CSC 484 Midterm Study Guide

no

What is user interface design?

A. Creating an app.



B. Making an application look pretty.



C. Designing software around the needs of a user.



D. Making an app run fast.

In user interface design, the process of talking to users about their needs for an application is ___________

A. User testing.      



B. Information architecture.      



C. User analysis.      



D. Wireframing.

Which of these is TRUE regarding usability testing?

A. Usability testing should only rely on experts in software development.  



B. Only designers will know what should be included in an app or software.  



C. An expert might not offer an objective view because they are too close to the development.  



D. Usability testing is only important to app developers.

Tell me about a project that challenged you. How did you work through the challenge?

\

What kind of research methods do you use in your CSC 484 team project?

How do you validate your design decisions?

UX - User Experience

Encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

Includes physical aspects and emotional aspects.

First usage, service, and maintenance.

UI - User Interface

* the look, feel, and interactivity of a digital product
* the cosmetics of the experience
* represents how users interact with and experience products or services
* includes brand expression, visual communication, typography, color, spacing, grids, icons, and buttons

UX Designer Tasks

* conducts research
* identifies the user’s core needs
* creates task flows and works through prototypes

UI Designer Tasks

* composes layouts
* creates a visual system
* builds mockups

focus on _________, not functionalities

interactions

functionality only if _______________________

it directly affects interaction

Why is UI/UX so important?

* deal with users’s needs
* meet product goals
* repeat usage
* recommend to others

Need to take into account when designing:

* who the users are
* what activities are being carried out
* where interaction is taking place

optimize the __________ users have with a product so that they match the users’ activities and needs

interactions

What is interaction design?

the umbrella term covering:

* fundamental to all disciplines, fields, and approaches concerned with researching and designing computer-based systems for people

“Designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives”

“The design of spaces for human communication and interaction”

Interaction design involves:

* understanding users
* designing and developing usable products
* including users in the design process

Understanding users includes:

* understand how to design interactive products that fit with what people want, need and desire
* appreciate that one size does not fit all
* identify any incorrect assumptions they may have about particular user groups

Characteristics of interaction design:

* users should be involved throughout the development of the project
* specific usability and user experience goals need to be identified, clearly documented, and agreed to at the beginning of the project
* iteration is needed through the core activities

What is design?

“It is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Guidance in interaction design

* accessibility
* inclusiveness
* disabilities
* cultural differences

User experience vs usability - UX

UX addresses how a user feels when using a system

UX encompasses an end user’s entire experience with a product

User experience vs usability - usability

Usability is about the user-friendliness and efficiency of the interface

Usability refers to how successfully a user can use a product to accomplish a specific goal

Usability goals

1. effective to use
2. efficient to use
3. safe to use
4. have good utility
5. easy to learn
6. easy to remember how to use

UX goals - desirable

* satisfying
* helpful
* fun
* rewarding
* exciting
* entertaining
* engaging
* challenging
* surprising
* emotionally fulfilling
* supporting creativity
* enhancing socialility

UX goals - undesirable

* boring
* unpleasant
* frustrating
* annoying
* cutesy
* childish
* gimmicky
* making one feel stupid

design principles

* generalizable abstractions for thinking about different aspects of design
* the do’s and donts of interaction design
* what to provide and what not to provide at the interface
* derived from theory based knowledge, experience and common sense

___________________ is concerned with designing interactive products to support how people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives

interaction design

It is concerned with how to ________________________ for services, devices, and interactive products

create quality user experiences

It is ______________ involving many inputs from wide reaching disciplines and fields

multidisciplinary

_________________________ between users and interactive products requires consideration of a number of _________________ including context of use, types of activity, UX goals, accessibility, cultural differences, and user groups

optimizing the interaction, interdependent factors

design principles, such as _________________ __are useful__ __________ for informing, analyzing, and evaluating aspects of an interactive product

feedback and simplicity, heuristics

____________ refers to ensuring that interactive products are easy to learn, effective to use, and enjoyable from the user’s perspective

usability

What is lean user experience?

* is about validating hypotheses
* is user centered
* is agile
* is data driven
* is fast and cheap
* is iterative

Traditional Design -- literally just waterfall

* revolves around fulfilling a designer or product owner’s vision
* waterfall model makes it hard to recover from mistakes in UI design
* users are not involved in validation until testing
* flaws often cause changes in requirements and design

Iterative Design -- spiral model

* lots of prototypes
* later iterations have richer implementations
* more iterations means better UI
* only mature iterations get released

Lean UX Design Description

a user-centered design process that embraces Lean and Agile development methodology to reduce waste and build user centered products

relies on a collaborative approach and rapid prototyping to get user feedback by exposing a MVP to users as early as possible

Early Validation

* figure out if people will buy our product before we build it
* learn which research methods are best for early validation
* understand user pain in order to build a more compelling product

Lean UX looks at a product as a ____________________

set of hypotheses to be validated

How to write a hypothesis

We believe that \[creating this experience\]

for \[persona\]

will achieve \[this outcome\]

A _________ is the group of people we think might want to buy our products

market

A ____________ is the reason that those people are going to use our product

problem

A __________ is simply the way that we are going to solve the user’s problem

product

Tools for early validation

ethnographic studies (listening to your users)

landing page tests (tests market)

prototype tests (tests pain points for users)

Interaction design (IxD) definition

a field of design that focuses on designing interactive digital products, systems, and services

Four approaches to interaction design

1. user centered design
2. activity centered design
3. systems design
4. genius design

What is a user-centered approach?

