1) Define HCI, why HCI is important?

2) Briefly discuss the five principles of learnability along with

appropriate examples.
3) Briefly elaborate Attitudes, use, performance and satisfaction
relationship with a model only.
4) Briefly elaborate any three Problems with Direct Manipulation.
5) What is Heuristic evaluation? Discuss method for conducting
Heuristic Evaluation.

Chapter 1:
Introduction to HCI
Definition of HCI:
Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design,
evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human
use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.
Why HCI is Important
► The study of our interface with information.
► It is not just ‘how big should I make buttons’ or ‘how to layout menu
choices’
► It can affect
 Effectiveness
 Productivity
 Morale
 Safety
► Example: a car with poor HCI
► Take 5 minutes for everyone to write down one common device with
substantial HCI design choices and discuss with the neighbor the pros
and cons. How does it affect you or other users?
My Choice
► iPod by Apple Computers
► Pros:
 portable
 power
 ease of use
 # of controls
► Cons:
 scratches easily
 no speech for car use
 proprietary
What fields does HCI cover?
► Computer Science (For application design and engineering.)
► Psychology (cognitive) (For application of theories and analytical
purpose.)
► Communication
 ► Education
► Anthropology (the study of human societies and cultures and their
development.)
► Design (e.g. graphic and industrial)
HCI Community
► Academics/Industry Research
 Taxonomies
 Theories
 Predictive models
► Experimenters
 Empirical data
 Product design
► Other areas (Sociologists, anthropologists, managers)
 Motor
 Perceptual
 Cognitive
 Social, economic, ethics
HCI Tools
► Sound
► 3D
► Animation
► Video
► Devices
 Size (small->very large)
 Portable (PDA, phone)
 Plasticity
► Context sensitive/aware
► Personalizable
► Ubiquitous

Usability Requirements
► Goals:
 Usability
 Universality
 Usefulness
► Achieved by:
 Planning
 Sensitivity to user needs
 Devotion to requirements analysis
 Testing
Bad Interfaces
 Encumbering (restrict or impede (someone or something) in such a
way that free action or movement is difficult.)
► Confusing
 ► Slow
► Trust (ex. windows crashing)
► What makes it hard?
 Varies by culture
 Multiple platforms
 Variety of users
Requirements Analysis
1. Ascertain users’ needs
2. Ensure proper reliability
3. Promote appropriate standardization, integration, consistency, and
portability
4. Complete projects on schedule and within budget
Ascertain User’s Needs
► Define tasks
 Tasks
 Subtasks
► Frequency
 Frequent
 Occasional
 Exceptional
 Repair
► Ex. difference between a space satellite, car engine, and fighter jet
Reliability
► Actions function as specified
► Data displayed must be correct
► Updates done correctly
► Leads to trust! (software, hardware, information) – case: Pentium
floating point bug
► Privacy, security, access, data destruction, tampering
Standardization, Integration, Consistency, Portability
► Standardization – common user-interface features across multiple
applications
 Apple
 Web
 Windows
► Integration – across application packages
 file formats
► Consistency – common action sequences, terms, units, layouts, color,
typography within an application
► Portability – convert data and interfaces across multiple hardware and
software environments
 Word/HTML/PDF/ASCII
Usability Motivations
► Life-Critical systems
  Applications: air traffic, nuclear reactors, military, emergency
dispatch
 Requirements: reliability and effective (even under stress)
 Not as important: cost, long training, satisfaction, retention
► Industrial and Commercial Use
 Applications: banking, insurance, inventory, reservations
 Requirements: short training, ease of use/learning, multiple
languages, adapt to local cultures, multiplatform, speed
► Office, Home, and Entertainment
 Applications: E-mail, ATMs, games, education, search engines,
cell phones/PDA
 Requirements: Ease of learning/use/retention, error rates,
satisfaction
 Difficulties: cost, size
► Exploratory, Creative, Collaborative
 Applications: Web browsing, search engines, simulations,
scientific visualization, CAD, computer graphics, music
composition/artist, photo arranger (email photos)
 Requirements: remove the ‘computer’ from the experience,
 Difficulties: user tech savvy-ness (apply this to application
examples)
► Socio-technical systems
 Applications: health care, voting, police
 Requirements: Trust, security, accuracy, veracity, error
handling, user tech-savy-ness
Universal Usability
► Interface should handle diversity of users
 Backgrounds
 Abilities
 Motivation
 Personalities
 Cultures
► Question, how would you design an interface to a database differently
for:
 A. right-handed female, Indian, software engineer, technology
savvy, wants rapid interaction
 B. left-handed male, French, artist
► Does not mean ‘dumbing down’
 Ex. Helping disabled has helped others (parents w/ strollers,
elderly)
 Ex. Door handles
► Goal: Address the needs of more users - unlike yourself!
► Everyone is often not at full faculties at all times
Physical Variation
► Ability
 Disabled (elderly, handicapped, vision, ambidexterity, ability to
see in stereo [SUTHERLAND])
 Speed
 Color deficiency
► Workspace (science of ergonomics)
 Size
 Design
► Lots of prior research
► Field of anthropometry
 Measures of what is 5-95% for weight, height, etc. (static and
dynamic)
 Large variance reminds us there is great ‘variety’
 Name some devices that this would affect.
► note most keyboards are the same
► screen brightness varies considerably
► chair height, back height, display angle
► Multi-modal interfaces
► Audio
► Touch screens
Cognitive and Perceptual Variation
► Bloom’s Taxonomy
 knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application, synthesis,
evaluation
► Memory
 short-term and working
 long-term and semantic
► Problem solving and reasoning
► Decision making
► Language and communication
► Language and communication
► Search, imagery, sensory memory
► Learning, skill development, knowledge acquisition
► Confounding factors:
 Fatigue
 Cognitive load
 Background
 Boredom
 Fear
 Drugs/alcohol

Personality
► Computer anxiety
 ► Gender
 Which games do women like?
 Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Tetris
 Why? (Hypotheses: less violent, quieter soundtracks, fully visible
playing fields, softer colors, personality, closure/completeness)
 Can we measure this?
► What current games are for women?
► Style, pace, top-down/bottom-up, visual/audio learners, dense vs.
sparse data
► No simple taxonomy of user personality types. Ex. Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator
 Extrovert vs. introvert
 Sensing vs. intuition
 Perceptive vs. judging
 Feeling vs. thinking
► Weak link between personality types and interfaces
► Think about your application, and see if user personality is important!
 Fighter jets vs. search engines
Cultural and International Variety
► Language
► Date / Time conventions
► Weights and Measures
► Left-to-right
► Directions (!)
► Telephone #s and addresses
► Names, titles, salutations
► SSN, ID, passport
► Sorting
► Icons, buttons, colors
► Etiquette
► Evaluation:
 Local experts/usability studies
Users with Disabilities
► Federal law to ensure access to IT, including computers and web sites.
(1998 Amendment to Rehabilitation Act)
► Disabilities
 Vision
► Blind (bill-reader)
► low-vision
► color-blind
 Hearing
► Deaf
► Limited hearing
 Mobility
  Learning
► Dyslexia
► Attention deficient, hemisphere specific, etc.
► Keyboard and mouse alternatives
► Color coding
► Font-size
► Contrast
► Text descriptors for web images
► Screen magnification
► Text to Speech (TTS) – JAWS (web pages)
 Check email on the road, in bright sunshine, riding a bike
► Speech Recognition
► Head mounted optical mice
► Eye Gaze control
► Learning what helps those with disabilities affects everyone
 Present procedures, directions, and instructions accessible to
even poor readers
 Design feedback sequences that explain the reason for error and
help put users on the right track
 Reinforcement techniques with other devices
► Good target area for a final project!
Elderly
► Reduced
 Motor skills
 Perception
 Vision, hearing, touch, mobility
 Speed
 Memory
► Other needs
 Technology experience is varied (How many grandmothers use
email? mothers?)
 Uninformed on how technology could help them
 Practice skills (hand-eye, problem solving, etc.)
► Touch screens, larger fonts, louder sounds
Children
► Technology saviness?
► Age changes much:
 Physical dexterity
► (double-clicking, click and drag, and small targets)
 Attention span
 (vaguely) Intelligence
► Varied backgrounds (socio-economic)
► Goals
 Educational acceleration
  Socialization with peers
 Psychological - improve self-image, self-confidence
 Creativity – art, music, etc. exploration
► Teenagers are a special group
 Next generation
 Beta test new interfaces, trends
 Cell phones, text messages, simulations, fantasy games, virtual
worlds
► Requires Safety
► They
 Like exploring (easy to reset state)
 Don’t mind making mistakes
 Like familiar characters and repetition (ever had to babysit a kid
with an Ice Age DVD?)
 Don’t like patronizing comments, inappropriate humor
► Design: Focus groups

