Introduction to Interaction Design: Lecture - Usability and User Experience

Usability & User Experience

F27ID Introduction to Interactive Design

2021-2022

## **Bad** Design is everywhere!

* Design is everywhere… and so is bad design
  - Travelling
  - "Norman Doors"
* Bad design leads to **frustrating** and **inconvenient experiences**
* Can be the difference between single time use, continual use or the rubbish bin
	
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<aside class='notes'>
 Bad design is everywhere.
 A central concern of interaction design is to develop interactive products that are usable. By
this we mean products that are generally easy to learn, effective to use, and provide an enjoyable user experience. A good place to start thinking about how to design usable interactive
products is to compare examples of well-designed and poorly designed ones. 
Bad design leads to frustrating and inconvenient experiences.
The image shown on the slide is a good example of poor design. Both doors with push and pull have handles and users might end up pulling the door that needs a push.

Remember, Bad Design is everywhere.
It leads to frustrating and inconvenient experiences.
It Can be the difference between single time use, continual use or the rubbish bin.
</aside>

## **How** to design?
* Depends on the **Problem Space**
	- **Who** are the people interacting with the device?
	- **What** activities are they carrying out?
	- **Where** is the interaction taking place?
* Need to optimise the **interactions** that **people** have with the device
	- So the interactions match the users' needs and activities
<aside class='notes'>
 Now this leads us to the question, how to design?
The design depends on the problem space. Designing interactive products requires considering who is going to be using them, how
they are going to be used, and where they are going to be used. Another key concern is
to understand the kind of activities people are doing when interacting with these products. The appropriateness of different kinds of interfaces and arrangements of input and
output devices depends on what kinds of activities are to be supported. For example,
if the activity is to enable people to bank online, then an interface that is secure, trustworthy, and easy to navigate is essential.
 
</aside>

## Voicemail – **case study example**

* How do you collect **voicemail** messages?
* One Example – office voicemail

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<aside class='notes'>
 To understand, the poor design, lets have a look at a case study on Voicemail system.
 Imagine the following scenario. You are staying at a hotel for a week while on a business
trip. You see a blinking red light on the landline phone beside the bed. You are not sure what
this means, so you pick up the handset. You listen to the tone and it goes “beep, beep, beep.”
Maybe this means that there is a message for you. To find out how to access the message,
you have to read a set of instructions next to the phone. You read and follow the first step:
Touch 41.
The system responds: “You have reached the Sunny Hotel voice message center. Please
enter the room number for which you would like to leave a message.
You wait to hear how to listen to a recorded message. 
But there are no further instructions from the phone. 
You look down at the instruction sheet again and read Touch star, you room number and hash.
You do so and the replies.You have reached the mailbox for room 106. To leave
a message, type in your password.
This is not a nice experience at all.

</aside>

### How to achieve Usability goals?
Some **widely agreed** design principles for usability
  * **Affordance** - objects should have attributes that allow people to know how to use them 
  * **Feedback** - people should know what they did
  * **Visibility** - the more visible the controls are, the easier to use 
  * **Constraints** - only offer those functions that are useful in context 
  * **Consistency** - does the same thing in the same way, same images mean the same thing
  * **Non-Destructive Operations** - importance of undo
  * **Scalability** - operations should work on all screen sizes, small and large
  * **Reliability** - operations should work, always
    -Don Norman

<aside class='notes'>
 So how to achieve usability goals. We will discuss some widely used design principles to achieve usability goals.
 Design principles are used by interaction designers to aid their thinking when designing for
the user experience. The design principles are:
Affordance principle. The objects should have attributes that allow people to know how to use them. 
Feedback principle. The user should be given feedback and know what they did.
Visibility principle. The more visible the controls are, the easier to use. 
Constraints principle. Only offer those functions that are useful in context.
Consistency principle. Does the same thing in the same way, same images mean the same thing.
Non-Destructive Operations principle. the importance of undo.
Scalability principle. the operations should work on all screen sizes, small and large.
Reliability principle. the operations should work, always.
We will discuss these one by one in more detail in the next few slides.

