Human Factors

Jakob Nielsen

• “User Advocate”

• Principal, Nielsen Norman Group, user experience consultants

• The web’s “Usability Czar”

Nielsen on Animation

• Continuity -- track changes during transition

• Dimensionality -- orient transition

• Change over Time

• Multiple information in one space

• Enriched graphical representation

• Attracting attention

Nielsen on Flash

• 99% Bad

• Encourages Design Abuse

• Breaks fundamental interaction principles

• Distracts attention from site’s core value

Nielsen on Flash

• Gratuitous Animation

• Presentation style over Interaction

• Nonstandard UI controls

• Doesn’t interact with standard browser controls and settings

• 2002 update!

• Nielsen works directly with MM now

Donald Norman

• Cognitive Scientist / Engineer

• Other Half of the Nielsen Norman Group

• Former VP, Apple ATG

• Design of Everyday Things (2002 reissue of 1988’s Psychology of Everyday Things

Norman on Designing Things

• Affordances– Perceived and actual properties of a thing– Causality, e.g. doors

• Constraints– Limit the possibilities (scissors vs. digital watches)

• Mappings– Set of possible operations between affordances

and constraints– Natural and Synthetic mappings

Feedback

• Giving the user information about what action has taken place

• Telephone examples• Feedback is harder on new technology

platforms• Feedback comes at a cost

Conceptual Models

• Forming a mental model of the thing• Mentally simulating its operation• Making things visible in the conceptual model

=> better, easier use

Edward Tufte

• Statistician and Information Designer

• THE information design theorist

• Professor Emeritus, Yale

• Graphics Press

Micro/Macro Design

• An Overview with the ability to compare and sort through detail

• Condensation and Personalization• Multiple and hierarchical layers of interaction• Isometric Map of Midtown Manhattan• Vietnam Memorial

Kim Vicente

• Human Factors Engineer

• Medical and Environmental Industries (esp. Nuclear energy)

Human Tech

• More serious than just Norman Doors– Nuclear power, medical equipment, environmental

equipment, etc.

• Humanistic and Mechanistic View– Political– Organizational– Team– Psychological– Physical