Accommodating Hardware and Software Diversity

► Support a wide range of hardware and software platforms
► Software and hardware evolution
 OS, application, browsers, capabilities
 backward compatibility is a good goal
► Three major technical challenges are:
 Producing satisfying and effective Internet interaction
(broadband vs. dial-up & wireless)
 Enabling web services from large to small (size and resolution)
 Support easy maintenance of or automatic conversion to
multiple languages

HCI Goals
► Influence academic and industrial researchers
 Understand a problem and related theory
 Hypothesis and testing
 Study design (we’ll do this!)
 Interpret results
► Provide tools, techniques and knowledge for commercial developers
 competitive advantage (think ipod)
► Raising the computer consciousness of the general public
 Reduce computer anxiety (error messages)
 Common fears:
► I’ll break it
► I’ll make a mistake
► The computer is smarter than me
 HCI contributes to this!
Near & Future Interfaces
• Let’s review
• Minority Report • Time to learn
• Steel Battalion • Speed of performance
• Eye Toy • Rate of errors
• Dance Dance Revolution • Retention over time
• Nintendo Wii • Subjective satisfaction

Chapter # 2
Usability Heuristics
Design Principles:
-Avoid common design pitfalls by following 9 design principles
-Inspect an interface for usability problems with these principles
Nine principles of design
– Simple and natural dialog
– Speak the user’s language
– Minimize user’s memory load
– Be consistent
– Provide feedback
– Provide clearly marked exits
– Provide shortcuts
– Deal with errors in a positive manner
– Provide help

1 Simple and natural dialogue

– use the user’s conceptual model
– match the users’ task sequence
– minimize mapping between interface and task semantics
– Present exactly the information the user needs
– less is more
– less to learn, to get wrong, to distract...
– information should appear in natural order
– related information is graphically clustered
– order of accessing information matches user’s expectations
– remove or hide irrelevant or rarely needed information
– competes with important information on screen
– remove modes
– use windows frugally
– don’t add unneeded navigation and window management

2 Speak the users’ language

Terminology based on users’ language for task
 – e.g. withdrawing money from a bank machine
Use meaningful mnemonics, icons & abbreviations
– eg File / Save
• Ctrl + S (abbreviation)
• Alt FS (mnemonic for menu action)

• (tooltip icon)

3 Minimize user’s memory load

Computers good at remembering, people are not!
Promote recognition over recall
– menus, icons, choice dialog boxes vs commands, field formats
– relies on visibility of objects to the user (but less is more!)
– Gives input format, example and default
Small number of rules applied universally
– generic commands
• same command can be applied to all interface objects
– interpreted in context of interface object
• copy, cut, paste, drag ’n drop, ... for characters, words,
paragraphs, circles, files
• context menus

4: Be consistent
Consistent syntax of input
Consist language and graphics
– same visual appearance across the system (e.g. widgets)
– same information/controls in same location on all windows

Consist effects
– commands, actions have same effect in equivalent situations
• predictability

5: Provide feedback
Continuously inform the user about
– what it is doing
– how it is interpreting the user’s input
 – user should always be aware of what is going on

Be as specific as possible, based on user’s input

Best within the context of the action
Response time
– how users perceive delays
<0.1s perceived as “instantaneous”
1s user’s flow of thought stays uninterrupted, but delay noticed
10s limit for keeping user’s attention focused on the dialog
> 10s user will want to perform other tasks while waiting

Dealing with long delays

– Cursors
• for short transactions
– Percent done dialogs
– time left
– estimated time

– Random
• for unknown times
6. Provide clearly marked exits
Users don’t like to feel trapped by the computer!
– should offer an easy way out of as many situations as possible
Strategies:
– Cancel button (for dialogs waiting for user input)
– Universal Undo (can get back to previous state)
– Interrupt (especially for lengthy operations)
– Quit (for leaving the program at any time)
– Defaults (for restoring a property sheet)

7. Provide shortcuts
Experienced users - perform frequent operations quickly

Strategies:
– keyboard and mouse accelerators
• abbreviations
• command completion
• context menus
• function keys
• double clicking vs menu selection
– type-ahead (entering input before the system is ready for it)
– navigation jumps
 • e.g., going to window/location directly, and avoiding
intermediate nodes
– history systems
• WWW: ~60% of pages are revisits
8: Deal with errors in a positive manner
People will make errors!
Errors we make
– Mistakes
• conscious deliberations lead to an error instead of correct
solution
– Slips
• unconscious behaviour gets misdirected en route to
satisfying goal
– e.g. drive to store, end up in the office
• shows up frequently in skilled behaviour
– usually due to inattention
• often arises from similar actions
Designing for slips
General rules
– prevent slips before they occur
– detect and correct slips when they do occur
– user correction through feedback and undo
Types of slips
Capture error
– frequently done activity takes charge instead of one intended
– occurs when common & rarer actions have same initial sequence
• change clothes for dinner and find oneself in bed (William
James, 1890)
• confirm saving of a file when you don’t want to delete it
– minimize by
• make actions undoable instead of confirmation
• allows reconsideration of action by user
– e.g. open trash to undelete a file
Description error
– intended action similar to others that are possible
• usually occurs when right & wrong objects physically near
each other
– pour juice into bowl instead of glass
– throw sweaty shirt in toilet instead of laundry basket
– move file to wrong folder with similar name
– minimize by
• rich feedback
• check for reasonable input, etc.
• undo
Loss of activation
– forget what the goal is while undergoing the sequence of actions
• start going to room and forget why you are going there
• navigating menus/dialogs & can’t remember what you are
looking for
• but continue action to remember (or go back to
beginning)!
– minimize by
• if system knows goal, make it explicit
• if not, allow person to see path taken
Mode errors
– people do actions in one mode thinking they are in another
• refer to file that’s in a different directory
• look for commands / menu options that are not relevant
– minimize by
• have as few modes as possible (preferably none)
• make modes highly visible
Generic system responses for errors
General idea: Forcing functions
– prevent / mitigate continuation of wrongful action
Gag
– deals with errors by preventing the user from continuing
• eg cannot get past login screen until correct password
entered
Warn
– warn people that an unusual situation is occurring
– when overused, becomes an irritant
• e.g.,
– audible bell
– alert box
Do nothing
– illegal action just doesn’t do anything
– user must infer what happened
• enter letter into a numeric-only field (key clicks ignored)
• put a file icon on top of another file icon (returns it to
original position)
Self-correct
– system guesses legal action and does it instead
– but leads to a problem of trust
• spelling corrector
Lets talk about it
– system initiates dialog with user to come up with solution to the
problem
 • compile error brings up offending line in source code
Teach me
– system asks user what the action was supposed to have meant
– action then becomes a legal one
8: Deal with errors in a positive manner
Provide meaningful error messages
– error messages should be in the user’s task language
– don’t make people feel stupid
Try again, bonehead!
Error 25
Cannot open this document
Cannot open “chapter 5” because the application “Microsoft Word”
is not on your system
Cannot open “chapter 5” because the application “Microsoft Word”
is not on your system. Open it with “Teachtext” instead?
Prevent errors
– try to make errors impossible
– modern widgets: can only enter legal data
Provide reasonableness checks on input data
– on entering order for office supplies
• 5000 pencils is an unusually large order. Do you really
want to order that many?
9. Provide help
Help is not a replacement for bad design!
Simple systems:
– walk up and use; minimal instructions
Most other systems
– feature rich
– simple things should be simple
– learning path for advanced features
Documentation and how it is used
Many users do not read manuals
– prefer to spend their time pursuing their task
Usually used when users are in some kind of panic
– paper manuals unavailable in many businesses!
• e.g. single copy locked away in system administrator’s
office
– online documentation better
– good search/lookup tools
– online help specific to current context
Sometimes used for quick reference
– syntax of actions, possibilities...
– list of shortcuts ...
Types of help
Tutorial and/or getting started manuals
– short guides that people are likely to read when first obtaining
their systems
• encourages exploration and getting to know the system
• tries to get conceptual material across and essential syntax
– on-line “tours”, exercises, and demos
• demonstrates very basic principles through working
examples

