SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Tues, Jan 20, 2004

Administrivia Course TA: –Nadine Fiebrich Grading: –Individual assignments: 20% –Midterm: 30% –Project: Many milestone assignments – required, must be done on time, but not graded –will receive comments/feedback instead. Final project gets a grade at the end – counts 50%

Alternative names for this course User Interface Design, Prototyping, and Evaluation Human-computer Interaction

Why is HCI Important? It can determine who becomes president of the USA!

A Related Problem Evaluate the figures in a research paper

A Related Problem What’s wrong with this table? Redesign: add space between the columns.

Palm Beach Phone Book (a joke)

Problems The instructions are misleading –Use of the phrase “vote for group” is misleading Should say “vote for one” –Instructions only on lefthand side Implies righthand side is different The interleaving of holes is misleading –Only the president page has this layout –Other offices are one per page (with appropriate instructions) The sample ballot looks different –No holes – the source of the problem –Did not lead to complaints

Other Issues People vote infrequently –Have to re-learn the system each time Rushed, uncomfortable circumstances Palm Beach Demographics: Elderly

How to know if it will work? Test out the design! –Have real people use it! –Try to match the appropriate demographics –Even a few tries can turn up major problems

An Informal Usability Study Barbara Jacobowitz, CHI-WEB, Nov 10, 2000 “I was able to print 10 different sample ballots from various sources. Last night, I ran them all by my mother (81) and a group of her friends (70-something to 80's). All are bright, literate, and none are legally blind. They did reasonably well on 9 of the ballots. On one, 6 marked it incorrectly and didn't realize it, 2 did it correctly, but very slowly, and 2 had to ask me what to do. Guess which ballot it was?.” Summary of a more formal study of punch-card voting: –

Josephine Scott, CHI-Web, Nov 10, 2000 “I spent fifteen years making the voting process accessible and usable for all… Usability standards must be higher for voting than any other function for the most obvious reasons. Users--in this case, voters, share the need for the clearest of design and instruction to cast a vote properly. Many do not speak English well, or see well, or are able to decipher difficult design cognitively, but they may be able to make as informed a choice for president as our snobbish "experts" who don't see a problem. … Bad design like this exacerbates the problem. The glib notion that "there is no problem because you can see the arrow" or that voters who made this mistake must be stupid shows a lack of compassion. Let me suggest that it is simple compassion for the user that informs usability expertise. …”

More evidence that the ballot is misleading (New York Times, Nov 9, 2000) Percent of ballots thrown out in Palm Beach County for the error of "overvoting" on Presidential candidates: 4.1% (19,120) Percent of ballots thrown out in Palm Beach County for the error of "overvoting" on Senatorial candidates: 0.8% (3,783) Percent of ballots thrown out in Sacramento County (CA) for the error of "overvoting" on Presidential candidates: 0.29% (1,147) Percentage of (unofficial) re-count votes in Gore's favor: 70% (2,520) Percentage of (unofficial) re-count votes in Bush's favor: 30% (1,063)

Blaming the User A huge step backwards: –Cokie Roberts (appearing on David Letterman) “stupidity is not an excuse” Well-designed user interfaces do not present situations in which it is easy to make mistakes Alan Cooper’s mantra: software should not humiliate the user In this class we assume: if the user does something “wrong,” it is usually the fault of the system designer

Readings Do indicated readings before the class Required: –Course Reader (available soon) –Jakob Nielsen’s Usability Engineering –Johnson’s GUI Bloopers Strongly Recommended: – –world.std.com/~uieweb/ –useit.com There are many other wonderful books and websites

Course Schedule (Tentative) Intro to HCI UI Design Cycle, User-Centered Design Goals, Personas, Task Analysis, Scenarios Prototyping Design Techniques Heuristic Evaluation Cognitive Issues and Human Abilities Modes Midterm Usability Testing Research Topics

Project Schedule (Tentative) Note: there will also be individual assignments Dates shown are the week the item is due Project proposals (3 rd week) Project personas and goals (4 th week) Scenarios, tasks, and initial sketches (5 th week) Individual design practice (6 th week) Lo-Fi prototype and test (8 th week) Midterm (9 th week) First interactive prototype (10 th week) Class presentation (10 th week) Project heuristic evaluation (11th week) Second interactive prototype (12th week) Usability test (14th week) Class presentations (15 th week) Third prototype and project writeup (Finals week)

Assignment Join the course list! (is213) –Mail to subscribe Start thinking about projects and team members Look at last year’s projects –