1 - Design, Usability, Experience

Question 1

What is HCI?

Answer 1

Human-computer interaction, deals with design, evaluation, and implementation of interactive computings systems for human use

Question 2

What is the User Interface?

Answer 2

A program that controls display for the user and allows them to interact with the system

Question 3

What’s the difference between an interface and interaction?

Answer 3

Interface - what’s presented to the user (visual, physical, auditory)

Interaction - dialogue between computer and user (actions the user must invoke)

Question 4

List the interactive cycle

Answer 4

1. User formulates goal and plans a method to achieve the goal
2. User translates method into system input language
3. System executes the method instructions and updates state
4. System translates its state into its output language
5. User interprets results, repeat cycle

Question 5

What is the Gulf of Execution?

Answer 5

Manner which user must translate their plans into input the system can understand isn’t always natural/intuitive

e.g: weird Xbox 360 Kinect controls

Question 6

What is the Gulf of Evaluation?

Answer 6

When user has trouble interpreting system output in light of their goals

• bad means gulf widens
• want to make gulf small, but never can be eliminated

Question 7

What is ubiquitous computing?

Answer 7

Idea that technology should fade into environment, shouldnt be conscious that we’re interacting with a computer (interface becomes invisible)

Question 8

What are some factors to ubiquitous computing?

Answer 8

Context - user location, state
Broader I/O - sensors, form factors
Add intelligence - be more situationally appropriate, help a person in a task

Question 9

What’s the Ultimate Goal?

Answer 9

Interface should support tasks that the user wants to perform, user shouldn’t have to adapt behaviour/learn interaction techniques

Question 10

Why is design hard?

Answer 10

1) The user is not like me, could be a wide range of people. Settings are different, lack of familiarity, designers have different skills

2) Judging/predicting which designs will be sucessful is difficult

3) Involves making trade-offs

Question 11

What is appropriation?

Answer 11

When one thing is successfully used for a completely different purpose.
e.g: smartphones are used sitting, walking, driving, etc.

Question 12

What’s designers fallacy?

Answer 12

Designer can design into a technology, its purposes and uses. However, they don’t have control, hope for the best so try to understand people and how they use technology

Question 13

What is a usability goal?

Answer 13

The issue of meeting a specific usability criteria (how well can users interact with a system)

Question 14

What is a user experience goal?

Answer 14

Quality of user’s experience with the system

Question 15

Name and describe common usability goals

Answer 15

1) effectiveness - is system doing what it says it will do?

2) efficiency - how many steps, how long will it take?

3) Safety - does system prevent unrecoverable errors? Provide means for recovering?

4) Utility - does it have sufficient functionality to do the task naturally?

5) Learnability - how easy to learn (time to learn)

6) Memorability - one learned, how easy to remember, will they remember all steps (for infrequent tasks)

Question 16

List some common user experience goals:

Answer 16

satisfying - productive
motivating - didn’t feel like giving up
enjoyable - no frustrations
aesthetically pleasing
fun - excited to use again
supportive of creativity - drawing
entertaining - games
rewarding - sense of productivity
helpful - clueless but still done
emotionally fulfilling

Question 17

Describe the push and pull between usability vs. experience goals

Answer 17

Usability goals often take primary importance, user experience goals are often not easily measured. There are tradeoffs.

Question 18

What are the aspects of a user-centered design process?

Answer 18

• get started in a proven/promising track
• prevents “designer’s block” (getting stuck)
• helps us communicate with others
• more reliable than intuition
• helps keep the users first

Question 19

What are the different stages in the user-centered design process?

Answer 19

Investigate->Ideate -> Prototype->Evaluate (can point to anywhere)-> Produce

Question 20

What is in the “Ideate” phase?

Answer 20

• generate many ideas
• grasp issues and potential solutions (want a high volume of ideas)

Question 21

What is in the “Investigate” phase?

Answer 21

Learn about users, discover goals and needs, how it’s done, what’s wanted, what’s been tried

Methods: interviews, focus groups, user surveys

Question 22

What is in the “Prototype” phase?

Answer 22

Produce something tangible, identify challenges and subtleties

Why?
cheap and fast, easy for users to react to concrete things, working against technical constraints is good

Techniques: paper, screenshots, flip books, video mockups

Question 23

What is in the “Evaluate” phase?

Answer 23

Discover problems, assess progress, determine next steps

Why? automated processing can find bugs, but not usability issues

Methods: usability testing, lab experiments, deployments

Question 24

What is in the “Produce” phase?

Answer 24

Build final product, market, support, maintenance