Reference manuals
– used mostly for detailed lookup by experts
• rarely introduces concepts
• thematically arranged
– on-line hypertext
• search / find
• table of contents
• index
• cross-index

Reminders
– short reference cards
• expert user who just wants to check facts
• novice who wants to get overview of system’s capabilities
– keyboard templates
• shortcuts/syntactic meanings of keys; recognition vs.
recall; capabilities
– tooltips and other context-sensitive help
• text over graphical items indicates their meaning or
purpose
Wizards
– walks user through typical tasks
– but dangerous if user gets stuck
Tips
– migration path to learning system features
– also context-specific tips on being more efficient
– must be “smart”, otherwise boring and tedious
Other Guidelines: Style guides
Guidelines published by producers of graphical user interfaces (GUIs)
– examples:
• Open Software Foundation MOTIF
• Open Look
• MS Windows
• Apple
Describes the “look and feel” of the GUI
– e.g. Open Look
• grouping items in the same menu:
– Use white space between long groups of controls on
menus or in short groups when screen real estate is
not an issue
Good, but hard too follow
– GUI and widget specific
– vast number of guidelines
– may miss fundamental design principles

Heuristic evaluation
– Principles can be used to systematically inspect the interface for
usability problems
Evaluating Heuristic evaluation
 Problems found by a single inspector
 Problems found by multiple inspectors
 Individuals vs. teams
 Self guided or scenarios?

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!

Varies according to
– difficulty of the interface being evaluated
– the expertise of the inspectors
Average problems found by:
– novice evaluators - 22%
• no usability expertise
– regular specialists - 41%
• expertise in usability
– double specialists - 60%
• experience in both usability and the particular
kind of interface being evaluated
• also find domain-related problems
Tradeoff
– novices poorer, but cheaper!

Evaluators miss both easy and hard problems

– ‘best’ evaluators can miss easy problems
– ‘worse’ evaluators can discover hard problems
3-5 evaluators find 66-75% of usability problems
– different people find different usability problems
– only modest overlap between the sets of problems found

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

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

Chapter 3
(Chap 7 of book)
Design Rules
Types of Design Rules
• principles
– abstract design rules
– low authority
– high generality
• standards
– specific design rules
– high authority
 – limited application
• guidelines
– lower authority
– more general application

*Principles to support usability

i) Learnability
the ease with which new users can begin effective interaction and achieve
maximal performance
ii) Flexibility
the multiplicity of ways the user and system exchange information
iii) Robustness
the level of support provided the user in determining successful achievement
and assessment of goal-directed behaviour

i) Principles of learnability
Predictability
– users don’t like surprises (exception games and then only a few)
– determining effect of future actions based on past interaction
history
– operation visibility
Synthesizability – requires user to have a mental model (chap 1)
– assessing the effect of past actions
– immediate vs. eventual honesty – changing wysisyg doc vrs
updating web pages
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
ii) Principles of flexibility
Dialogue initiative
– system and users in a conversation
– freedom from system imposed constraints on input dialogue
– system vs. user pre-emptiveness
– understanding of main use-cases
Multithreading
– ability of system to support user interaction for more than one
task at a time
– concurrent vs. interleaving
– multimodality – button click / alt + / menu item
 Task migratability
– passing responsibility for task execution between user and
system
– ultimate user control
Substitutivity
– allowing equivalent values of input and output to be substituted
for each other
– representation multiplicity (graph/values)
– equal opportunity (define line by drawing or specifying
length/position)
Customizability
– modifiability of the user interface by user (adaptability) or
system (adaptivity)
iii) Principles of robustness
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
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
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
– many large organisations have their own standards
• 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
• There are also some ISO standards for usability reporting
Guidelines
1) Define HCI, why HCI is important?
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 (see Chapter 9)
– Shneiderman’s 8 Golden Rules
– Norman’s 7 Principles

Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

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

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.

HCI design patterns

• An approach to reusing knowledge about successful design solutions
• Originated in architecture: Alexander
 • A pattern is an invariant solution to a recurrent problem within a
specific context.
• Examples
– Light on Two Sides of Every Room (architecture)
– Go back to a safe place (HCI)
• Patterns do not exist in isolation but are linked to other patterns in
languages which enable complete designs to be generated
• Characteristics of patterns
– capture design practice not theory
– capture the essential common properties of good examples of
design
– represent design knowledge at varying levels: social,
organisational, conceptual, detailed
– embody values and can express what is humane in interface
design
– are intuitive and readable and can therefore be used for
communication between all stakeholders
– a pattern language should be generative and assist in the
development of complete designs.
• Start point for more info
– http://www.hcipatterns.org/tiki-index.php

Summary & Exercise

Exercise
– Match Nielsen/ Shneiderman/Norman lists to earlier principles
Principles for usability
– repeatable design for usability relies on maximizing benefit of
one good design by abstracting out the general properties which
can direct purposeful design
– The success of designing for usability requires both creative
insight (new paradigms) and purposeful principled practice
Using design rules
– standards and guidelines to direct design activity
 Chapter 7
Usability and Evaluation
(Dov Te’eni
Jane M. Carey
)

 Usability and evaluation are closely related concepts

 Usability means that the HCI design of the system supports the user’s
cognitive and ergonomic limitations and is easy to use and learn
 Evaluation means to assess the system for functionality as well as
usability
 We explore how to compare, assess, and improve interfaces
 Mini-Case 1984 Olympic message system demonstrates:
 You will not get it right the first time
 You will get different answers when you use different methods of
observation
 You will need to come up with integrative solutions to problems
 Designers of the OMS (Olympic Message System) followed 3
principles:
 Early focus on user and tasks
 Empirical measure on user’s behavior
 Iterative design

Figure 7.2 Attitudes, use, performance, and satisfaction

relationship

 ISO (International Standards Organization) defines usability as “ a

concept comprising the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with
which specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular
environment”
Table 7-1: Usability indicators based on performance

1. Goal achievement indicators (success rate, failure rate, accuracy,

effectiveness).

2. Work rate indicators (speed, completion rate, efficiency, productivity,

productivity gain).

3. Operability indicators of the user's ability to make use of the systems

features (error rate, problem rate, function usage)

4. Knowledge acquisition indicators of the user's ability and effort in learning

to use the system (learnability and learning).

Table 7-3: The usability engineering life cycle

· Know the user

· Analyze competing products
· Set usability goals
· Consider alternative designs
· Engage in participatory design
· Coordinate the total interface
· Check against heuristic guidelines
· Prototype
· Evaluate interface
· Design in iterations
· Follow up with studies of installed systems

 Methods of usability assessments include:

– Thinking aloud (protocol analysis)
– Observation
– Interviews
– Focus groups
– Automatic logs
– Questionnaires

Table 7-4: Attitude questionnaire

1. Using a microcomputer could provide me with information that would lead

to a better decisions.
2. I wouldn't use a microcomputer because programming it would take too
much time.
3. I'd like to use a microcomputer because it is oriented to user needs.
4. I wouldn't use a microcomputer because it is too time consuming.
5. Using a microcomputer would take too much time away from my normal
duties.
6. Using a microcomputer would involve too much time doing mechanical
operations (e.g., programming, inputting data) to allow sufficient time for
managerial analysis.
7. A microcomputer would be of no use to me because of its limited
computing power.
8. I'd like to learn about ways that microcomputers can be used as aids in
managerial tasks.
9. Using a microcomputer would result in a tendency to over design simple
tasks.
10. I wouldn't want to have a microcomputer at work because it would
distract me from my normal job duties.
11. A microcomputer would give me more opportunities to obtain the
information that I need
12. I wouldn't favor using a microcomputer because there would be a
tendency to use it even when it was more time consuming than manual
methods.
13. I'd like to have a microcomputer because it is so easy to use.
14. I'd hesitate to acquire a microcomputer for my use at work because of
the difficulty of integrating it with existing information systems.
15. I'd discourage my company from acquiring microcomputers because
most application packages would need to be modified before they could be
useful in our specific situation.
16. It is easy to access and store data in a microcomputer.
17. A microcomputer would be of no use to me because of the limited
availability of application program packages.
18. A microcomputer would be of no use to me because of its small storage
capacity.
19. It is easy to retrieve or store information from/to a microcomputer.
20. Using a microcomputer would give me much greater control over
important information.

