Human Interface Engineering1 Main Title, 60 pt., U/L case LS=.8 lines Introduction to Human Interface Engineering NTU Seminar Amy Ma HIE Global Director May 27, 2003

Human Interface Engineering2 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Agenda HIE Key Functions UI Design –Product Usability and Look & Feel –What Is Usability? Why? –Design Usability into Products –User Centered Design (UCD) Process –Related Fields –UI Engineer Job Requirements

Human Interface Engineering3 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line HIE Key Functions UI Design User research User interaction design Graphic design Technical Writing Technical documentation Online help Localization UI and manual translation into local languages

Human Interface Engineering4 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line UI Design Be responsible for product usability and look & feel

Human Interface Engineering5 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line What Is usability? According to ISO 9241 Part 11: Usability is the extend to which a product can be used by specific users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specific context of use.

Human Interface Engineering6 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line What Is the Cost of Poor Usability? To the customer: Lost productivity Lost business opportunities Increased training and support costs Underutilized equipment and software To company: Lost revenue and market share Slower customer acceptance of new products Increased service and support costs Public image as “unfriendly”

Human Interface Engineering7 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line The User Interface The user interface is a shared boundary between the user and the system, providing access to the system functions. It includes two parts: The visual (look and feel): Buttons, pull-down menus, checkboxes, layout, background colors, etc. The interaction: The coordination of the information exchange between the user and the system – the depth and scope of a system’s usability To the user, the user interface is the computer…

Human Interface Engineering8 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Design Usability into Products Design Principles: –Early and continual focus on users and tasks –Early and continual user testing –Iterative design Conscientious application of these principles guarantees acceptable usability A simple usability design guideline: Minimize the effort to perform a given function or task

Human Interface Engineering9 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line User Centered Design Process Know who the user is Understand user needs and tasks Be aware of product competitions Drive design based upon user goals and tasks Iterative design and evaluation

Human Interface Engineering10 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Requirement Phase User & task analysis via customer visit / interview

Human Interface Engineering11 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Customer Visit Example Before Customer Visit Product requirements included some reporting features. Most features were based upon what data available from the system. UI engineers needed more customer data to drive design  UI engineers initiated customer visit and phone interview

Human Interface Engineering12 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line After Customer Visit User friendly reporting functions are created…

Human Interface Engineering13 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line After Customer Visit - Continued Report creation wizard is built…

Human Interface Engineering14 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Customer Visit Benefits Most effective for Requirement Phase Understand who we design for and in what context Derive realistic use cases and product goals Sometimes, validate product design by showing prototypes Feed customer data to functional groups Build customer relationship

Human Interface Engineering15 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Design Phase – High Level Conceptual Design Focus on concepts, navigation, user task modeling

Human Interface Engineering16 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Design Phase – High Level Conceptual Design Focus on concepts, navigation, user task modeling

Human Interface Engineering17 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Design Phase – Detailed Design with Specifications Include look and feel and final text strings

Human Interface Engineering18 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Design Phase - Usability Testing

Human Interface Engineering19 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Usability Testing Example 1 Before the testing Menu category design is based upon the user senior Users had hard time finding functions to perform tasks: –How to do “ scan” –What’s “my computer” –How to do “Schedule scan” –Firewall setting

Human Interface Engineering20 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Usability Testing Example 1 After the testing Menu category is based upon product feature categorized information Users found it is easy to find what they were looking for – more intuition

Human Interface Engineering21 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Usability Testing Example 2 Before the testing Users had hard time finishing the task of creating a notification Notification had a high failure rate (90-100%) with many popup screens

Human Interface Engineering22 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Usability Testing Example 2 After the testing Re-designed notification to use tabs instead of popup screens This increased overall efficiency for the task of creating a notification

Human Interface Engineering23 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Usability Test Benefits Most effective for Design and Construction phases Identify show stopper before it is too late Locate problematic areas for usability improvement before it is released Capture feature requirements for next release Ideally, all project team members should observe how their products are evaluated by users

Human Interface Engineering24 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Construction, Alpha, Beta Phase UI Review –Ensure product UI is implemented according to the UI design specifications –Conduct internal usability inspections –Keep track of UI defects and resolutions Beta Customer Survey –Collect customer feedback on early shipments of product to evaluate product effectiveness in real world environments

Human Interface Engineering25 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line UI Related Field - Human Factors Human Factors are characteristics of people – capacities and limitations that set limits for the design of systems that we use. The characteristics include perception, learning, memory, and performance, that is, cognition or human information processing. Human Factors is a discipline which applies concepts and research methods from these areas to the design of safe and usable systems. Reference: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Human Interface Engineering26 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line UI Related field - Human Computer Interaction Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is the study of people, computer technology and the ways these influence each other. We study HCI to determine how we can make this computer technology more usable by people. Graduate Education in US Human-Computer Interaction Institute - Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA School of Information - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI Human-Computer Interaction - Stanford University, Stanford, CA References: Human-Computer Interaction Resources

Human Interface Engineering27 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Requirements for a UI Engineer Experience developing GUI for enterprise software Familiar with HTML, XML, JavaScript, VBScript, CSS, Visual Basic, and C++ Experience in User-centered design approach and user- research awareness Excellent communication and teamwork skills Bachelor/Master degree in HCI, psychology, cognitive science, or computer science

Human Interface Engineering28 RUNNING HEADER, 14 PT., ALL CAPS, Line Spacing=1 line Q & A