Interaction Design CMU

Today’s objectives Continue Design approaches (UCD, ACD)  User-Centered Design  Activity-Centered Design

The process of interaction design Video: Tim Mott - watching users Paul Bradley - model building, user testing for the mouse

Four threads of technical development 1) Prototyping and Iterative Development 3) Software Psychology and Human Factors 2) New User Interface Software 4) Models, Theories, and Frameworks Software crisis in the 60’s…

Requirement Definition System & Software Design Implementation Unit Testing Integration & System Testing Operation & Maintenance Waterfall Life Cycle Model User involvement Sequential phases Each phase complete before the next

Iterative design process User Testing Design Prototyping Involve users throughout the process Process is highly iterative From linear to iterative processes

Approaches to IxD

General Approaches in IxD 1. Focus on users 2. Find alternatives 3. Use ideation and prototyping 4. Collaborate and address constraints 5. Create appropriate solutions 6. Draw on a wide range of influences 7. Incorporate emotion

Four main approaches to working on interaction design projects User-centered design (UCD) Activity-centered design Systems design Genius design

User-Centered Design Process 1.Identifying needs 2.Establish requirements 3.Develop alternative designs to meet needs 4.Build prototypes that can be communicated and assessed 5.Evaluate - throughout process evaluate what is being built and user experience it offers

UCD : Designer Roles Involve users in every stage of project. Consult users at start to see if project addresses needs. Conduct extensive research to determine user goals. Ideation, users brought in to help generate concepts - known as Participatory design. Evaluate and test prototypes with users.

User-Centered Design Premise of UCD:  Users know best.  Users of product or service know what their needs, goals, and preferences are.  Designers must find those things and design for them.

UCD : Designer Roles Designers facilitate achievement of users' goals. Participation from users at every stage process, ideally. Designers try to fit products to people, not people to products.

People must adapt to or accommodate the design. Source:

Wait to see where people walked – paths formed Fit products to people instead people to products.

Wait to see where people walked – paths formed Fit products to people instead people to products.

UCD : Designer Roles UCD is best at getting designers to move away from their own preferences  … and to focus on user preferences.

IBM

IBM | User-Centered Design principles 1. Set business goals Determine market, users, and competition. 2. Understand users 3. Assess competitiveness Ongoing awareness of competition. 4. Design total user experience (UX) Everything a user sees and touches 5. Evaluate designs 6. Manage by continual user observation Source:

IBM | User-Centered Design process 1. Market definition  Define the target audience… 2. Task analysis  Understand the users' goals and tasks… 3. Competitive evaluation  Determine strengths and weaknesses of competition. 4. Design and walk-through  Create alternative proposed solutions, solicit feedback… 5. Evaluation and validation  User feedback on the evolving design and iterate design… 6. Benchmark assessment  Benchmark assessment against competition… Source:

Activity Centered Design

Activity-Centered Design Roots in Activity theory - when people interact with environment, production of tools results. Tools are "exteriorized" forms of mental processes.

Activity-Centered Design Decision-making and internal mental state of user de-emphasized. What people do and tools they create are most important – not user. I want to be able to…

Activity-Centered Design ACD allows designers to focus on the work at hand and create support for activity itself.

Activity-Centered Design Suited for:  complicated actions  products with many diverse users.

Activity-Centered Design Focused not necessarily on user’s goals but on actions and decisions, known as tasks. Here, task is most important, not user goals. Looking for most efficient and effective way to complete task. Many different people may be in this job.

Activity-Centered Design Like UCD, ACD relies on research as the basis for its insights. Observe and interview users for insight about behavior. Catalog users activities and tasks, and design solutions to help users accomplish tasks.

An Agile Approach to User Experience and Design

Agile Manifesto Uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:  Individuals and interactions over processes and tools  Working software over comprehensive documentation  Customer collaboration over contract negotiation  Responding to change over following a plan

IBM

1. Incorporating continuous user feedback All stakeholders (principals, users, partners/deployers, and developers) should be an integral part of the design and development team.

2) Working across multiple iterations User research and high-level design before code development, even though design will change over iterations. User research and design for a specific iteration should precede the actual code development for that release. Usability evaluations with live code after the milestone is made available to users.

3) Understanding your stakeholders User research should include  a definition of the roles,  personas,  goals,  tasks,  environment of use, and  limitations and constraints. Use cases and user stories should be used to describe the overall value of the product.

4) Designing the user experience Use high-fidelity prototyping for user interactions that are difficult to code (to eliminate waste). Get iterative user feedback on designs prior to code development to ensure development time is well spent. Product builds can also be used for early user feedback and evaluation. Design must be communicated to the development team. Design changes should be communicated through daily meetings.