Step 7 in the engineering life cycle is check against heuristic

guidelines

Table 7-5: Heuristic guidelines

1. Create simple and natural dialog

2. Speak the user's language
3. Minimize the user's memory load
4. Be consistent
5. Provide feedback
6. Provide clearly marked exits
7. Provide shortcuts
8. Provide specific, corrective and positive error messages
9. Minimize propensity for error

 Evaluation is a broader term than usability – it includes several

goals:
1) assess the system's functionality against the intended specifications,
2) assess the system's effect on the user's behavior and attitude,
3) assess the system's impact on measures of performance that are related
to the user or the objective of the system,
4) discover unintended problems and perhaps opportunities.

 Evaluation techniques include:

1) Exploratory vs. model based.
2) Design or implementation.
3) Field study vs. laboratory testing.
4) Design vs. use.
5) Level of performance measures.
6) Degree of designed manipulation and intrusion.

Cognitive Walkthrough (Polson et al, 1992)

* Task description from the first-time user's viewpoint. Include any special
assumptions about the state of the system assumed when the user begins
work.
* Action sequence: Make a numbered list of the atomic actions that the user
should perform to accomplish the task.
* Anticipated users: Briefly describe the class of users who will use this
system. Note what experience they are expected to have with similar or
previous versions.
* User's initial goals: List the goals the user is likely to form when starting
the task. If there are other likely goals list them, and estimate for each what
percentage of user are likely to have them.

Table 7-6: Measures for comparing displays (Scott & Findlay, 1991)

· Typing mistakes made before correction

· Mistakes remaining
· Pauses of 3 seconds or more immediately before mode change
· Other pauses of 3 seconds or more
· Length of pause immediately before mode change
· Attempting to type-over whilst in insert mode
· Attempting to insert whilst in type-over mode
  Ben Shneiderman’s Questionnaire for user satisfaction
 Other methods of evaluation
 Metrics (Rengger, 1991)
 Conclusion – Flow diagram from Olson and Moran (1996)

Table 7.8 ANSI/HFS 200 outline and status (1997)

Section Status
1 Introduction draft
2 accessibility draft
3 presentation of information ISO document
4 user guidance ISO document
5 direct manipulation ISO document
6 color draft
7 forms fill-in ISO document
8 command languages ISO document
9 voice i/o
voice recognition draft
non-speech auditory output draft
interactive voice response draft
10 visually displayed menus re-drafted ISO doc

CHAPTER 7:
Direct Manipulation and
Immersive Environments

Introduction
• Positive feelings associated with good user interfaces ☺
– Mastery of the interface
– Competence in performing tasks
– Ease in learning the system originally and in assimilating
advanced features
– Confidence in the capacity to retain mastery over time
– Enjoyment in using the system
– Eagerness to show the system off to novices
– Desire to explore more powerful aspects of the system

Robert’s presentation outline ***

– Definition of Direct Manipulation
– Context for the term Direct Manipulation
– Principles of Direct Manipulation
– Attributes of Direct Manipulation
• Direct Manipulation Categorization Continuum
What is Direct Manipulation? ***

History of term Direct Manipulation ***

● Term was originally coined by Ben Shneiderman in the early 1980s

Direct Manipulation ***

Direct Manipulation is a central concept of:
● GUI’s
○ WYSIWYG
■ “What You See Is What You Get”

Principles of Direct Manipulation

1. Continuous representations of the objects and actions of interest with
meaningful visual metaphors.
2. Physical actions or presses of labeled buttons, instead of complex
syntax.
3. Rapid, incremental, reversible actions whose effects on the objects of
interest are visible immediately.

Attributes of Direct Manipulation

• Novices can learn basic functionality quickly, usually through a
demonstration by a more experienced user
• Experts can work rapidly to carry out a wide range of tasks, even
defining new functions and features
– Knowledgeable intermittent users can retain operational
concepts
– Error messages are rarely needed
• Users
– Immediately see whether their actions are furthering their goals,
and, if the actions are counterproductive, they can simply
change the direction of their activity
– Experience less anxiety because the interface is comprehensible
and because actions can be reversed easily
– Gain a sense of confidence and mastery because they are the
initiators of action, they feel in control, and they can predict the
interface’s responses
• Multi-touch allows new actions to be assigned to various combinations
of finger touches
 – The 2-finger actions like zoom in/out are intuitive, but others
must be learned and take longer to discover
– This accounts for why a young child can easily learn to tap,
change screens, and touch on a tablet (the intuitive actions), but
does not have the skills to re-arrange the icons on the screen
(the learned actions)

• Examples of Translational Distances

– Weak – early video game controllers
– Medium – touch screens, multi-touch
– Strong – data glove, gesturing, manipulating tangible objects
– Immersive – virtual reality, oculus rift

• Three users working concurrently on a large tabletop touch device.

– They can use their hands and fingers to manipulate the objects
on the device
– Note the use of the different hand gestures
• A tangible user interface for molecular biology, developed in Art
Olson’s Laboratory at The Scripps Research Institute
– Utilizes auto-fabricated molecular models tracked with the
Augmented Reality Toolkit (from the University of Washington
Human Interface Technology Lab)
– The video camera on the laptop captures the molecule’s position
and orientation, enabling the molecular modeling software to
display information such as the attractive/repulsive forces
surrounding the molecule
 Discussion of Direct Manipulation
Problems with direct manipulation
• Spatial or visual representations can be too spread out
• High-level flowcharts and database-schema can become confusing
• Designs may force valuable information off of the screen
• Users must learn the graphical representations
• The visual representation may be misleading
• Typing commands with the keyboard may be faster

Direct Manipulation Systems (example)

• GPS solutions
– This is a screenshot from Google StreetView of the inside of the
University Center at Nova Southeastern University in Florida
– On the bottom is a scrollable image of other views on campus. In
the left hand corner is a more conventional static map showing
the physical street location of the campus
– Users can move the “person” to a different location on campus
and the views will change accordingly
• Video games
– Pong
• One of the first popular games was Pong
• Used knobs to manipulate the white paddles on the screen
• Interface objects of Pong
• Paddle
• Ball
• Player
• Rudimentary sound
– Games have have made many advancements since Pong
• Various controls
• Multiple objects of interest
• Dynamic, detailed environments
• Multiplayer capabilities
• Video games
– Woman playing World of Warcraft, using both her keyboard and
mouse, while hearing sounds of the game via her headset
• Computer-aided design and fabrication
– Computer-aided design (CAD) systems are used to assist in the
design of various things
– Autodesk
• Home automation
• 3D Printing
• 3D Printing
 – This shows astronaut (Bruce Wilmore) onboard the International
Space Station with the ratchet wrench that was created with
Made in Space’s 3D printer
– This device was designed, qualified, tested, and printed in space
in less than one week

Direct Manipulation Programming and Configuration***

• It may be useful to apply direct manipulation with programming in
some scenarios
– Microsoft Excel
• Portions of program can be made using spreadsheet
actions
– Adobe Photoshop
• Allows users to create programs with action sequences and
repetition using a recorded history of user actions.

Immersive Enviroments

2D and 3D Interfaces
• “Pure” 3D interfaces have strong utility in some contexts, for example:
– Medical
– Product design
– Scientific visualization
• In some situations, 2D may actually be preferable to simplify
interactions
• The power of 3D interfaces lies in applying them in the appropriate
domain or context where the added dimension provides more
understanding and improves task outcomes

3D Interfaces
• By using a medical simulation inserted into a large scale visualization
(using CAVE technology), physicians were able to find a solution, that
would not have been possible without doing the actual surgery
Grape Surgery!

