Overview of Standards and Guidelines laura leventhal

Readings  protobook - chpt. 9

Human Factors Information that Influences a User Interaction Design and Evaluation  UI Guidelines  UI Standards  Commercial Platform Guidelines  Customized style guide

General User Interaction and Interface Guidelines  Publicly available wisdom or suggestions  Based on research and practice  Requires skill and training to apply

Smith & Mosier  Smith & Mosier guidelines are the most well-known –The S&M guidelines are oriented toward non-windowed, alphanumeric terminals –The S&M guidelines are available on macs or pc's in a digital form. –We will show overhead of checklist for design evaluation.

More Examples  Chapter 7 of Protobook  Visual Design Guidelines - End of Chpt 9  Top Ten Blunders

Commercial Platform Guidelines –Vendor, like Apple, defines the guidelines and makes them commercially available. –Applications can then advertise that they adhere to the standard for UI. –More concrete and useful framework for design than general guidelines or government standards. –What do they define?

Examples  CUA  Many other platforms have guidelines as well.

Commercial Platform Guidelines - Plusses  General guidelines (e.g. Chpt 7) have good points but may not be specific enough for design. Commercial Platform Guidelines tend to much more specific.  Commercial Platform Guidelines are often based on research.  Commercial Platform Guidelines often have a commercial toolkit or development environment.  Transitions across hardware platforms should be seamless when the platforms conform to Commercial Platform Guidelines.  Commercial Platform Guidelines promote consistency and standardization across applications  Commercial Platform Guidelines promote “transfer of training” from one application to the next so long as the applications comply with Commercial Platform Guidelines.

Commercial Platform Guidelines - Minuses  Commercial Platform Guidelines alone do not insure interface usability. Commercial Style Guides often describe look and feel of parts but do not tell you how to assemble.  For example, Commercial Platform Guidelines may proscribe appearance of individual buttons but does not tell you where to put buttons or how to group.  Application may be faster, more efficient or have better task match if it is not compliant with the Commercial Platform Guidelines.  For example pie menus are very fast in a menu with few options but are outside of the Commercial Platform Guidelines for most commercial platforms.

External Standards  An External Standard is an Official document  Often published by a government agency  Publicly available  The purpose is to give requirements for a particular agency or official organization.  External Standards may be enforceable by control or law  External Standards are often characterized by general wording

Example Standards  ISO 9241 –17 parts covering the physical design of computers and terminals and design of UI to software  In US - HFES 200 –Similar to ISO 9241, under ANSI review

Example - Standards  MIL-STD-1472C. –Mostly vague and difficult to enforce.  "display contents shall be presented in a consistent, standardized way"  "flash coding used only to draw the user's attention to mission critical events..."

Project Guidelines  User Interface Development teams should always produce a customized set of Project Guidelines.  Project Guidelines should be evaluated and validated.  Project Guidelines are customized to the project or projects  Project Guidelines can be used to mediate decision- making and maintain a record of decisions.