Interaction Design

Basics
 Interaction Design Basics
• creating interventions in often complex situations using
technology of many kinds including PC software, the
web and physical devices.
• Design involves:
• achieving goals within constraints and trade-off between
these
• understanding the raw materials: computer and human –
accepting limitations of humans and of design.
• Interaction starts with getting to know the users and
their context
• Scenarios are rich design stories
• Users need to find their way around a system
• Iteration and prototypes
 WHAT IS DESIGN?
• So what is design? A simple definition is: achieving
goals within constraints
• This does not capture everything about design, but
helps to focus us on certain things:
– Goals
– Constraints
• Of course, we cannot always achieve all our goals
within the constraints. So perhaps one of the most
important things about design is:
– Trade-off
 The golden rule of design

• understand your materials

 The golden rule of design
• For Human–Computer Interaction the
obvious materials are the human and the
computer. That is we must:
• understand computers
– limitations, capacities, tools, platforms
• understand people
– psychological, social aspects, human
error.
 To err is human
• The news headlines: an aircrash claims a hundred lives;
an industrial accident causes millions of pounds’ worth
of damage; the discovery of systematic mistreatment
leads to thousands of patients being recalled to hospital.
• Some months later the public inquiries conclude: human
error in the operation of technical instruments. The
phrase ‘human error’ is taken to mean ‘operator error’,
but more often than not the disaster is inherent in the
design or installation of the human interface. Bad
interfaces are slow or error-prone to use. Bad interfaces
cost money and cost lives.
THE PROCESS OF DESIGN
 USER FOCUS
• As we’ve already said, the start of any interaction design
exercise must be the intended user or users. This is often
stated as:
know your users
• Over time many people are affected directly or indirectly by a
system and these people are called stakeholders
• Obviously, tracing the tenuous links between people could go
on for ever and you need to draw boundaries as to whom you
should consider. This depends very much on the nature of the
systems being designed, but largely requires plain common
sense. So, how do you get to know your users?
Who are they?
 USER FOCUS

• It may be tempting to try to think of a

generic user with generic skills and
generic goals; however, it is probably
better, either instead or in addition, to think
of several specific users.
Probably not like you!
Talk to them
Watch them
USER FOCUS
 USER FOCUS
Use your imagination
- even if you cannot involve actual users
you can at least try to imagine their
experiences.
- BUT this is very dangerous!
One method that has been quite successful in
helping design teams produce user focussed
designs is the persona. A persona is a rich
picture of an imaginary person who represents
your core user group.
USER FOCUS
 SCENARIOS
• Scenarios are stories for design: rich stories of
interaction.
• They are perhaps the simplest design
representation, but one of the most flexible and
powerful.
• Some scenarios are quite short: ‘the user intends
to press the “save” button, but accidentally
presses the “quit” button so loses his work’.
• Others are focussed more on describing the
situation or context.