3D Interfaces (continued)
Features for effective 3D
– Use occlusion, shadows, perspective, and other 3D techniques
carefully
– Minimize the number of navigation steps for users to accomplish
their tasks
 – Keep text readable
– Avoid unnecessary visual clutter, distraction, contrast shifts, and
reflections
– Simplify user movement
– Prevent errors
– Simplify object movement
– Organize groups of items in aligned structures to allow rapid
visual search
– Enable users to construct visual groups to support spatial recall

Guidelines for inclusion of enhanced 3D features:

– Provide overviews so users can see the big picture
– Allow teleoperation
– Offer X-ray vision so users can see into or beyond objects
– Provide history keeping
– Permit rich user actions on objects
– Enable remote collaboration
– Give users control over explanatory text and let users select for
details on demand
– Offer tools to select, mark, and measure
– Implement dynamic queries to rapidly filter out unneeded items
– Support semantic zooming and movement
– Enable landmarks to show themselves even at a distance
– Allow multiple coordinated views
– Develop novel 3D icons to represent concepts that are more
recognizable and memorable

Teleoperation and Presence***

• The control of a device or machine remotely
• Forms of feedback
– live video
– haptic touch
– temperature
– auditory
• Two “parents”:
– direct manipulation in personal computers
– process control in complex environments
– common tasks include operating power/chemical plants,
manufacturing, and steering vehicles
• Physical operation is remote
• Complicating factors in the architecture of remote environments:
– Time delays
• transmission delays
• operation delays
 – Incomplete feedback
– Feedback from multiple sources
– Unanticipated interferences
Example
• Nurse demonstrates using the Telehealth cart otoscope to conduct a
real-time tympanic (ear) membrane exam
• On screen is Physician Assistant who, from a remote location, can see
and evaluate the patient and provide an appropriate plan of care

• Telepresence
– allows a person to feel as if they were present
– facilitates formal or informal conversations
• Presence led to development of mobile remote presence systems
(MRP)
• ImmerseBoard allows two users to be co-located and work on the
same shared screen
– Teamviewer and Chrome remote desktop share similar features
 ***Augmented and Virtual Reality

***Virtual Reality
• Virtual reality breaks the physical limitations of space and allow users
to act as though they were somewhere else

Example
• Image of a virtual meditative world that users can use for engaging in
meditation activities
– The virtual world has sounds
– They change with each chakra (stage) of the meditation process
– This is an application of positive computing

***Augmented Reality
• Augmented reality shows the real world with an overlay of additional
overlay
• Situational awareness shows information about the real world that
surrounds you by tracking your movements in a computer model
• Augmented reality is an important variant
– Enables users to see the real world with an overlay of additional
interaction.
Augmented Reality (example)
• Augmented reality might be used to help surgeons or their assistants
during surgery, by showing pertinent information superimposed on a
view of the real world. http://augmentarium.umiacs.umd.edu

Augmented (another example)

• Using augmented reality overlays, various points of interest can be
shown on a mobile phone
• Icons represent the type of place (food, shopping, etc.) and distances
from the current location
• Links are provided to user reviews
• Customers can use their personal mobile devices to pull up objects
from the IKEA Catalog and see how the various items would look in
their own house
***Mixed Reality
• Mixed reality is the reality that has some aspects of augmented reality
within a virtual environment.
 FLUID NAVIGATION

• Navigation
– Enables users to know where they are and to steer themselves
to their intended destination
– Is about getting work done or having fun through a series of
actions, much like sailors who steer their boat to a harbor
– Is key to:
• successfully operating interactive applications, such as
installing a mobile app, completing an on-line survey, or
purchasing a train ticket (task navigation)
• finding information on a website or browsing social media
(web navigation)
• finding the action needed in a desktop application
(command menu navigation)
• Navigation
– Note that even if a designer uses slick graphical menus, elegant
form fill-in, or well known gestures there is no guarantee that
the interface will be appealing and easy to use
– Effective interfaces emerge only after careful consideration of
and testing for numerous design issues, such as:
• task-related organization
• phrasing of items
• sequence of items
• graphic layout and design
• responsive design to adapt to various sizes of devices
• shortcuts for knowledgeable frequent users
• online help and error correction
(Bailly, G., Lecolinet, E., Nigay, L., Visual menu techniques (2015)
in preparation)
Navigation By Selection
• Menu bars, pop-up menus, toolbars, palettes and ribbons
• Shortcuts and gestures for rapid interaction
• Long lists
• Linear versus simultaneous presentation
• Radio Buttons and Checkboxes
Examples of common gestures and their effect:
• Tap: select
• Long press: varied, from magnified cursor (iOS) to showing a tooltip
(Windows 8)
• Double tap: varied, e.g. zoom (iOS)
• Small swipe: varied, e.g. move location or order of objects, reveal a
delete button
• Large swipe: usually scroll
 • Rapid swipe or fling: fast scroll with inertia
• Pinch and spread: zoom in and out
• Variation with two or more fingers: varied effects
• Menus for long lists
• Sliders and alpha-sliders
• When items consist of ranges or numerical values, a slider
is a natural choice to allow the selection of a value
• The alpha-slider uses multiple levels of granularity in
moving the slider thumb and therefore can support tens or
hundreds of thousand of items
Small Displays

• Small devices have very focused functionalities and few selectable

areas.
• Discoverability is often an issue
Design considerations for small displays:
• Simplify: “less is more”
• Strive to reduce or eliminate data entry
• Learnability is key
• Consider use frequency and importance
• Plan for interruptions
• Use of contextual information
• Make clear what is selectable and what is not
• Leave room for scroll and swipe gestures to avoid inadvertent actions
• Consider relegating less important functions to other platforms
Content Organization
• Organizing menus in a meaningful structure results in faster selection
time and higher user satisfaction
• Approaches:
– Linear sequence (e.g. in a wizard or survey)
– Hierarchical structure that is natural and comprehensible (e.g. a
store split into departments)
 – Network structure when choices may be reachable by more than
one path (e.g. websites)
• Content organization design:
– Tree-structure: designers can form categories of similar items,
e.g. online grocery markets divided into produce, meat, dairy,
etc. further divided into vegetables, fruit, etc. for produce, and
milk, cheese, etc. for dairy
– Breadth versus depth: the depth (number of levels) of a menu
tree depends in part on the breadth (number of items per level)
– Networks: choices may be reachable by more than one path,
e.g. websites for online shopping that provide access to banking
information from both the personal profile and the checkout
section of a link structure
• Rules for forming menu trees:
– Use task semantics to organize menus
– Limit the number of levels (i.e. prefer broad–shallow to narrow–
deep)
– Create groups of logically similar items: e.g. Level 1: countries,
Level 2: states, Level 3: cities
– Form groups that cover all possibilities: e.g. Age ranges: [0–9]
[10–19] [20–29] and [>= 30]
– Make sure that items are non-overlapping: e.g. use “Concerts”
and “Sports.” over “Entertainment” and “Events”
– Arrange items in each branch by natural sequence (not
alphabetically) or group related items
– Keep ordering of items fixed (or possibly duplicate frequent
items in dedicated section of the menu)
• Additional considerations for content organization design include:
– sequence, phrasing and layout
• Typical lists are alphabetically ordered, but categorical lists may be
useful
– Principles of menu-list sequencing apply, e.g.
sequencing menu items by frequency of use can
be more useful than sequencing by category or
alphabetical order
• Example of adaptive split menus in Microsoft Office
– A font-selection menu lists the theme fonts and then the recently
used fonts near the top of the menu (as well as in the full list),
making it easier to quickly select the popular fonts
– A thin line separates the sections

