog-based systems - An
Automatic Teller Machine is a good example of a
form-based program where users are given a tightly
controlled set of possible actions. Data entry systems
are frequently form-or dialog-oriented systems
offering the user a limited set of choices but greatly
relieving the memory demands of the earlier
command line systems.
 c. graphical user interfaces - introduced by Xerox Corporation
in 1980. The Xerox Star was the result of a half dozen years of
research and development during which the mouse, icons,
the desktop metaphor, windows, and bit-mapped displays
were all brought together and made to function. The Xerox
Star was replicated in the Lisa and Macintosh first offered by
Apple Computer Inc. in the mid-1980s. The windows, icon,
menu, and pointer (or WIMP) approach was made universal
by Microsoft in the Windows family of operating systems
introduced in the 1990s. With the maturation of WIMP
interfaces, also known as graphical user interfaces,
interaction moved from command-based to direct
manipulation.
 d. Virtualization, visualization and agent - These systems are
typically designed to greatly enhance the way in which a
user interacts with a user interface (UI) and make the
experience of using a computer or other system more
organic. The basic idea behind many of these systems is to
remove the barrier of an input device and allow full
interaction between a user and a system.
 Example: the help feature in Microsoft's
Office software is an example of an
active agent that observes user activity
and offers help based on actions that
suggest it may be needed, from
formatting documents to correcting
common spelling and grammatical
errors.
 Also known as human-centered design, it
is a philosophy that empowers an
individual or team to designing products,
services, systems, and experiences that
address the core needs of those who
experience a problem.
 Human-centered design (HCD) is a term
product creators use to describe a
process of designing for people. HCD
develops solutions to problems by
involving the human perspective in all
steps of the problem-solving process.
 What distinguishes human-centered
design from other problem solving
approaches is its obsessive focus on
understanding the perspective of the
person who experiences a problem, their
needs, and whether the solution that has
been designed for them is truly meeting
their needs effectively or not. At its most
effective, the very people who
experience a problem the most are a
constant part of the design process and
when possible, become part of the
design team itself.
 1. Focus upon the people

 Always think of the people who’ll use the product.

 Those people are not abstract ‘users’ those are real human
beings who will interact with your product. Keep in mind that the
product is just a tool that helps them reach their goal.
 It’s vital to identify the real goal of real people who will use your
product.
 Note: The process of identification starts with a question: who am
I building this for? Unless you’re building a product for yourself,
you have to start by thinking about your audience:
 Who will be using this product?
 In what context (time, place, device, etc.) will it most likely happen?
 After you define your target users you’ll need to figure out critical user
journeys. A tool called the job to be done (JTBD) framework.
When _____ , I want to _____ , so I can _____ .
Situation Motivation Expected outcome
The framework provides an excellent way to identify critical user journeys
and map them to possible solutions.
 2. Find the right problem

 Not all problems worth solving. Don Norman identifies two

types of problems fundamental problems and symptoms
of the problem. He argues that it’s essential to solve a
fundamental problem first because by doing that you’ll
solve a root cause of other problems.
 Conducting research and identifying fundamental
problem requires time and product teams often argue
that they don’t have enough time. But no matter how
much time it takes, the process of identification of core
problems should be an inalienable part of the design
process.
 When designers skip this part it could lead to a situation
when designers try to solve the wrong problems.
 3. Think of everything as a system

 Don’t focus solely only on one part of a user journey (local

experience) while forgetting about other parts of a
journey. Improving the local experience doesn’t mean
that you’ll have a good overall user experience. Always
think about the big picture — what you want to achieve
with your experience, what is the final result you care
about.
 Example: Imagine an e-commerce app that has a really
smooth user flow for product purchase but as soon as
customers reach customer support service (i.e. try to
return an item they purchased recently), they face slow
response rates. No matter how good a product purchase
experience is, the overall user experience won’t be really
good.
 Note: Users should have good user experience at all
touchpoints, both digital and physical.
 4.Always test your design decisions
 Regardless how much time you spend on
ideating and prototyping your design
solution, you should always test it with real
people.
 The feedback from the testing session will
help you understand what part of your
design requires improvements.
 Note: Always remember that You are not the
user! Testing your design/prototype/solution
with yourself or with your family or team
members is not the same testing it with the
actual users.
 Note: Designers, developers, and UX
researchers often suffer from the false-
consensus effect-people have a tendency
to assume that others share their beliefs and
will behave similarly in a given context. In
other words, product creators assume that
people who will use a product they created
are like them.
 Studying with your actual target users will
provide valuable insights.
 User-centered design (UCD) is an iterative design
process that focuses on the users and their
needs in all phases of the design process.
 The designer/design teams involve the users in
the entire design process thru different research
and techniques, to develop correct, usable and
accessible solution for the users.
 UCD as Iterative Process
 UCD designers uses different methods and tools
(surveys and interviews) and collective insights
like brainstorming to fully understand the users
needs.
 1. Understand the context in which users may
use a system.
 2. Identify and specify the users’ requirements.
 3. Design phase, where the design team
develops solutions
 4. Lastly, the evaluation phase, where the design
team assess the results of the evaluation
compared with users’ context and
requirements. This phase will help the designer to
know if the design solved and worked with users;
requirements.
 Note: The team should make iterations with the
phases, and keeps evaluating results are match
with users’ requirements.
 The projects is based on the explicit
understanding of the users, tasks and
environments.
 The process’ goal is to know and solved the
entire user experience.
 To achieve users’ satisfaction, other
professionals and experts from other
disciplines (e.g., ethnographers,
psychologists, software and hardware
engineers), should take a role in the design
team.
 Expertsmay carry out evaluations of the
produced designs, using design guidelines
and criteria. However, you should bear two
crucial points in mind:
 – First, to span the entire user experience, you
must involve the users for evaluation.
 – Second, you'll need to ensure long-term
monitoring of use.
Multidisciplinary Design Teams for User-Centered
 ➢ User-centered design is very often used interchangeably
with human-centered design, but there is a difference in
that it is a subset of it. Simply put, all users are humans, but
not all humans will be your users. Thus, user-centered
design requires deeper analysis of users – your target
audience. It is not only about general characteristics of a
person; it is about particular habits and preferences of
target users to come up with right solutions for specific
problems.
 ➢ User-centered design takes into account age, gender,
social status, education and professional background,
influential factors, product usage expectations and
demands and many other important things that may vary
for different segments. What is critical for some may be
irrelevant for others. User-centered design is about deep
research on users’ habits, from their interactions with the
product to their vision of how the product should look like
and behave.
•Thank you