* early focus on users and tasks
* empirical measurement
* iterative design

The double diamond of design

1. Discover - insight into the problem
2. Define - the area to focus upon
3. Develop - potential solutions
4. Deliver - solutions that work

How to choose among alternative designs?

* technical feasibility
* evaluation with users or peers
* quality thresholds

Four activities in the interaction design process

1. Discovering requirements
2. Designing alternatives
3. Prototyping
4. Evaluating

Three principles of user-centered design

* early focus on users and tasks
* empirical measurement using quantifiable and measurable usability criteria
* iterative design

What is design thinking?

a formalized framework of applying the creative design process to traditional business problems

Design thinking involves:

* empathizing with users
* generating creative ideas
* prototyping
* testing solutions

Steps of the design thinking process:

* empathize
* define
* ideate
* prototype
* test
* implement

Empathy Maps

* says, thinks, does, feels
* widely used in agile and design communities
* mapping process shows any holes in user data

Empathy maps should be used throughout any UX process to ____________________

establish common ground among team members and to understand and prioritize user needs

Benefits of empathy maps

* capture who a user or persona is
* communicate a user or persona to others

Best practices for design thinking

* flexibility - adapt to fit your needs
* scalability - think bigger

Proof of concept

conceptualize what the proposed product will do

Why the need to conceptualize design?

to scrutinize vague ideas and assumptions about the benefits of the proposed product in terms of their feasibility

What is an assumption?

taking something for granted when it needs further investigation

What is a claim?

A claim is stating something to be true when it is still open to question

Benefits of conceptualizing

* orientation
* open minded
* common ground

A conceptual model is ______________

a high level description of how a system is organized and operates

A conceptual model enables _____________

designers to straighten out their thinking before they start laying out their widgets

Components of conceptual model

* metaphors and analogies
* concepts that people are exposed to through the product
* relationship and mappings between these concepts

Interface metaphors

* interface designed to be similar to a physical entity but also has own properties

Benefits of interface metaphors

* makes learning new systems easier
* helps users understand the underlying conceptual model
* can be very innovative and enable the realm of computers and their applications to be made more accessible to a greater diversity of users

Problems with interface metaphors

* break conventional and cultural rules
* can constrain designers
* conflicts with design principles
* designers can inadvertently use bad existing designs and transfer the bad parts over
* limits designers imagination

Interaction types

* instructing
* conversing
* manipulating
* exploring
* responding

instructing

where a user instructs a system and tells it what to do, supports quick and efficient interaction

conversing

underlying model of having a conversation with another human

manipulating

dragging, selecting, opening, closing and zooming actions on virtual objects

Direct Manipulation

core properties:


1. continuous representation of objects and actions of interest
2. physical actions and button pressing instead of issuing commands with complex syntax
3. rapid reversible actions with immediate feedback on object of interest

exploring

involves moving through virtual or physical environments

responding

system takes the initiative to alert user to something that it thinks is of interest

______________ is good for doing types of tasks (designing, drawing, …)

direct manipulation

______________ is good for repetitive tasks (spell checking)

issuing instructions

______________________ is good for certain services (requesting music)

having a conversation

_________________ are good for supporting multiple ways of carrying out the same actions

hybrid conceptual models

Which interaction type to choose?

* need to determine requirements and user needs
* take budget and constraints into account
* suitability of technology

Interaction type

a description of what the user is doing when interacting with a system (talking, browsing, responding)

Interface style

the kind of interface used to support the interaction (menu-based, voice, gesture)

New paradigms in HCI

* ubiquitous computing
* pervasive computing
* wearable computing
* internet of things

theory

explanation of a phenomenon

model

a simplification of an HCI phenomenon

framework

set of interrelated concepts and/or specific questions for ‘what to look for’

What is cognition?

thinking, remembering, learning, …

Cognitive processes

attention, perception, memory, learning…

Attention

selecting things on which to concentrate at a point in time from the mass of stimuli around us

Design recommendation: information at the interface should be structured to capture users’ attention

________ can cause people to lose their train of thought, make errors, and need to start over

multitasking

perception

how information is acquired from the world and transformed into experiences

design implications: icons should be legible and distinguished, bordering and spacing are effective visual ways of grouping information

memory

involves recalling various kinds of knowledge that allow people to act appropriately

design implications: design interfaces that promote recognition rather than recall

learning

involves the accumulation of skills and knowledge involving memory

design implications: encourage exploration

mental models

users develop an understanding of a system through learning about and using it

information processing

conceptualizes human performance in metaphorical terms of information processing stages

What are requirements?

a statement about an intended product that specifies what it is expected to do or how it will perform

User stories

As a , I want so that

The seven product dimensions

* user
* interface
* action
* data
* control
* environment
* quality attribute

personas

capture a set of user characteristics