• Phrasing:
– Use familiar and consistent terminology.
• Carefully select terminology that is familiar to the
designated user community and keep a list of these terms
to facilitate consistent use
– Ensure that items are distinct from one another
• Each item should be distinguished clearly from other items.
For example, “Slow tours of the countryside,” “Journeys
with visits to parks,” and “Leisurely voyages” are less
distinctive than are “Bike tours,” “Train tours to national
parks,” and “Cruise-ship tours”
– Use consistent and concise phrasing
• Review the collection of items to ensure consistency and
conciseness. Users are likely to feel more comfortable and
to be more successful with “Animal,” “Vegetable,” and
“Mineral” than with “Information about animals,”
“Vegetable choices you can make,” and “Viewing mineral
categories”
– Bring the keyword to the fore
• Try to write menu items such that the first word aids the
user in recognizing and discriminating between items —
use “Size of type” instead of “Set the type size.” Then, if
 the first word indicates that this item is not relevant, users
can begin scanning the next item
• Layout
– Techniques to indicate position in the menu structure can be
useful
– The set of headers below from the Library of Congress
collections webpages gives a clear indication of progress down
the tree
• When users want to do a traversal back up the tree or to
an adjoining menu at the same level, they will feel
confident about what action to take

Audio Menus
• For Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, instruction prompts and
lists of options are spoken to users, who respond by using the keys of
a keyboard, phone, or by speaking
• Complex and deep menu structures should be avoided
– ‘Listen carefully, as our menu options have recently changed’ 
– More in Chapter 9

Form Fill-in
Data Entry with Form Fill-in
• Form Fill-in
– Appropriate when many fields of data must be entered:
• Full complement of information is visible to user
• Display resembles familiar paper forms
• Few instructions are required for many types of entries
– Users must be familiar with:
• Keyboards
• Use of TAB key or mouse to move the cursor
• Error correction methods
• Field-label meanings
• Permissible field contents
• Use of the ENTER and/or RETURN key

Dialog Boxes
• This dialog box includes a binary menu with two choices (Yes or No)
• The blue highlighting on Yes indicates that this selection is the
default and that pressing Return will select it
• Specific keyboard shortcuts can be made available
• Escape closes the dialog box
• Typing the letter ‘N’ will select ‘No’ as indicated by the
underlined letter ‘N’
•
• This dialog box is used to alert clinicians who try to prescribe the drug
Warfarin, because it increases the risk of bleeding of patients already
on Aspirin
• Several possible actions are proposed
• Overriding the alert is possible but requires confirmation by
clicking a check box
• Because of the severity of the alert, this is a modal dialog box
and it requires immediate action

• Dialog Boxes
– Combination of menu and form fill-in techniques
– Internal layout guidelines:
• Meaningful title, consistent style
• Top-left to bottom-right sequencing
• Clustering and emphasis
• Consistent layouts (margins, grid, white space, lines,
boxes)
• Consistent terminology, fonts, capitalization, justification
• Standard buttons (OK, Cancel)
• Error prevention by direct manipulation

• Dialog Boxes
– External Relationship
• Smooth appearance and disappearance
• Distinguishable but small boundary
• Size small enough to reduce overlap problems
 • Display close to appropriate items
• No overlap of required items
• Easy to make disappear
• Clear how to complete/cancel

Chapter 14
Communication and collaboration models

CSCW Issues and Theory

All computer systems have group impact
– not just groupware
Ignoring this leads to the failure of systems
Look at several levels – minutiae to large scale context:
– face-to-face communication
– conversation
– text based communication
– group working

Face-to-face communication

• Most primitive and most subtle form of communication

• Often seen as the paradigm for computer mediated communication?
• Dialog rules? (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1978)
• Rule 1: the current speaker chooses the next speaker by asking
an opinion, question, or request
• Rule 2: another person decided to start speaking
• Rule 3: the current speaker continues talking
Transfer effects
• carry expectations into electronic media …

… sometimes with disastrous results

• may interpret failure as rudeness of colleague
e.g. personal space
– video may destroy mutual impression of distance
– happily the `glass wall' effect helps
Eye contact
• to convey interest and establish social presence
• video may spoil direct eye contact (see video tunnel, chap 19)
• but poor quality video better than audio only
Gestures and body language
• much of our communication is through our bodies
 • gesture (and eye gaze) used for deictic reference
• head and shoulders video loses this
• So … close focus for eye contact …
• … or wide focus for body language?

Back channels (ctd)

• Back channels include:
– nods and grimaces
– shrugs of the shoulders
– grunts and raised eyebrows
• Utterance begins vague …
… then sharpens up just enough

Back channels -media effects

Restricting media restricts back channels
– video : loss of body language
– audio : loss of facial expression
– half duplex : lose most voice back-channel responses
– text based : nothing left!

Back channels and turn-taking

in a meeting …
– speaker offers the floor
(fraction of a second gap)
– listener requests the floor
(facial expression, small noise)
Grunts, ‘um’s and ‘ah’s, can be used by the:
– listener to claim the floor
– speaker to hold the floor
… but often too quiet for half-duplex channels
e.g. Trans-continental conferences – special problem
– lag can exceed the turn taking gap
… leads to a monologue!

Basic conversational structure

Alison: Do you fancy that film

Brian: the uh (500 ms) with the black cat ‘The Green whatsit’
Alison: yeah, go at uh …
(looks at watch – 1.2 s) … 20 to?
Brian: sure

Smallest unit is the utterance

Turn taking  utterances usually alternate …

Adjacency pairs
Simplest structure – adjacency pair
Adjacency pairs may nest:
Brian: Do you want some gateau?
Alison: is it very fattening?
Brian: yes, very
Alison: and lots of chocolate?
Brian: masses
Alison: I'll have a big slice then.

Structure is: B-x, A-y, B-y, A-z, B-z, A-x

– inner pairs often for clarification
… but, try analysing the first transcript in detail!

Context in conversation
Utterances are highly ambiguous
We use context to disambiguate:
Brian: (points) that post is leaning a bit
Alison: that's the one you put in
Two types of context:
• external context – reference to the environment
• e.g., Brian's ‘that’ – the thing pointed to
• internal context – reference to previous conversation
e.g., Alison's ‘that’ – the last thing spoken of

Referring to things – deixis

Often contextual utterances involve indexicals:
that, this, he, she, it
these may be used for internal or external context
Also descriptive phrases may be used:
– external: ‘the corner post is leaning a bit’
– internal: ‘the post you mentioned’
In face-to-face conversation can point

Common Ground
Resolving context depends on meaning
 participants must share meaning
so must have shared knowledge
Conversation constantly negotiates meaning
… a process called grounding:
Alison: So, you turn right beside the river.
Brian: past the pub.
Alison: yeah …
Each utterance is assumed to be: relevant – furthers the current topic
helpful – comprehensible to listener

Focus and topic

Context resolved relative to current dialogue focus
Alison: Oh, look at your roses : : :
Brian: mmm, but I've had trouble with greenfly.
Alison: they're the symbol of the English summer.
Brian: greenfly?
Alison: no roses silly!
Tracing topics is one way to analyse conversation.
– Alison begins – topic is roses
– Brian shifts topic to greenfly
– Alison misses shift in focus … breakdown

Breakdown
Breakdown happens at all levels:
topic, indexicals, gesture
Breakdowns are frequent, but
– redundancy makes detection easy
(Brian cannot interpret ‘they're … summer’)
– people very good at repair
(Brain and Alison quickly restore shared focus)
Electronic media may lose some redundancy
 breakdown more severe

Speech act theory

A specific form of conversational analysis
Utterances characterised by what they do …
… they are acts
e.g. ‘I'm hungry’
– propositional meaning – hunger
– intended effect – ‘get me some food’
Basic conversational act the illocutionary point:
– promises, requests, declarations, …
Speech acts need not be spoken
e.g. silence often interpreted as acceptance …

Patterns of acts & Coordinator

• Generic patterns of acts can be identified
• Conversation for action (CfA) regarded as central
• Basis for groupware tool Coordinator
• structured email system
• users must fit within CfA structure
• not liked by users!

