Reading Notes 3: Dos and Don’ts for Designers (Ch. 14)

The dos and don’ts in visual design, as presented in Cooper et al.’s (2007) chapter 14, is a detailed guide for designers. All along in their book, the writers have placed the user at the center of design, and the focus in chapter 14 has not changed. I am yet to read a chapter in which less emphasis is placed on simple and usable designs. It is also important to note that each time there is a call for simple design, I easily see the connection with usability. In other words, simple design is being presented as an effective tool that designers could use to create a level field for all users to play. Thus, whether the writers dos and don’ts are otherwise called “building blocks”, “principles”, “visualizing behaviors”, “consistency”,  “standards”, “guidelines”, or simply “rules”, the content of each of these instructional categories is always reducible to the advice to make design usable. 

The discussion on appropriate color choice for design products reminds me of a recent redesign of Ghana’s official website in which the most notable feature was probably the change in color from dark green to a much lighter, more or less neutral color. Although Cooper et al. may still not be happy with its redesigned face, I think it looks much better now. It looks a lot more organized and therefore more usable now. However, some of the features appear to be a further complication of the problem of usability that the redesign sought to solve.

 By the way, to add to the list of cultural interpretations of color, it is important to note that unlike in Asia where the writers report that white symbolizes funerals and death, in Ghana it is rather red and black that indicate the two sad events.

 Cooper, A. et al. (2007). About face3:,The essentials of interaction design. IN:  Indianapolis, Wiley publishing

Reading Notes 4: Controls and Menus (ch. 21 & 22)

Reading through chapters 21 and 22 somewhat gives me a feeling of transition from theory to practice. For some reason, I just realized at the start of chapter 21 that although the focus in these two chapters is the same user satisfaction, the concentration is somewhat different. These chapters provide designers with a long list of tools and applications that could be used to help translate the principles we saw in chapter 14 (and before) into usable design. We may be familiar with most of these applications in the sense that we see or use them everyday. However, they could be as frustrating as they are confusing when it comes to designing for user satisfaction. How easy did the card sorting assignment go in our different groups? Yet, it was about moving these same tools and menus around for the purpose of improving user performance. 

For me, the timing and content of the two chapters could not have been more useful at a time when assessing the contribution of these features to user satisfaction is a major assignment.  Moreover, I learnt several functions that I did not know before and which I could use in the future to enhance my own satisfaction as a user.

Reading Notes 2: Chapters 8 & 11

It is difficult to read Cooper et al.’s (2007) chapter 8 without agreeing with the writers’ position on the need for designers to make design features and principles look easy to use. The relevance of such a principle is seen in many practical situations where there is a producer, on the one hand, and a consumer, on the other hand. As exemplified in Dr, V.’s post on chapter 8, this could be the interaction between a researcher and a research participant, a writer and a reader, a web designer and a web user, a speaker and a listener, a teacher and a student, etc.

Irrespective of the kind of interaction involved, Cooper et al. have emphasized that the consumer-side of the interaction need not be over tasked, both cognitively and physically. Anyone who has read Lehrer’s (2009) How We Decide or similar volumes as proposed by Raskin (see bonus link in an earlier post by Dr. V) would probably agree that, from a neoroscientific point of view, people tend to buy and/or use products that give them less mental fatigue. One of the examples Lehrer used to explain this has to do with why people go looking for cheap things to buy in the store even though they might have the money to buy what they want. In this example, the writer explained that some type of neurons is the mental force that dictates to people to opt for cheaper products because of the cognitive comfort that goes with it. As a result, sellers have learnt to mimic low prices by reducing actual prices by no more a margin than a penny (that explains why we have so many $xx. 99s in our stores because $1.99 certainly looks cheaper than $2.00, although it might not be the case, practically). Cooper et al.’s discussion on users’ preference for minimal cognitive load is therefore tied to Lehrer’s neuroscience in the sense that the two perspectives illustrate the point in protecting consumers of our products from cognitive and physical difficulties, the aspect that Becky, like many others, see as the “most imperative section” in Cooper et al.’s chapter 8.  

In Chapter 11, the authors describe these difficulties as an excise of users’ “cognitive and physical effort” that must be eliminated or avoided by designers/producers of goods and services (p. 224), a guiding principle for the remainder of the chapter.

