MDI Terms and Concepts

Interaction design

Designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives. Often carried out by multidisciplinary teams.

Safety

A usability goal regarding protecting the users from dangerous conditions and undesirable situations.

UX

Stands for user experience, mostly focuses on pragmatic and hedonic aspects of use. Encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services, and its products, that is, how a product behaves and is used in the real world.

Pragmatic Design

Includes practical factors such as usability, functionality, and budget constraints while meeting the needs of both the users and the organization. It requires research, planning, testing, and continuous evaluation to create effective, efficient, and sustainable solutions. A question that should be answered is: How simple, obvious, and practical can users achieve their goals?

Hedonic Design

Refers to the emotional or experiential aspect of design that aims to create a positive emotional response in users. It focuses on creating a visually appealing, aesthetically pleasing, and enjoyable experience for the user. In short: how simulating and educative the interaction is.

Memorability

How easy a product is to remember how to use, once learned.

Learnability

How easy a system is to learn to use.

User centred design

Refers to a design approach that focuses on the needs, goals, and preferences of the end-users throughout the entire design process.

Consistency

Designing interfaces to have similar operations and use similar elements for achieving similar tasks.

Usable

A product which is easy to learn, effective to use and provide an enjoyable user experience.

Multidisciplinary teams

Individuals from different disciplines or areas of expertise working together on a project or task.

Utility

Refers to the extent to which a product provides the right kind of functionality.

Effectiveness

A usability goal referring to how good a product is at doing what it is supposed to do.

Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Mostly concerned with usability, focuses on the study of human-computer interactions and the design of systems and interfaces that are user-friendly and efficient.

Accessibility

Refers to the extent to which all users can use a product. Including people with less than average abilities. Can be achieved by inclusive design of technology and design of assistive technology.

User experience goals

A choice made by your product team about what kind of experience you want your users to have with your product or service. Can be articulated as a range of emotions and felt experiences

Micro-interactions

Moments of interactions at the interface - despite being small - can have a big impact on the user experience.

Visibility

Design principle describes the importance of having information visible at all (or at least the right) time.

Efficiency

Refers to the way a product supports users in carrying out their task.

Participatory design

An overarching design philosophy that places the users as central actors in creating activities.

Iterative design

An approach to design that involves continually refining and improving a product or solution through a series of iterative stages. Because no matter how good the designers are, ideas will need to be revised, likely several times.

Involving users in development

It's the best way to ensure that the end product is usable.

Double diamond of design

Consists of four stages: Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver. It is a visual representation of the design process.

Empirical measurement

Regards identifying specific goals up front that the product can be empirically evaluated against.

Expectation management

The process of making sure that the users' expectations of the new product are realistic.

Stakeholders

The individuals or groups that can influence or be influenced by the success or failure of a project.

User-centred approach

The real users and their goals, not just technology, are the driving force behind product development.

Constraints

Should be used to guide the users and stop them from making mistakes.

Feedback

The user gets information about which action has taken place and what effect on the system the action had.

Mapping

The relationship between a control and the object that is being controlled.

Gulf of evaluation

The distance between the physical presentation of the system state and the expectation of the user.

Forcing functions

Used when the user must perform a response to the system, before it is possible for the user to continue with the current task/function in the system.

Affordance

The way an object looks shows you how to manipulate it. Alternative definition: Determines whether the design of a product or element communicates how it can be used or what options are possible.

Gulf of execution

The difference between the user's formulation of the actions to reach the goal and the actions allowed by the system.

Slip

A type of error made by accident or due to lack of concentration

Checkboxes

A graphical widget that allows the user to answer more than one choice. Used when choices are not mutually exclusive

Radio buttons

Graphical widget that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of mutually exclusive options.

Direct manipulation interfaces

Continuous representation of objects. Physical actions instead of complex syntax. Fast, simple, visible operations where it is always possible to undo your last action.

Command line interfaces

Interfaces that are navigated via the use of commands. Good for experienced users that need to be efficient and quick.

Contextual menus

User interface elements that provide a set of options or commands relevant to the context or object that the user has selected

Widget

A standardized display representation of a control.

Icons

For this concept the most important is legibility and interpretation. They are graphical symbols or pictograms used to represent various concepts, actions, or objects in user interfaces

WIMP

Windows, icons, menus and pointing devices. The original Graphical User Interface

Form fill interfaces

Used when structured information is required. Refers to user interfaces that enables users to enter information into various fields within a form, typically on a web page or a mobile app.

Ecological validity

A special kind of validity that concerns how the environment in which an evaluation is done influences or even distorts the results.

Field based evaluation

Good at demonstrating how people use technology in their intended setting. In the wild studies/natural setting.

Inspection methods

Involve reviewing the design or code of an interface or product to identify potential usability issues. Are used in usability evaluation to review and analyze the design or code of a product or system. Is a cheap and quick method when the users are not available and you are short on time.

Cognitive walkthrough

Simulates a problem solving process to see how users progress step by step.

Controlled lab-based evaluation

Evaluation method that is good at revealing usability problems. The environment in which the evaluation takes place often differs from the actual circumstances of which the product is used.