Coordinator
Conversations for action (CfA)

Circles represent ‘states’ in the conversation Arcs represent utterances

(speech acts)

CfA in action
• Simplest route 1–5:
Alison: have you got the market survey on chocolate mousse? request
Brian: sure
Brian: there you are
Alison: thanks
• More complex routes possible, e.g., 1–2–6–3 …
Alison: have you got …
Brian: I've only got the summary figures
Alison: that'll do
Text-based communication
Most common media for asynchronous groupware exceptions: voice mail,
answer-phones
Familiar medium, similar to paper letters
but, electronic text may act as speech substitute!
Types of electronic text:
– discrete directed messages, no structure
– linear messages added (in temporal order)
– non-linear hypertext linkages
– spatial two dimensional arrangement
In addition, linkages may exist to other artefacts
Problems with text
No facial expression or body language
 weak back channels
So, difficult to convey:
affective state – happy, sad, …
illocutionary force – urgent, important, …
Participants compensate: ‘flaming’ and smilies
;-) :-( :-)
example – ‘Conferencer’
Grounding constraints
Establishing common ground depends on
grounding constraints
cotemporality – instant feedthrough simultaneity – speaking together
sequence – utterances ordered
Often weaker in text based communication e.g., loss of sequence in linear
text
loss of sequence

Network delays or coarse granularity Þ overlap

1. Bethan: how many should be in the group?
2. Rowena: maybe this could be one of the 4 strongest reasons
3. Rowena: please clarify what you mean
4. Bethan: I agree
5. Rowena: hang on
6. Rowena: Bethan what did you mean?

Message pairs 1&2 and 3&4 composed simultaneously

– lack of common experience
Rowena: 2 1 3 4 5 6
Bethan: 1 2 4 3 5 6
N.B. breakdown of turn-taking due to poor back channels

Maintaining context
Recall context was essential for disambiguation
Text loses external context, hence deixis (but, linking to shared objects can
help)
1. Alison: Brian's got some lovely roses
2. Brian: I'm afraid they're covered in greenfly
3. Clarise: I've seen them, they're beautiful

Both (2) and (3) respond to (1)

… but transcript suggests greenfly are beautiful!

Non-linear conversation

1. Alison:
Brian’s got some lovely
roses

3. Clarise:
I’ve seen them they’re
beautiful
 hypertext-based or threaded-
message systems maintain
‘parallel’ conversations

Pace and granularity

Pace of conversation – the rate of turn taking
face-to-face - every few seconds
telephone - half a minute
email - hours or days
face-to-face conversation is highly interactive
– initial utterance is vague
– feedback gives cues for comprehension

lower pace  less feedback

 less interactive

Coping strategies
People are very clever!
they create coping strategies when things are difficult
Coping strategies for slow communication attempt to increase granularity:
eagerness – looking ahead in the conversation game
a Brian: Like a cup of tea? Milk or lemon?
multiplexing – several topics in one utterance
a Alison: No thanks. I love your roses.

The Conversation Game

Conversation is like a game
Linear text follows one path through it
Participants choose the path by their utterances
Hypertext can follow several paths at once
Group dynamics
Work groups constantly change:
– in structure – in size
Several groupware systems have explicit rôles
– But rôles depend on context and time
e.g., M.D. down mine under authority of foreman
– and may not reflect duties
e.g., subject of biography, author, but now writer
Social structure may change: democratic, autocratic, … and group may
fragment into sub-groups
Groupware systems rarely achieve this flexibility
Groups also change in composition
Þ new members must be able to `catch up'

Physical environment
Face-to-face working radically affected by layout of workplace
e.g. meeting rooms:
– recessed terminals reduce visual impact
– inward facing to encourage eye contact
– different power positions

chapter 11
user support
user support
• Issues
– different types of support at different times
 – implementation and presentation both important
– all need careful design
• Types of user support
– quick reference, task specific help, full explanation, tutorial
• Provided by help and documentation
– help - problem-oriented and specific
– documentation - system-oriented and general
– same design principles apply to both

Requirements
• Availability
– continuous access concurrent to main application
• Accuracy and completeness
– help matches and covers actual system behaviour
• Consistency
– between different parts of the help system and paper
documentation
• Robustness
– correct error handling and npredictable behaviour
• Flexibility
– allows user to interact in a way appropriate to experience and
task
• Unobtrusiveness
– does not prevent the user continuing with work

Approaches to user support

• Command assistance
– User requests help on particular command
e.g., UNIX man, DOS help
– Good for quick reference
– Assumes user know what to look for
• Command prompts
– Provide information about correct usage when an error occurs
– Good for simple syntactic errors
– Also assumes knowledge of the command
• Context sensitive help
– help request interpreted according to context in which it occurs.
e.g. tooltips
• On-line tutorials
– user works through basics of application in a test environment.
– can be useful but are often in flexible.
 • On-line documentation
– paper documentation is made available on computer.
– continually available in common medium
– can be difficult to browse
– hypertext used to support browsing.
wizards and assistants
• wizards
– task specific tool leads the user through task, step by step, using
user’s answers to specific questions
– example: resumé
– useful for safe completion of complex or infrequent tasks
– constrained task execution so limited flexibility
– must allow user to go back
– assistants
– monitor user behaviour and offer contextual advice
– can be irritating e.g. MS paperclip
– must be under user control e.g. XP smart tags
Adaptive Help Systems
• Use knowledge of the context, individual user, task, domain and
instruction to provide help adapted to user's needs.
• Problems
– knowledge requirements considerable
– who has control of the interaction?
– what should be adapted?
– what is the scope of the adaptation?

Knowledge representation
User modelling
• All help systems have a model of the user
– single, generic user (non-intelligent)
– user-configured model (adaptable)
– system-configure model (adaptive)

Approaches to user modelling

• Quantification
– user moves between levels of expertise
– based on quantitative measure of what he knows.
• Stereotypes
– user is classified into a particular category.
• Overlay
– idealized model of expert use is constructed
 – actual use compared to ideal
– model may contain the commonality or difference
Special case: user behaviour compared to known error catalogue

Knowledge representation
Domain and task modelling
• Covers
– common errors and tasks
– current task
• Usually involves analysis of command sequences.
• Problems
– representing tasks
– interleaved tasks
– user intention
Knowledge representation
Advisory strategy
• involves choosing the correct style of advice for a given situation.
e.g. reminder, tutorial, etc.
• few intelligent help systems model advisory strategy, but choice of
strategy is still important.

Techniques for knowledge representation

• rule based (e.g. logic, production rules)
– knowledge presented as rules and facts
– interpreted using inference mechanism
– can be used in relatively large domains.
• frame based (e.g. semantic network)
– knowledge stored in structures with slots to be filled
– useful for a small domain.
• network based
– knowledge represented as relationships between facts
– can be used to link frames.
• example based
– knowledge represented implicitly within decision structure
– trained to classify rather than programmed with rules
– requires little knowledge acquisition

Problems with knowledge representation and modelling

• knowledge acquisition
• resources
• interpretation of user behaviour
Issues in adaptive help
• Initiative
– does the user retain control or can the system direct the
interaction?
– can the system interrupt the user to offer help?
• Effect
– what is going to be adapted and what information is needed to
do this?
– only model what is needed.
• Scope
– is modelling at application or system level?
– latter more complex
e.g. expertise varies between applications.

Designing user support

• User support is not an `add on’
– should be designed integrally with the system.
• Concentrate on content and context of help rather than technological
issues.

