2505ICT User Interface Design

Course organisation  Course Convenor and lecturer Marilyn Ford, L08 Room 2.20,  The course website  The course textbook Exploring Interface Design, 2005, Marc Silver

Assessment and available marks  Lab Exercises (days 1 –12) 12 x 2 marks = 24  Individual Project Reports #1: due beginning of lab, day 5 (16 marks) #2: due beginning of lab, day 9 (20 marks) #3: due beginning of class, day 13 (20 marks)  Presentation on group project (day 13) Individual marks = 20

Day 1  Lecture on chapter 1

Objectives of lecture 1  Understand some of the costs associated with poor user interface design  Understand the importance of client and user requirements before beginning to design a software project  Understand why it is important to create designs on paper before beginning coding

Some basic terminology  User Interface (UI) is the means by which people interact with a computer to achieve their aim The person’s interaction with the computer is called human-computer interaction (HCI) or computer-human interaction  The term user experience recognises that when using the software, users have experiences that have been orchestrated by (caused by) the designers of the software.

The user experience 

In the old days  The users of software were often the users of the software or specialists in a field  The general public did not use software  Even specialists needing computer output did not use the software  So, it did not matter what the interface was like

Then …  Personal computers became popular during the 80s and 90s and so the general public came to use software regularly  The users’ tolerance for hard-to-use software was low  Their expectations of the software running on their computers were higher than expectations had been for software running on the corporate mainframe  Things started to change, and still are changing

Designing with user in mind  More and more today, there is a push to design with the user in mind  [ISO 13407] "The usability of an interface is a measure of the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular environment with that interface."

Usability  Effectiveness The accurateness and completeness with which specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular environment  Efficiency The use of minimum effort by the user to accurately and completely achieve a specified goal in a particular environment  Satisfaction The users’ comfort with and acceptability of the software

Ways of imagining the cost of bad UID  Imagine being stuck in a room with no visible way to get out being lost in a foreign country and being unable to communicate with anyone being forced to make a decision with serious consequences when you don’t understand the choices being on a highway with too many signs competing for your attention having to reintroduce yourself every time you see your best friends having to walk around the block every time you want to move from one room to another in your house being hungry, but unable to figure out how to open the refrigerator hiring an employee who refuses to do what you ask and makes you feel stupid for asking

Similar things happen when you have bad UID  Some examples: You’re taken to a web page with no visible means of getting back to a known page A group of buttons is displayed with cryptic icons whose meaning or function you cannot guess A web page presents a confusing array of choices, poorly organized links, ambiguously labeled buttons, and meaningless graphic images You’re forced to retype the identical user information that you provided to the same site yesterday A tutorial program requires that you click the right arrow through 25 screens of information to get to the review quiz you were working on yesterday A dialog box gives you 2 choices, neither of which you want

Satisfy the clients and the users  To do this, you must: Understand the clients and the USERS Find out what the client and the USERS want Get feedback from clients and USERS from the very beginning and throughout the design process Take notice of feedback you obtain Don’t blame users for having trouble with your software Adhere to established design principles

Think of UID as architecture  Would you build a structure without designing it on paper first?  Would you develop a prototype or model of it before building the real thing?  The term “information architect” is sometimes used to describe user interface designers, especially those working out the structuring of the information presented in the software  Just as architects use blueprints to specify their design, so user interface designers can use sketches or partial implementations to help specify their design and get feedback on the design  Don’t fall into the trap of heading straight for the computer when given a project... before you head for the computer, get information from potential users and develop sketches and prototypes

One principle to keep in mind - consistency  Consistency placements have become the de facto standard in design  Deviating from expected conventions does have its place, such as when the goals of the site are to defy such convention  Think of (non-IT) examples where convention is not adhered to … think of the trouble this can lead to … it is the same with software  If you do deviate from convention, make sure that it is for a reason that you believe will enhance the user’s experience

Don’t be like Dilbert!