Reference:

Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2007). About face 3: The essentials of interactiondesign. Indianapolis: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Lehrer, J. (2009). How we decide. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

AA4: Designing for all users

Summary

This paper examines the challenges and future directions of HCI in designing for all users, including the ‘odd’ ones (users of discontinued interfaces). It seeks to understand “how users who prefer to use discontinued older model to the newer device with higher technical ability” (p. 2451) see themselves as a user group and how their desires, expectations, and preferences shape some of the challenges that they (as a user group) face. To do so, a case study was conducted on users of discontinued HP200LX (LX). Having introduced a new product (WinCE) in 1998 to serve novice user communities, HP discontinued the LX the following year, a decision that users of the older LX model did not like and therefore continued to use the older model. In order to understand some appropriation and maintenance practices of this odd user group, the researchers “examined the email archive of the LX user community that contains approximately 35,000 email messages out of 90,000 messages from 1996 through January 2008” (p. 2452), when data collection ended. The emails, which contained conversations about the discontinuation of the LX and the position of LX users, were coded and read using a “standard qualitative method”.  The study came up with some interesting results. For example, the LX users who perceive themselves as expert users were found to be marginalized by a design preference (the CE model) that sought to protect a larger and less experienced group. That is , although most of the challenges of maintenance posed by a discontinuation of the LX product were overcome through technical abilities of the LX user, collaboration among user community members, and third party companies, LX users can be described as seriously constrained.

Analysis

This paper serves as a reminder to system (re)designers in terms of the requirements for designing for all users. It provides insights for balancing our design with products that would serve the interests of the majority of users (the WinCe users). As redesigners, it is important that in our group projects, priority is given to the expectations and desires of the majority of nanoHUB users. The paper gives us the confidence to recommend a ‘discontinuation’ (LX) and redesign (WinCE) of part or all of the current interface if it turns out that a greater number of nanoHUB users (both experienced and novices) is not well served. In making such decisions, however, “it is important to acknowledge that what is useful, usable, and aesthetic do not mean the same to all users, and that user needs are multifaceted as much as we like then to be simple and linear” (p.  2457).

One important claim of this paper is that any user group today can be in the shoes of the LX user group tomorrow: Windows 98 and 2003 now have issues of compatibility (representing the LX group), and it would soon be the turn of Windows 2007. The point here is that as we strive to design for all users,  newer products ironically keep marginalizing other users since enhanced features of new products leave out users of previous models. The question here then is, do technological advances (newer products) attempt to serve the needs of “all” users or they rather marginalize previous users?

Reference:

Huh, J. & Ackerman, M. S. (2009). Designing for all users: Including the odd users. Conference on human factors in computer systems: Proceedings of the 27^th international conference, April 4-9, Boston, MA, USA

Reading Notes 1 (Ch. 6 & 7)

Cooper, Reimann, and Cronin’s (2007) chapters 6 and 7 present some useful insights for understanding a design process. While chapter 6 represents the first component of the process as it relates to generating persona-based scenarios, with design requirements embedded in them, Chapter 7 is concerned with the use of such requirements to construct an appropriate design framework. That is, while chapter 6 basically defines design requirements, chapter 7 outlines the frameworks for interactive design. The two chapters therefore constitute a complete design method that seeks to be both user and business friendly – the “crux” of this week’s reading.

As presented in the readings, the design process is composed of four main steps, two of the steps discussed in 6 and the other two in 7:

Phase 1 (chapter 6)

1. Designers need to develop stories or scenarios as a means of imagining ideal user interactions since stories and scenarios create narratives that “communicate ideas” to the designer by lending themselves to both visual and conceptual images of interactive products. stories and scenarios also help keep design focus more on ‘people and how they think and behave, rather than technology and business goals” (p. 112 ). hat is, narratives and scenarios form the “most powerful creative methods” (p. 110) for “use-oriented software design” (p. 111).