Presentation issues
• How is help requested?
– command, button, function (on/off), separate application
• How is help displayed?
– new window, whole screen, split screen,
– pop-up boxes, hint icons
• Effective presentation requires
– clear, familiar, consistent language
– instructional rather than descriptive language
– avoidance of blocks of text
– clear indication of summary and example information
Implementation issues
Is help What resources are available?
– operating system – screen space
command – memory capacity
– meta command – speed
– application

Structure of help data Issues

– single file – flexibility and
– file hierarchy extensibility
– database – hard copy
– browsing

CHAPTER 14:
Documentation and User Support (a.k.a Help)
Introduction
• When it comes to learning about computer systems many people
experience anxiety, frustration, and disappointment
• Even though increasing attention is being paid to improving interface
design, complex systems can still benefit context-sensitive, online help

User’s Goal Help

I want to buy it Animated demonstration

I want to learn it  Manual, tutorial, guide, animated demonstration

I want to use it  Manual, help, context-sensitive help

I want to solve a problem  Help, FAQ, online community

Writing for the Web
• Break your text into short sections with clear headings
• Start with your key message
• Write short sentences and short paragraphs
• Use lists and tables – tables may not work well for mobile devices
• Write meaningful links (do not use: “click here”)
• Illustrate your content
Advantages of Online Documentation
Physical advantages
available whenever on web-connected electronic device, can’t get lost or
misplaced, physical workspace not needed, can be updated rapidly
Navigation features
can provide index and other search facilities, can link to other external
materials and sources
Interactive services
can bookmark, annotate, and tag, can include graphics, sound, color, and
animation, screen readers or other tools can be provided for users with
disabilities
Online Help
Reading from paper versus from displays
• Visual fatigue and stress from reading computer displays are common
problems, but these conditions respond well to rest, frequent breaks,
and task diversity
• Even if users are not aware of visual fatigue or stress, their capacity to
work with displays may be below their capacity to work with paper
documentation
• Designers should be aware how poor information design can make
reading more difficult and disrupt the process
• Some guidelines for supporting reading are:
• Don’t use uncommon or unfamiliar vocabulary
• Avoid difficult to read typefaces (all caps is harder to read)
• Avoid text on busy backgrounds
• Avoid information buried in repetition
• Do not use centered text

Development process guidelines

Seek professional content writers and copywriters
Prepare user documentation early (before implementation)
May act as an alternative to the formal s/w specification.
Set up guideline documents and coordinate and integrate across all involved
departments
Review drafts thoroughly
Field-test early editions
Provide feedback mechanisms for readers
Revise to reflect changes regularly

CHAPTER 12:
Advancing the User Experience
 • Interface design is edging closer to match the art, trendiness, and
techniques taught in design schools
– In an era of smartphones, tablets, the thinnest of laptops, and
wearables, competition over design has intensified
– This chapter deals with design matters that are functional issues
within User Experience evaluation criteria
Display design
• Effective display designs must provide all the necessary data in the
proper sequence to carry out the task
• Mullet and Sano's categories of design principles:
– Elegance and simplicity: unity, refinement and fitness
– Scale, contrast, and proportion: clarity, harmony, activity,
and restraint
– Organization and visual structure: grouping, hierarchy,
relationship, and balance
– Module and program: focus, flexibility, and consistent
application
– Image and representation: immediacy, generality,
cohesiveness, and characterization
– Style: distinctiveness, integrity, comprehensiveness, and
appropriateness
• Field layout
– Blank spaces and separate lines can distinguish fields.
– Names in chronological order, alignment of dates, familiar date
separators.
– Labels are helpful for all but frequent users.
– Distinguish labels from data with case, boldfacing, etc.
– If boxes are available they can be used to make a more
appealing display, but they consume screen space.
– Specify the date format for international audiences
– Other coding categories – background shading, color, and
graphic icons
• Empirical results
– Structured form superior to narrative form
– Improving data labels, clustering related information, using
appropriate indentation and underlining, aligning numeric values,
and eliminating extraneous characters improves performance
– Performance times improve with fewer, denser displays for
expert users
– Screen contents should contain only task-relevant information
 – Consistent location, structure, and terminology across displays
important
• Sequence of displays
– Should be similar throughout the system for similar tasks, but
exceptions will certainly occur
– Within a sequence, users should be offered some sense of how
far they have come and how far they have to go to reach the
end
– It should be possible to go backwards in a sequence to correct
errors, to review decisions, or to try alternatives
View (Window) Management
• Design considerations
– Users need to consult multiple sources rapidly
– Minimally disrupt user's task
– With large displays, eye-head movement and visibility are
problems
– With small displays, windows can too small to be effective
– Need to offer users sufficient information and flexibility to
accomplish task, while reducing window housekeeping actions,
distracting clutter, eye-head movement
• opening, closing, moving, changing size
• time spent manipulating windows instead of on task
– Can apply direct-manipulation strategy to windows
– Rooms - a form of window macro that enables users to specify
actions on several windows at once
• Coordinating multiple windows
– Designers may break through to the next generation of window
managers by developing coordinated windows, in which windows
appear, change contents, and close as a direct result of user
actions in the task domain
– A careful study of user tasks can lead to task-specific
coordination
– Consider these factors in interface design:
• Synchronized scrolling
• Hierarchical browsing
• Opening/closing of dependent windows
• Saving/opening of window state
• Tabbed browsing
• Tiled or overlapping windows
• Ribbon interface
• Design patterns
 • Start menu
• Image browsing
– The design of image browsers should be governed by the users’
tasks, which can be classified as follows:
• Image generation
• Open-ended exploration
• Diagnostics
• Navigation
• Monitoring
Animation
• The use of animation has grown significantly
• Examples include:
– Keeping user oriented during transition
– Indicating an affordance, inviting interaction
– Entertaining
– Indicating background activity (e.g. progress bar)
– Storytelling
– Alerting
– Providing a virtual tour (e.g. for architectural designs)
– Explaining a process

Web page design

• Numerous guidelines for web designers are available on the Web

and can be incorporated into your design process to ensure
consistency and adherence to emerging standards
• Examples include:
 • The Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, (Oracle, 2015)
• Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (Usability,
2015)
• World Wide Web Consortium’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI,
2015)
• The Web Style Guide (Lynch and Horton, 2008)
There are numerous web sites that address web design, some of which were
created as companions to relevant books:
• Web 2.0 How-To Design Guide (Hunt, 2015)
• Web Bloopers (Johnson, 2003 --- updated 2008 online)
• Building Scalable Web Sites: Building, Scaling, and Optimizing
the Next Generation of Web Applications (Henderson, 2006)

Color
• Color can:
– Soothe or strike the eye
– Add accents to an uninteresting display
– Facilitate subtle discriminations in complex displays
– Emphasize the logical organization of information
– Draw attention to warnings
– Evoke strong emotional reactions of joy, excitement, fear, or
anger
• Guidelines
– Use color conservatively
– Limit the number and amount of colors
– Recognize the power of color to speed or slow tasks
– Color coding should support the task
– Color coding should appear with minimal user effort
– Color coding should be under user control
– Design for monochrome first
– Consider the needs of color-deficient users
– Color can help in formatting
– Be consistent in color coding
– Be alert to common expectations about color codes
– Be alert to problems with color pairings
– Use color changes to indicate status changes
– Use color in graphic displays for greater information density

Non-anthropomorphic design
• Concerns
 – attributions of intelligence, autonomy, free will, etc. can deceive,
confuse, and mislead users
– important to clarify differences between people and computers
– users and designers must accept responsibility for misuse of
computers
– although attractive to some people, an anthropomorphic
interface can produce anxiety in others
• computers can make people feel dumb
• computers should be transparent and support
concentrating on the task in hand
– mature technology should avoid Mumford's obstacle of animism
– anthropomorphic interfaces may distract users
• Microsoft’s ill-fated Clippy character was intended to
provide help suggestions
– Amused some, but annoyed many
– Disruptive interference
– Lacked appropriate emotional expressions
• Advocates of anthropomorphic interfaces suggest that they may be
most useful as teachers, salespeople, therapists, or entertainment
figures
• An alternative design is to present a human author of a package
through prerecorded audio or video
• Guidelines
– Be cautious in presenting computers as people.
– Design comprehensible, predictable, and controllable interfaces.
– Use appropriate humans for introductions or guides.
– Use cartoon characters in games or children’s software, but
usually not elsewhere
– Provide user-centered overviews for orientation and closure.
– Do not use 'I' pronouns when the computer responds to human
actions.
– Use "you" to guide users, or just state facts.

Error messages
• Constructive guidance and positive tone
– Messages should, where possible, indicate what users should do
to correct the problem
– Unnecessarily hostile messages using violent terminology can
disturb non-technical users:
• FATAL ERROR, RUN ABORTED
• CATASTROPHIC ERROR: LOGGED WITH OPERATOR
 • Negative terms such as ILLEGAL, ERROR, INVALID, BAD
should be eliminated or used infrequently
• Other examples:
Poor: SYNTAX ERROR
Better: Unmatched left parenthesis
Poor: INVALID DATA
Better: Days range from 1 to 31
Poor: BAD FILE NAME
Better: The file C:\demo\data.txt was not found
Poor: ???
Better: Touch icon twice to start app