SIMS 213: User Interface Design &

Development

Marti Hearst

Thurs, Jan 18, 2001

Announcements

Sign up for the is213 mailing list– Mail to majordomo@sims– “subscribe is213”– Do the necessary email exchanges

Talk on Tuesday– Paul Pangaro: Who's Wants To Be Prototyper? The End-User

Does - A Subversive Perspective for HCI– 4:00-5:30, 202 South Hall

An additional required book

Readings

Do indicated readings before the class Required:

– Course Reader (available early next week)– Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Engineering– Jeff Johnson, Jeff Johnson, GUI BloopersGUI Bloopers

Class Projects

Design, prototype, and evaluate an interface– Iterate four times– Emphasis on web-based interfaces– Ok to redesign an existing interface

MUST work in groups of 3-4 people– Team structure– Students will assess amount of work being done by

others in the group

Slide adapted from James Landay

Teams vs. Managed Groups

Managed Groups– strong leader– individual accountability

– organizational purpose– individual work products– efficient meetings– measures performance by

influence on others– delegates work

Teams– shared leadership– individual & mutual

accountability– specific team purpose– collective work products– open-ended meetings– measures performance

from work products– does real work together

Teams & good performance are inseparable

Slide adapted from James Landay

Keys to Team Success

Common commitment– requires a purpose in which team members can believe

“prove that all children can learn”, “revolutionizing X…” Specific performance goals

– comes directly from the common purpose “increasing the scores of graduates form 40% to 95%”

– helps maintain focus – start w/ something achievable A right mix of skills

– technical/functional expertise (programming/cogsci/writing)– problem-solving & decision-making skills– interpersonal skills

Agreement– who will do particular jobs, when to meet & work, schedules

Slide adapted from James Landay

Team Action Items

Meet and get used to each other Figure out strengths of team members Assign each person a role

– responsible for seeing work is organized & done– not responsible for doing it themselves

Roles– design (visual & interaction)– software– user testing

– group manager (coordinate big picture)

– documentation (writing)

Assignment: Project Proposal

Decide on project goals and members– Use class list to exchange ideas

Recommendations:– Find a project for which you have ready access to people who

would be real users of the system– Look at the projects from last time to get a feeling for the

scope. Due date:

– Proposals due Tuesday Jan 30th (< 2 weeks)– We’ll give feedback and might ask you to revise it.

Why is Usability Important?

Good design promotes– Effectiveness and efficiency– Feelings of satisfaction, enjoyment

Bad design threatens– Safety– Accuracy

Designing for Usability

Interaction design is humbling– Your attempt may work right, look great– But … users may not be able to use it– Don’t take it personally! That’s why we iterate!

Good vs. Bad Design

Avoiding bad design– It is often easy to detect a bad design – just try it with a few

users– It can be fun to spot the flows

UI Hall of Shame http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm Web Pages that S*ck http://www.webpagesthats*ck.com/

It is a bit harder to learn / teach good design– Strategies:

Look at & appreciate good examples Follow best practices Be willing to redesign Get lots of practice!

Studying Good Examples

Some sites just do things well– Amazon has pioneered many excellent interaction designs for

the web Suggesting related products in an effective way (sometimes) Useful and timely content Tabs to organize main kinds of content 1-click purchasing Good checkout mechanism Willing to experiment

– Yahoo also (although the structure of the hierarchy is now broken)

– Epicurious.com – an excellent recipe site

Studying Good Examples

Good design ideas can be taken too far …

Amazon’s current use of tabs

What are the motivations? More or less effective than earlier?

Metaphor and Analogy

Metaphor– L. metaphora, fr. to carry over, transfer; meta` beyond, over– The transference of the relation between one set of objects to another

set for the purpose of brief explanation (Webster’s revised) Analogy

– A resemblance of relations; an agreement or likeness between things in some circumstances or effects, when the things are otherwise entirely different. (Webster’s revised)

– 1. Similarity in some respect between things that are otherwise dissimilar: "the operation of a computer presents an interesting analogy to the working of the brain“ (WordNet)

– 2: (logic) inference that if things agree in some respects they probably agree in others (WordNet)

Slide adapted from James Landay

Metaphor

Lakoff & Johnson– “...the way we think, what we experience, and what we do

every day is very much a matter of metaphor.'' – in our language & thinking - “argument is war”

…he attacked every weak point ... criticisms right on target ... if you use that strategy

We can use metaphor to highlight certain features & suppress others

– There is some systematicity to the transference

What are some example interface metaphors?

Direct Manipulation uses a Metaphor

Metaphor– Computer objects as visible, moveable objects

Consequences– Items represented as icons– Items can be “picked up” and “moved” on a surface– Items can be “thrown out”– Items can be “copied”

Do we really want to have to drag them to a photocopier?

How much is too much?

Direct Manipulation Metaphor

DLITE makes heavy use of direct manipulation metaphors But it isn’t supposed to be just like in the real world Take what works, omit the rest

The Desktop Metaphor

Started at Xerox PARC – Xerox Star (see video)– Bitmapped screens made it possible

Not meant to be a real desktop– Idea is to organize information in a way to allow people to use it in the way

they user information on their desktops– Allow windows to overlap – make the screen act as if there were objects on it

Apple took it farther– Waste basket, etc

Microsoft took it to extremes– Microsoft Bob – a recognized failure

Macintosh Desktop

Caldera’s Desktop

Microsoft Bob’s Desktop Metaphor

Microsoft Bob’s Livingroom –

Almost not a metaphor anymore!

Selection Dialog Boxes

How are they using metaphors? How are they breaking them? Do they work well or is there a better

alternative?

SPSS Selection Dialog

SPSS Selection Dialog

Identify the mis-matched metaphors(from the Interface Hall of Shame)

The classic (from the mac desktop)– To eject a disk you drag it to the trashcan

Identify the mis-matched metaphors(from the Interface Hall of Shame)

VCR buttons to control a printer??

Identify the mis-matched metaphors(from the Interface Hall of Shame)

Using tabs to make arbitrary groups

For next time:

Read Cooper chapters 9-11 Read Johnson chapter 1