1. Don Norman’s User-Centered Design
Applied to teaching
Final Cut Pro for Digital Video Editing
Kent Golden

2. What is User Centered Design?
User-centered design is the process in which the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user are given priority during the phases of design.
Don Norman’s guidelines suggest optimizing the user interface and experiences, based on how people are able, and want to work, instead of forcing them to adapt and change themselves to work better with the system as designed.

3. “Pilot error” and “human error”
“Darn these hooves! I hit the wrong switch again! Who designs these instrument panels, raccoons?”

4. “Pilot error” and “human error”
“The Fuel Light’s on, Frank! We’re all going to die!... We’re all going to die!... Wait, wait…Oh, my mistake – that’s the intercom light.”

5. Human Factors: Is the elevator stuck or is the reactor about to melt-down?

6. Affordances: Door Quiz
Say out loud what action you should use to open the door:
Push
Pull

13. Do These help solve the problem?
Mean – do they help average person, not tech support person. Error should say – close the program and re-open. If that doesn’t work, reboot. If that doesn’t work, call tech support.

14. Norman’s “Seven Principles for Transforming Difficult Tasks into Simple Ones” (Norman 1988):
Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
Simplify the structure of tasks.
Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation.
Get the mappings right.
Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
Design for error.
When all else fails, standardize.

15. Apple’s Final Cut Pro Digital Video editing program Expensive ($1,299)
Difficult to use (manuals)
The standard (especially in Apple circles)
Education
Art
Very useful once you are familiar with it
Show manuals. Example video? Not just advanced iMovie

16. Target Population College undergraduates attending Yale University
No prior experience with FCP, but some with graphics programs
Workshops at the Yale Digital Media Center for the Arts (DMCA)
Many art students (especially those in the fields of Sculpture and Photography) have a need to learn Final Cut Pro to:
Record and showcase other art projects
Create a video project as a direct expression of art

17. Instructional Tasks
Encode digital video from a video deck to a Mac workstation
Edit the video:
Add titles
Video transitions
Music
Video effects
Export the video to a QuickTime file that can be burned to a DVD.

18. Applying Theory to Instruction
Norman’s 7 User Centered Design principles applied to FCP instruction.

19. Use both knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head.
“Knowledge in the World” refers to information that exists in the world that we don’t need to memorize to utilize.
Don’t need to be able to recall every distinctive feature of a penny to be able to identify one and use it.
Loose keyboard letters to professional typists. They were not able to arrange them in the proper configuration.
Scaffolding from the world
“Knowledge in the Head” refers to memorization
Info-processing theory STM / LTM / Attention (all limited)
Phone tech support with no visual
Utilize what KITH they do have – analogies, Photoshop layers
After workshop, info usually gone. Provide portable “Knowledge in the World”
Custom Handouts (screen shots, digital photos)
Keyboard shortcuts at top
Focus on project, not notes.
KITW is like scaffolding – can do a lot if there is information around you that you can work with.

20. Simplify the structure of tasks.
Make tasks simple in structure
Minimize problem solving or planning required to execute tasks.
Pay close attention to the psychology and limits of the end-user
Short-term memory
Long-term memory
Attention
Applied to FCP workshops
Set specific project for all to work on
Limit scope of workshop
Make it entertaining and relevant to students (Attention)
Limit scope – if really off-topic, talk about individually or after class.
Contrasts with constructivism

21. Make things visible: bridge the gulfs of Execution and Evaluation.
Things should be visible so that people know what is possible and how to do them.
People should know what is currently going on and what to do next.
FCP shortcomings
Encoding video – How find? Name?
Transcoding audio
Help – need to know what you don’t know
To overcome:
Provide overall flow needed to accomplish end goal
Provide specific steps on how to do something
Class follows flow so that students know what is currently going on (with instruction) and what is next.
Show FCP and how to get to log and capture.
No indication of transcoding audio. Won’t play.
Don’t just start giving directions (click her, now click here) – need to know what current goal is.

