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IMS5401
Web-based Systems Development
Topic 3: Development for the web
3(d) User Interaction
www.monash.edu.au
Agenda
1. From interface design to interaction design
2. Guidelines and processes for interaction
design
3. Specialised usability and interaction issues
4. Conflict and compromise in interaction design
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1. From interface design to
interaction design
• History
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Human factors and ergonomics
Screen design
Interface design
HCI
• Aims of HCI
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Safety
Utility
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Usability
Appeal
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Fundamental issues in interaction
design
• Human senses and perception
• What do we see/(hear)?
• How do we connect/relate things we see and hear?
• Human cognition and memory
• How do we interpret what we see/hear?
• What do we retain and recall of what we see/hear?
• Patterns/metaphors/mental models
• Focus on functional elements (form vs function)
• User-centred design: What does my user
see/hear? (not what do I see/hear)
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‘New’ issues for web-based
interaction design
• Users and the nature of their use
• User motivation (do you want to change it)?
• Range of user types and experiences?
• Frequency/purpose of site usage?
• The web as a medium
• Data-oriented vs page-oriented design
• Forms of representation – numeric/text to multimedia
• Design technology – browsers, HTML, scripts, etc
• The development environment
• User-developer relationship?
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Scope of interaction design
• User interaction with site may be affected by all
design elements
• Content (quantity, type, form, etc)
• Layout and organisation of content (site structure,
page structure, etc)
• Appearance and graphic design (fonts, colours, styles,
etc)
• Architecture and navigation
• Contribution of design elements to user
interaction is specific to site type, site purpose,
and site user
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2. Guidelines and processes for
interaction design
• Interaction design has many aspects, many of
which are highly specialised
• Importance of interaction design and its
different aspects varies enormously from
function to function (eg games design as an
extreme: function= interaction design)
• Extensive (and expanding) literature on each of
these aspects
• Some “gurus” in particular aspects of
interaction design
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Some gurus of aspects of
interaction design
• Visual representation of information - Edward
Tufte
• Design principles - Donald Norman
• Computer interface design - Ben Shneiderman
• Web site graphic design style - David Siegel,
Lynda Weinman
• Web site usability - Jakob Nielsen
• Web site architecture and navigation - Louis
Rosenfeld & Peter Morville
• Which guru should you follow? Depends on
your purpose and the particular aspect of
interaction design which matters
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Key basic elements of interaction design
process
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Understanding the users and what they want
Developing alternative designs
Prototyping designs
Evaluating designs
Iterative development
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Interaction design methods
• Still not much around
• Ideas/approaches tend to be biased towards the
site purpose (and the relevant guru)
• See references for examples
• You may find others you like (better?)
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3. Specialised usability and interaction
issues
• Does your site have to work with special types
of audiences with particular characteristics?
• Some common specialised audiences:
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People with physical problems with interaction
Internationalised or globalised audience
Inexperienced audiences
Personalised audiences
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Designing for physical limitations or
disabilities
• Common types of disability:
• Blindness, limited vision, colour blindness
• Limited mobility
• Deafness
• Design considerations
• User comprehension of content
• Facilities for user input and control
• Guidelines
• W3C
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Designing for global audiences
• Issues with content
• Making the site content fit with local needs and
customs (dates, times, places, currency, people,
relevance, etc)
• Issues with language and layout
• Language and meaning
• Fluency, expressions and idiom
• Translations and multi-lingual sites
• Issues with colours, icons, images
• Meaning and symbolism
• Internationalisation versus localisation
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Designing for inexperienced audiences
• Who are they likely to be and what will they
want?
• Site content - how familiar?
• Web conventions and standards - how selfexplanatory?
• Guidance and direction
• Help and explanations
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Designing for personalised audiences
• Personalising the interface and the content how important?
• Finding out about the user - direct methods
• Finding out about the user - indirect methods
(cookies, etc)
• Establishing trust - user identification and
privacy issues
• Conversational interfaces(?)
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4. Conflict and compromise in
interaction design
• Conflicting needs for web site interaction design
arise from the blend of:
• The amount of information a site contains
• The range of users a site attracts
• The variety of information purposes a site supports
• Any interaction design solution (content, style,
architecture) must normally be a compromise
between these conflicting needs
• (Note difference to traditional interface design)
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Design compromises and user needs
• How does a designer decide where the
compromises need to be made?
• Which information comes first?
• Which user group comes first?
• Which information use comes first?
• Good design involves identifying and
articulating the conflicts and establishing a
basis for deciding on the trade-offs
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User profiles as a basis for determining
design trade-offs
• User profiling is a technique used to help
articulate design needs and priorities
• Concept originally comes from graphic design
• Aims to identify and describe the main ‘typical’
users, information needs and usage patterns
which the site aims to support
• Use these as the basis for identifying conflicting
design needs and deciding what compromises
have to be made
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Building user profiles
• Develop outlines of key characteristics of the main
user groups for the site
• Typically expressed as descriptions of imaginary
individuals representing key user groups
• Characteristics may relate to things such as:
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personal attributes (age, gender, income, job, etc)
preferences (tastes, attitudes, etc),
life experiences (maturity, interests, etc),
specific information needs and interests
usage patterns for information needs
• Use market research techniques (focus groups,
etc) to develop and test
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Examples of user profiles: Monash or
SIMS web sites
• Who are the ‘typical’ users?
• Categories of students, etc
• What are their ‘typical’ information needs?
• Types of information needed, etc
• What are their ‘typical’ usage patterns?
• Time/frequency of usage, etc
• How do they ‘typically’ like that information to be
presented?
• Style, structure, architecture, etc
• See tute exercise
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Using user profiles
• Profiles are used by designers to:
• Identify the site design features which are likely to appeal to
each user;
• In cases of conflict, decide which user/usage pattern is most
important
• Develop storyboards for each user – tracking
how they will travel through the site
• Identify points of commonality and difference
• Determine design compromises as required
• Test against typical ‘real’ users
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Creativity and compromise
• ‘Standardisation’ (‘commodification’) of web site
design is a controversial topic in interaction
design
• Creative designers (form-oriented) hate
compromise which destroys design elegance
• Functional designers hate disfunctional design
which spoils user interaction
• Will standards kill web design? (or will nonstandard designs kill web applications?)
• Return to Sydney Opera House/Federation
Square/etc
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