</aside>

##### How to achieve usability
### **Consistency**

* Design interfaces to have **similar operations** and use similar elements for similar tasks
  * For example:
	- always use ctrl key plus first initial of the command for an operation – ctrl+C, ctrl+S, ctrl+O
  * Main benefit is consistent interfaces are **easier to learn and use**
  * **Hard** to do internally with **complex interfaces**
  * External consistencies across interfaces are rare but emerging

<aside class='notes'>
 Let's discuss the consistency principle and How can consistency achieve usability goals.
 This refers to designing interfaces to have similar operations and use similar elements for achieving similar tasks. 
 In particular, a consistent interface is one that follows rules, such as using the same operation to select all objects. 
 For example, a consistent operation is using the same input action to highlight any graphical object on the interface, such as always clicking the left mouse button. 
 One of the benefits of consistent interfaces, therefore, is that they are easier to learn and use. 
</aside>

### When Consistency Fails

**Shortcut Key Example**
  * What happens if there is **more than one command** starting with the **same letter**?
 	- e.g. save, spelling, select, style
  * Have to find other initials or combinations of keys, thereby breaking the consistency rule
	- e.g. ctrl+S, ctrl+Sp, ctrl+shift+L
  * Increases **learning burden** on user, making them more prone to errors

<aside class='notes'>
  Inconsistent interfaces, on the other hand, allow exceptions to a rule.
 An example is where certain graphical objects for example, email messages presented in a table can be highlighted only by using the right mouse button, while all other operations are highlighted using
the left mouse button. The problem with this kind of inconsistency is that it is quite arbitrary making it difficult for users to remember and making its use more prone to mistakes.
In another example, What happens if there is more than one command starting with the same letter. For example save, spelling, select, style etc.
</aside>

### User Experience Threads

* **Sensual Thread:** Sensory engagement and level of absorption e.g. games, phones, chat?
  * **Emotional Thread:** How do you feel about the product? E.g. getting angry at PC
  * **Compositional Thread:** The narrative of the experience eg. What is this about? Where am I?
  * **Spatio-temporal Thread:** Space and time of the experience and the influence on it

<aside class='notes'>
 The user experience refers to how a product behaves and is used by people in the real world.
 Let's discuss the four user experience threads.
 The Sensual Thread. It refers to the Sensory engagement and level of absorption. for example games, phones, chat etc.
 The Emotional Thread. It refers to How the user feels about the product. For example getting angry at PC, mouse, keyboard, joystick etc.
 The Compositional Thread. The narrative of the experience. for example What is this about. Where am I.
 The Spatio temporal Thread. It refers to the Space and time of the experience and the influence on it.
</aside>

### User Experience Goals

* **Aim** for user experiences 
 	- Satisfying, aesthetically pleasing, enjoyable, engaging, pleasurable, exciting, supportive of creativity, entertaining, helpful, motivating, challenging, surprising…
  * And **avoid**
	- Boring, frustrating, making one feel guilty, annoying, childish, unpleasant, patronising, making one feel stupid, gimmicky..
  * Levels of response to a product (Norman)
	- **Visceral** – how it feels physically or emotionally
	- **Behavioural** – functional, what can we do with it
	- **Reflective** – e.g. does it reflect our personal or cultural values

<aside class='notes'>
 What are the User experience goals?
 It aims that the user experience is Satisfying, aesthetically pleasing, enjoyable, engaging, pleasurable, exciting, supportive of creativity, entertaining, helpful, motivating, challenging, and surprising etc.
 These are plenty of them but the many of them are subjective and related what user experiences during and after interacting with a system.
 The aim of user experience is to avoid bad experience. For example Boring, frustrating, making one feel guilty, annoying, childish, unpleasant, patronising, making one feel stupid, and gimmicky etc.
According to Donald Norma, users have different levels of response to products.
For example, Visceral response. How it feels physically or emotionally.
 Behavioural response. It refers to functional that is what can we do with it.
Lastly the Reflective response. For example, does it reflect our personal or cultural values.

</aside>

### Usability or User Experience?

* **They both matter!**
  * Usability is an important part of User Experience
  * Good Usability leads to a good User Experience - mostly
  * Usability and User Experience goals often **support each other**, but sometimes conflict
  * Importance of each one **depends on the application**:
	- A game is a leisure pursuit, so people must enjoy playing it and have a positive user experience or they won’t play
	- A medical device must be safe and avoid user mistakes, so usability is vital

<aside class='notes'>
 So what matters the most. Usability or User Experience.
The answer is, they both matter.
Usability is an important part of User Experience.
Good Usability leads to a good User Experience.
Usability and User Experience goals often support each other, but sometimes conflict.
The Importance of each depends on the application.
For example, A game is a leisure pursuit, so people must enjoy playing it and have a positive user experience or they wont play.
Similarly, A medical device must be safe and avoid user mistakes, so usability is vital.
</aside>