Action and knowledge Flashcards
(16 cards)
Levels of Processing / Action Control #1
Knowledge:
* New situation, no ready rules
* Have to think and decide what to do
* Find and use knowledge to plan action
Rules:
* Recognise situation, pick routine response
* Don’t have to pay much attention or think
* Almost automatic but can adjust / adapt
skills:
* Automatic sensor-motor control
* Don’t have to think about it at all
* Have to practice then you can do it
* Can be difficult to explain how you do it
Different people can process the same task on different levels
* Novices need to access knowledge, experts have routines
Different problems (errors) associated with different levels
- Skills: noise in execution, inaccuracy, not enough attention to feedback
- Routine: misinterpretation of situation, triggering the wrong routine reaction
- Knowledge: faulty reasoning, incorrect ”mental model” (=> next lecture)
Levels of Processing / Response
Reflective
Conscious, slow, and deep thinking about events.
Responses are learned and retained in memory.
Involves deliberate reasoning and decision-making.
Behavioural
Fast, shallow, mostly subconscious.
Based on learned behaviors and habits.
Actions are triggered by expectation.
Visceral
Immediate, subconscious reflexes or impulses.
Produces instant emotional reactions (e.g., fear, disgust, joy).
Often instinctive and involuntary.
Emotional design
- Visceral design
- make products and user interfaces feel attractive
- Behavioural design
- make products easy to learn and easy to use (usability)
- Reflective design
- create a product people enjoy to think and
talk about - Excellent visceral and reflective design will make users
forgive small usability mistakes
Feedback
Form a Goal
→ Decide what you want to achieve.
Execute an Action
→ Do something that changes the current state.
Evaluate the Outcome
→ Did the action help?
Come closer to the goal?
or moved further from the goal?
7 Stages of Action (D. Norman)
Goal, plan, specify, perform, world(execute), perceive, Interpret and compare
Golf of execution
The Gulf of Execution refers to the gap between what a user wants to do and what the system allows or shows them how to do.
How can I do this?
What can I do?
Gulf of Evaluation
The Gulf of Evaluation is the gap between what the system shows and what the user expects or understands from it.
What happened?
Is it what I wanted?
✅ Small Gulf of Evaluation = Users feel in control
❌ Large Gulf = Uncertainty, confusion, and mistakes
Bridging the Gulfs
- The goal of user interface design is to bridge the gulfs
- Gulf of Execution
- Design the UI so that it shows user what they can do with the system, and how they can do it
- Gulf of Evaluation
- Design the UI so that users get the
right idea of how the system works,
and the right feedback
Knowledge in the World vs Head: Typing
What kind of knowledge do typists use?
* Beginners:
* KITW: Labels on the keys
* Intermediates
* KITH: location of important keys
* KITW: peripheral vision, feeling keys
* Expert
* KITH: touch typing, without looking
at the keyboard
Knowledge in the World vs Head: Maps
- We do not have perfect street maps in our heads
- In route descriptions, we often forget entire
parts - Nevertheless (and even without our phones!) we
can get from A to B safely
Types of Knowledge
- Declarative knowledge (“what”)
- Facts (Lancaster is North of Preston)
- Rules (stop at red traffic lights)
- Easy to write down and teach
(but not easy to learn!) - Procedural knowledge (“how”)
- How to play an instrument
- Hard to write down, subconscious
- Hard to teach, best by demo/training
Knowledge in the World v. in the Head
Knowledge in the world
* Available when visible, by recognition
* Not available unless visible
* Easy to learn
* Low efficiency (requires interpretation)
Knowledge in the head:
* Available only by recall
* Always available
* Harder to learn
* High efficiency (ready to apply)
Design implications
- Attention and memory are limited
- This affects how humans work on goals and tasks:
- Processing in small units
- Using external resources
- Focus on goals not tools
- Focus only on what appears relevant
- Forget to clean up
- Sticking to routines when possible
Processing in small units
Large tasks must be broken into small, manageable unit tasks.
Unit tasks are quick (under 10ms) and fit in working memory.
This allows focused attention and reduces cognitive load.
Externalisation
External representations (like checklists, bookmarks, finger counting) help reduce memory load.
They place knowledge in the world so we don’t rely solely on memory.
Good systems should track progress or provide built-in tools to help users keep track.
If a UI requires users to use external aids, it may not be well-designed.