Crowdsourcing in usability evaluation

The practice of obtaining information or input from a large, distributed group of people, often through online platforms or communities. Flexibility, inexpensive and quick.

Formative evaluation

Type of evaluation used during the development process of a product, system or service to assess its performance and identify areas for improvement. Checks that a product in design continues to meet the users needs.

Reliability

How well a method produces the same result on separate occasions

Summative evaluation

Done at the end of a development cycle in order to verify that product fulfills the goals

Usability specification

A summary of task metrics, that is for example the time it takes to complete a task.

Visibility and system status

The system should always keep the user informed about what is going on.

User control and freedom

You should provide the user with clearly marked emergency exits to leave the unwanted states.

Heuristic evaluation

A group of usability experts review a user interface according to a small set of principles.

Flexibility and efficiency of use

Provide accelerators for the more proficient users.

Match between system and the real world

The system should speak the users' language.

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions and options visible

Aesthetic and minimalist design

Dialogs should not contain information that is irrelevant or rarely needed.

Interviews

Are one of the most commonly used methods for collecting data in HCI researcher. Has: A definite purpose, is planned and organised, and an interviewer is responsible for the topics.

Semi-structured interview

Questions are more open ended, there often is a general framework of topics to be discussed.

Interview schedule

A structured set of questions that guide the interviewer.

Information sheet

A document describing the purpose of the interview, the participant's right to withdraw, and how data will be used after the study

EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The storage of data collected during an interview is subject to this regulation inside of the European Union.

Consent form

A document where the participant provides permission for how they will participate in the study and how they want their data to be used. The participant can always withdraw from interview study.

Rapport

Can be built in interview by developing trust and mutual respect. The same goes for mutual understanding and cooperation between a user and a computer system during an interaction.

Requirements

They specify what is needed and how to know if it has been delivered but allow for freedom in how they are implemented. A statement of what a product or system should do or how it will do it. Should consider the needs of all stakeholders. Reduce costs and time in development, reduce confusion in communication, and provide good testing criteria for the final product.

A fit criterion

The measure of whether a requirement has been fulfilled is called.

Functional Requirements

Describes what a system should do and which tasks is should be able to perform.

User characteristics

Describe expected characteristics of the user group.

MoSCow

A prioritization technique used in project management and software development to prioritize requirements or tasks based on their importance or urgency. The name for this technique comes from the first letter of each word in the phrase "Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have."

Structured ideation process

Start with making sense of data. A structured problem-solving process based on the concept of time-based Sprints that build on a collection of ideas

Six thinking hats

A well known method to support decision making, communication and creative thinking. Each hat is a mode of thinking

Brainstorm

Designers and stakeholders/users together. Quantity is better than quality and no judgement. Is a creative problem-solving technique used to generate ideas and solutions through a group discussion

Sketching

Creating quick, freehand drawings or diagrams as a means of visualizing and exploring design ideas or concepts, and communicating them to others. Produce, refine and communicate ideas. This should be done early and often in the development process.

Prototype

A way for stakeholders to interact with a design, and test its suitability for their needs.

Wizard of Oz

Is a low fidelity prototyping technique. A person simulating the response of a design or software systems to end-user interaction.

Paper prototyping

Using pen and paper designs to simulate user interaction and flow.

High fidelity prototyping

Useful for testing functionality of a product and selling the design to others. Closer to the final product.

Fidelity

Refers to the level of detail and accuracy with which a design or prototype represents the final product or system.

Low fidelity prototyping

Quick, cheap, and easy to fail and recover. This prototyping technique is a quick way to check the functionality and interaction of an idea.

Storyboarding

Often low fidelity. Is visual representation of a sequence of events or story used to plan and organize a narrative, such as for a film, video game, or user experience

Usability testing

Evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users. One central component is collecting data about users' performance on predefined tasks. Key issues to consider: The scope (what part you are testing), the purpose, and the tasks the users are to perform.

"think aloud" technique

Users speak what they do/think when testing a product or service. Understanding how the users are reasoning.

Ideation

The formation of ideas or concepts.

Design for error

Errors will happen. It is important to design for errors so it is easy for the user to undo the error

Test metrics

Quantitative measures used to estimate the progress, quality, productivity and health of the software testing process. For example: Number of successful task completions, number of critical errors made, and time on task.

Internet of things

States products can be connected to each other via the internet and interact with each other.

Technology as experience

Framework that accounts for the user experience in terms of how it is felt by the user.

Usability

Ensuring that products are easy to learn, effective to use, and enjoyable from the users perspective.

Outline feedback exchange

Systems that are used to target millions of users before publishing.

Cooperative design

When users and stakeholders are active participants in the design process

A/B testing

Evaluating different design options by presenting them to a pool of users

Highlights

Thumbnails at the top of browser that shows visited and saved sites.

Dialog box

Error messages and so on are presented through these.

Flat menus

A type of menu that displays a small number of options in an interface.

Expanding menus

The options of an interface are expanded so that they can be snown on a single screen.

Cascading menu

Provides secondary menu alongside a primary active drop down menu.