1. User Centered Design
Lecture # 5
Gabriel Spitz

2. Problem with User Interfaces
Nearly 25% of all applications projects fail
Overrun budgets due to frequent changes to functionality and task flow
Products are hard to learn and difficult to use
Users are often slowed down, they make mistakes and they are unhappy with the product – The product is not centered around their:
Needs – User wants to do A but system does not allow it
Capabilities – User can not see the handle (paint)
Experiences – User does not know what “expunge” means
It is not User Centered
Gabriel Spitz

3. UI Design Principles Meeting User Needs
Visibility - Expose the interaction to the user
Controllability - Let the user control the interaction
Learnability - Capitalize on what the user already knows
Consistency -Maintain consistency at the interface
Feedback – Keep the user in the loop
Memorability - Minimize reliance on user memory
Tolerance - Minimize the impact of user error
Aesthetic – Ensure good visual design; it matters
Affordance – Let controls guide the user
Know your user
Gabriel Spitz

4. Example of a Poor Interface Design
There is a nice hierarchy, but no headers. Users need to examine all the tabs
Gabriel Spitz

5. To design a usable interface we need to adopt a User Centered Design approach (UCD)
Gabriel Spitz

6. Example of a User Interface Design Concept: Active Time Out

7. Surgical Time Out A mandatory pre-surgery verification checklist
Designed to:
Eliminate human errors
Ensure that valuable pre-surgery procedures were performed e.g., give antibiotic to reduce infection
Ensuring that everybody on the clinical team is aware of basic case information e.g., allergies
Provide an opportunity for a team introduction and a team huddle
Gabriel Spitz

8. Surgical Time Out - Poster
Gabriel Spitz

9. Observations on Poster Time-Out Usage
Time-out is always performed, but it is performed fast and often with minimal attention
The focus of many surgical teams is on the “Challenge” not on the data
Team members often move around during time-out and can easily miss an item (not hear it)
Team members seemed reluctant to challenge the time-out leader
Gabriel Spitz

10. What is Needed
Help the teams focus to the challenges as well as the data
Ensure a common baseline understanding of the case details among team member
Increase the likelihood of detecting errors
Help team members challenge assumptions about the case
Gabriel Spitz

11. Organization of an Interface
Checklist Panel
Checklist Focus Aras
Challenge Category
Challenge
Cross Checked Information
Option Selector

12. Initiating the process
Mechanism
User Intent

21. The Design of Active Time Out
Goal
Encourage users to perform the check
Ensure awareness of the detail
Provide a paper trail
Some UI design principles that were followed
Minimize interaction
Provide predictability as to how long the process will take
Compatibility with how people read
Provide a focal point for discussion
Overall design philosophy – focus on user
Gabriel Spitz

22. What is User Centered Design
A design approach that place the user at the core of the design process
It is not centered on:
Technology or what a technology can do
Developer or what a developer knows how to do
Aesthetics or what looks beautiful
Although all of the above and more are important factors in the design
Gabriel Spitz

23. Some Variations on UCD
Goal centered – Design toward what the user is trying to achieve
Usage centered – Design around how users will use an application or a product
Work centered – Design to optimize the work users perform
These approaches are user centered, but they conceptualize the user within a context of what users do
These approaches include usefulness in addition to usability as their goal
Gabriel Spitz

24. Developer Centered Interface?
What makes this design more developer centric then user centric design?
Organization of the information
Use of technical jargon
Gabriel Spitz

25. Objectives of User Centered Design
Support the design of products that:
Help users achieve their goals
Are compatible with users’ characteristics
Meet users’ needs
Gabriel Spitz

26. Principles of User Centered Design (1)
John Gould (1988)
Early focus on users
Establish direct contact with users to understand their characteristics, needs, and motivation
Specify measurable usability goals that the new system should meet
Integrated design
All aspects of usability evolve in parallel – displays, controls, documentation, etc.
All aspects of usability under one focus-Design, documentation, evaluation
Gabriel Spitz

27. Principles of User Centered Design (2)
Early and continual evaluation
Measure the performance and reaction of the intended users when they do real work with simulation and prototypes of the user interface
Iterative design
The user interface as well as the functionality of the system is modified based upon results of users’ input and test results
Involve users in the design
Gabriel Spitz

28. Why Involve Users in the Design
User Interface design is still a craft
Our ability to predict human behavior during interaction with a given UI is limited
Users’ needs extend over several domains including personal, professional, organizational
Users’ needs change from situation to situation and time to time
Our understanding of the processes underlying HCI are limited
We need users’ input and feedback
Gabriel Spitz

29. Benefits of Involving the User
User inform designers about their jobs
What is involved in their jobs
What tools they use
How these tools are used
Users help developers identify what could be useful
What is missing in current application or tool
Users try prototype and comment on it
Developers make incremental changes and iterate
Gabriel Spitz

30. Factors to Consider in User Centered Design
Organizational Factors
Environmental Factors
Health & Safety Factors
Comfort Factors
The User
User Interface technologies
Task Factors
Cognitive process / capabilities
Input devices, output displays, use of color,
Easy, complex, novel
Equipment layout
Stress
Training, job design, politics
Noise, lighting
Gabriel Spitz

31. User-Centered Design at its best?
Developers working with target users
Help define what the system will do and how
Lots of iterative exploration and feedback
Think of the world from users’ perspective
Users and customers are not the same person
Understand work process
Points where human and computers interact
Gabriel Spitz

32. Summary
User-centered design is different than traditional technology approaches
Leads to solving use problems up front
Cheaper
It involves users and know - how about users
Gabriel Spitz