The

PROCESS of
Interaction
DESIGN
 Overview

“
⊙What is involved in
Interaction Design?
○Importance of involving users

○Degrees of user involvement

○What is a user-centered approach?

○Four basic activity models?

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 ⊙ Some practical issues
○ Who are the users?
Overview
○ What are ‘needs’?
○ Where do alternatives come from?
○ How to choose among alternatives?

○ How to integrate interaction design

activities in other lifecycle models?
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 ⊙ It is a process:

What is involved ○ a goal-directed problem solving activity

in INTERACTION
informed by intended use, target domain,
Design? materials, cost, and feasibility

○ a creative activity

○ a decision-making activity to balance

trade-offs
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 ⊙ Generating alternatives and choosing
between them is key
What is involved
in INTERACTION

Design? ⊙ Four approaches:

- User-centered design,
- Activity-centered design,
- Systems design
- Genius design

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 ⊙ Expectation management
○ Realistic expectations

○ No surprises, no disappointments
Importance
○ Timely training
of involving
users ○ Communication, but no hype

⊙ Ownership
○ Make the users active stakeholders

○ More likely to forgive or accept problems

○ Can make a big difference to acceptance and success of

product

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 Degrees of
⊙ Member of the design team
user ○ FULL TIME: constant input, but lose touch with users
involvement
○ PART TIME: patchy input, and very stressful

○ SHORT TERM: inconsistent across project life

○ LONG TERM: consistent, but lose touch with users

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 ⊙ Newsletters and other dissemination devices

Degrees of ○ Reach wider selection of users

user ○ Need communication both ways

involvement

⊙ User involvement after product is released

⊙ Combination of these approaches

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 User-centered approach is based on:
What is a

user- Early focus on users and tasks:

- Directly studying cognitive,
centered - Behavioral,
approach?
- Anthropomorphic &
- Attitudinal characteristics

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 User-centered approach is based on:
What is a

user-
○ Empirical measurement:
users’ reactions and performance to scenarios,
centered manuals, simulations & prototypes are
approach? observed, recorded and analysed

○ Iterative design:
when problems are found in user testing, fix
them and carry out more tests

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Four basic
activities
1. Establishing requirements
in
Interaction
Design 2. Designing alternatives

3. Prototyping

4. Evaluating
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 Exemplifies a user-centered design approach
A simple
interaction
design
lifecycle
model

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 ⊙ Who are the users?
Some
⊙ What do we mean by ‘needs’?
practical
issues ⊙ How to generate alternatives

⊙ How to choose among alternatives

⊙ How to integrate interaction design activities

with other lifecycle models?

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 ⊙ Not as obvious as you think:
Who are the
○ those who interact directly with the product
users / ○ those who manage direct users
stakeholders?
○ those who receive output from the product

○ those who make the purchasing decision

○ those who use competitor’s products

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Who are the
⊙ Three categories of user
(Eason, 1987):
users /
stakeholders? ○ PRIMARY: frequent hands-on

○ SECONDARY: occasional or via someone else

○ TERTIARY: affected by its introduction,

or will influence its purchase

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 Who are the stakeholders?
Check-out operators

• Suppliers
• Local shop
owners

Managers and owners Customers

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 • Users rarely know what is possible
What do we
• Users can’t tell you what they ‘need’ to
help them achieve their goals mean by
• Instead, look at existing tasks: ‘NEEDS’
– their context

?
– what information do they require?
– who collaborates to achieve the task?
– why is the task achieved the way it is?
• Envisioned tasks:
– can be rooted in existing behaviour
– can be described as future scenarios

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 ⊙ Humans stick to what they know
works

⊙ But considering alternatives is

important to ‘break out of the
How
box’
to
⊙ Designers are trained to consider
alternatives, software people
generate
generally are not alternatives
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 ⊙ How do you generate alternatives?

How
○ ‘FLAIR AND CREATIVITY’:
research and synthesis

to
○ SEEK INSPIRATION:
look at similar products or
look at very different
products generate
alternatives
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 ⊙ Library, database and website all-
in-one

IDEO ⊙ Contains physical gizmos for

TechBox inspiration

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 The
TechBox

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 How to ⊙ Evaluation with users or with
choose peers, e.g. prototypes
among
alternatives
⊙ Technical feasibility: some not
possible

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 ⊙ Quality thresholds: Usability goals lead to
usability criteria set early on and check
regularly
How to
choose ○ SAFETY: how safe?
among ○ UTILITY: which functions are superfluous?
alternatives
○ EFFECTIVENESS: appropriate support? task
coverage, information available

○ EFFICIENCY: performance measurements

○ LEARNABILITY: is the time taken to learn a

function acceptable to the users?

○ MEMORABILITY: can infrequent users

remember how to achieve their goal?
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 Testing
prototypes to
choose
among
alternatives

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 ⊙ Integrating interaction design activities in lifecycle models
How to
from other disciplines needs careful planning
integrate
interaction
design in other ⊙ Several software engineering lifecycle models have been
models considered

⊙ Integrating with agile software development is promising

○ it stresses the importance of iteration
○ it champions early and regular feedback
○ it handles emergent requirements
○ it aims to strike a balance between flexibility and structure

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 Four basic activities in the design process

Sum 1. Establishing requirements

2. Designing alternatives

mary 3. Prototyping

4. Evaluating

User-centered design rests on three principles

5. Early focus on users and tasks

6. Empirical measurement using quantifiable & measurable usability criteria

7. Iterative design

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