Ch3: COGNITIVE ASPECTS

What is cognition? The activities of thinking, understanding, learning, and remembering(mental

activities)
Why do we need to • Interacting with technology
understand cognition? • To have good design we need to have Knowledge about:
- cognitive processes involved and users’ cognitive limitations
- what users can and cannot be expected to do
- nature and causes of problems users encounter
• in designing interfaces we need to apply conceptual frameworks and
cognitive theories
Cognitive processes Attention, Perception, Learning, Memory
“interdependent” Reading, speaking and listening
Problem-solving, planning, reasoning and decision-making
Attention Information Presentation at the interface should be structured to capture users’
attention (focus on information).
• To capture user attention:
perceptual boundaries (windows)-keep important info inside boundries
, colour, reverse video, sound and flashing lights
• Design implications (suggestions) for attention:
- simple and clean interfaces
- Avoid cluttering the interface with too much
- Make information very noticeable
- Use techniques that make things stand out like color, ordering,
spacing, underlining, sequencing and animation
Perception The ability to understand or notice something easily.
• Design implications (suggestions) for Perception:
- Icons: enable users to readily distinguish their meaning
- Bordering and spacing: for grouping information
- Sounds : audible and distinguishable
- Speech output : enable users to distinguish the set of spoken words
- Text: clear and distinguishable
Memory • Stages of memory: encoding, storage, retrieval
• Processing in memory, Multi-Store Model, three memory types:

• Design implications (suggestions) for Memory:

- Don’t overload users’ memories with complicated procedures for
carrying out tasks
- Design interfaces that promote recognition rather than recall
- Provide users with various ways of encoding information to help
them remember: categories, color, flagging
• Recognition versus recall:
- GUIs : browse options until recognize one
- Command-based interfaces require users to recall from memory
• Digital content management problem:
vast numbers of documents, images, music files, ..... File management
systems should be designed to optimize recall and recognition using:
Search box, history list, saving files using colour, flagging
 • Problem - Memorable or secure?
People have to remember many access info (passwords), recommend
that passwords are frequently changed (difficult to remember.)
• Solution:
nonsense password: Then what is remembered is the meaningful rule for
constructing the password
Sensory memory Information remains very briefly. Info overwritten. It get info all the time
Short-term - can be accessed rapidly but also decay rapidly
memory - Has limited capacity:
o measured by determining the length of a sequence which can be
remembered
o grouping information can increase the capacity
- 7±2: means that lists, menus and other groups of items should not be
designed to include more than 7 items long
o But menus and lists has little to do with short-term memory, they are
available in the environment and does not need to be remembered.
Long-term - more attention to something -> more it is processed -> more likely to be remembered
memory - has huge capacity and slower access time
Learning Learn by: doing, exploration, or constraint and guide
Reading, Speaking, • Large texts on screens
Listening • Short Speech-based menus and instructions
• Clear generated speech voices
Problem-solving, -Provide additional information/functions for users who wish to understand more about
planning, reasoning how to carry out an activity more effectively
and decision-making - Use simple computational aids to support rapid decision-making and planning
Example: Bubble plot map
Cognitive Frameworks A number of conceptual frameworks and theories have been developed to explain and
predict user behavior based on theories of cognition.( we will discuss only mental model)
Internal mental models, gulfs of execution and evaluation, and information processing
• Mental models: how people understand
o can be constructed from :
perception, imagination, or Comprehension of a conversation/
situation
o Constructs visual images
o represents a person’s thought for how that system works and how to
interact with a system
o previous Knowledge is sometimes described as a mental model (partial)
o Mental models are based on incomplete facts, past experiences, and
perceptions.
o They help shape actions and behavior
• Match the mental Model to the Conceptual Model:
If the product’s conceptual model doesn’t match the user’s mental model, then
the user will find the product hard to learn and use
External distributed cognition, external cognition, embodied interaction