22. Get the mappings right.
make sure that the user can determine the relationships:
Between intentions and possible actions
Between actions and their effects on the system
Between actual system state and what is perceivable by sight, sound, or feel
Between the perceived system state and the needs, intentions, and expectations of the user.
FCP problems:
Hidden commands
Error messages
Unrendered effects
Media Limit on V1
To overcome:
Point out common problems in instruction and handouts
Point students to online webboards
– many times having problem and cause is program – think you’ve tried everything, and it turns out to be a small setting or slight variation in a process. Need reminder (handout or web board).

23. Exploit the power of constraints, both natural and artificial.
“Use constraints so that the user feels as if there is only one possible thing to do – the right thing of course” - Don Norman
Lego motorcycle policeman
FCP problems
Thousands of actions possible
No work flow guidance
To overcome:
Create constraints
Create guidelines
What students have in their mind that they want to do is pretty simple – create constraints based on that goal.

24. Design for error
“Assume that any error that can be made will be made. Plan for it. Think of each action by the user as an attempt to step in the right direction; an error is simply an action that is incompletely or improperly specified” – Don Norman
Error Messages
Do not help determine what went wrong
Do not help to fix problem
Do not help avoid in the future
FCP Example: Linking of Audio and Video
Very common
No error message
Audio/Video out of sync
To overcome:
Assume it will happen
Warn of danger
Show how to fix if it happens
When covering CD audio – reiterate
Error when reading handouts
carefully word certain things – location of buttons, show pictures with arrows
catch errors with iterative design trials
Show in FCP linking.

25. When all else fails, standardize
Standardization is a way to deal with things that cannot be designed without arbitrary mappings.
Keyboard layouts
Traffic signals
Units of measurement
Useful as long as
everyone uses the same
system
FCP Problem:
Setting paths for FCP files
To overcome:
Pick a standard – desktop “My FCP Project”
Across students and time – same file location
Related: Set all Macs to same file system view
There is little or no compelling reason to have them designed in one way versus another (i.e. why can’t traffic lights be blue, clocks spin counter-clockwise, or a foot be 13 inches?),
All macs with same view – could be any of the 3 views, but need to all be seeing same thing

26. Assessment Content knowledge vs. user experience Observe behaviors:
Do people stare blankly at handouts?
Complete sample project?
Able to work on their own after workshops?
Feedback forms
Iterative design – use feedback to improve future instruction.
They are not expected to become experts in Final Cut Pro with two workshops, but if the instruction can give them a solid foundation of the basics and instill in them the confidence that they can eventually master the program, that would be considered a success.

27. Critics
Don Norman’s newer book, “Emotional Design”, reflects on his own overly reductive approach in POET, when more than just utility needs to be considered.
Example: Standard vs. Automatic transmission
Constructivists:
Complexity vs. Simplifying the structure of tasks
Encouraging problem solving vs. Reducing it
Can’t have Jasper Woodbury in every situation
Edward Tufte
Program should be transparent and allow work to happen with minimal interference
While I think that the learning that takes place with programs such as Jasper Woodbury is fantastic, it is also not realistic to put 13 students in a room with Final Cut Pro installed on the computers and tell them to “have at it”, then try to guide them along by not directly answering questions so that they can discover things for themselves. Little would get accomplished in the allotted 4 hours, and I imagine frustration levels with Final Cut Pro would be exceedingly high (as would the attrition rate for workshops attendance).

28. Edward Tufte
Not a critic of Norman per se, but opposite end of design spectrum.
OK for graphic design, bad for program design or web design.

29. My own thoughts
All had frustrating experiences with bad design, especially with technology
Audio/Video systems
Websites – is that a button?
Authoring programs
Tech support
Error messages
UCD offers solid guidelines for good design
Feedback forms about handouts

30. For more information: www.jnd.org Questions?