 

1. Designers also need to use the scenarios created in (1) to define requirements.Defining requirements here is about identifying both “human and business needs that your product must satisfy” (p. 114). As such, requirement definition is presented as a five-step process: 

a)       Creating problem statement and vision statement (P.116)

• Problem statement – purpose of design initiative
• Vision statement – design objective/mandate

b)       Brainstorming (p.117)

• Aims at eliminating certain preconceptions and allowing designers become open-minded and flexible as they imagine and construct scenarios, using their analytic minds to drive requirements from these scenarios.

c)       Identifying persona expectations (p. 118)

• Attitudes, experiences, aspirations and other general persona expectations, behaviors, desires from the product

d)       Constructing context scenarios (p. 119)

• Environmental and organizational considerations of usage patterns; it is at this point that design actually begins, as most contextual questions are addressed here.

e)       Identifying requirements (p. 122)

• Requirements are extracted from contextual analyses and are identified in the form of objects, actions, and context.

Phase 2 (chapter 7) 

1. This is where designers now use identified requirements to define the fundamental interaction framework for the product (framework definition – pp. 127 -136):  

Note that six steps are involved in this defining interaction framework:

 -          define form factor, posture, and input methods

-          define functional and data elements

-          determine functional groups and hierarchy

-          sketch the interaction framework

-          construct key path scenarios

-          check designs with validation scenarios

1. Once a full design draft is in place, designers should be concerned with “filling in the framework with ever-increasing amounts of design details” such as

 -          defining the two-step visual framework (p. 136)

-           defining a three- process industrial design framework (p.139)

-          Refining the form of behavior (p. 141)

-           Design validation and usability testing (p. 142) etc.

 In all of these steps, it is important to acknowledge the role of narration, since much of the design effort has to do with “using personas to create stories that point to design”  needs or requirements (p. 109). This focus on the persona’s experiences, behaviors, desires, and expectations is therefore presented here as core in the research and practice of interactive design. This is also important because, as the design process suggests, a focus on persona interests and habits invariably promotes business for design products.

 Reference

Cooper, A., Reimann, R., & Cronin, D. (2007). About face 3: The essentials of interaction design. IN: Indianapolis, Wiley publishing inc.

AA2: Is everything beautiful usable?

Summary

 This article is a correlative study that seeks to establish the relation between beauty and usability. Although the study came up with several suggestions as to the appropriateness of methodological choice for research in the category of the present one, its main focus has been to find answers to the question of whether everything beautiful is usable. To do so, the study reviewed 15 previous studies in which researchers had participants rate websites in both similar and different ways. The study showed that consistency exists in the relationship between four constructs – usability, beauty, goodness, and pragmatic quality. Using what they call “mediator analysis” of these constructs, Hassenzahl and Monk (2010) observed that the relation between usability and beauty, especially for inexperienced users, is goodness. 

Analysis

 This article connects nicely with Dr. V’s latest post on a physics professor’s understanding of user-centeredness. Just as the physics professor would want to look “good” for their physics students (users) , so is the suggestion in this article that the “goodness” of beauty, and not just beauty of whatever measure, should be the ultimate goal of all designers. This goodness can be likened to what the professor has described as “good”, “simple”, and “neat”, whereas beauty is expressed as a burden “with unnecessary, complicated information or bells & whistles”. This is the very point that Cooper (2007), in illustrating the usefulness of personae in design practice, made when he cautioned that designers need not focus too much on how to please everyone since they would end up not pleasing anybody. Cooper’s example of an automobile design that attempts to please all users (see p. 77) is an excellent one, I believe. The outcome of such a design is nothing but real “burden with unnecessary”, and “complicated” features. It has no goodness, though some of the parts may look beautiful. This has been my philosophy for a very long time – that beauty beyond goodness is burdensome – and I am glad that there has been this much support. Are there any more supporters out there?

 

Reference:

Hassenzahl, M. & Monk, A. (2010). The inference of perceived usability from beauty. Human – Computer Interaction, 25, 235 – 260.

Cooper, A. (2007). About face3:,The essentials of interaction design. IN:  Indianapolis, Wiley publishing

AA1: Individual, Organizational Characteristics and User Satisfaction

Summary

The impact that individual and organizational characteristics have on “technology acceptance” was the focus in Lee, Rhee, and Dunham’s (2009) article. The idea was to explore how the relationship between individual and organizational characteristics, with regard to information systems, informs user satisfaction – such an understanding would greatly contribute to the generalizability of technology acceptance. To achieve this, a mixed method – using questionnaires and interviews – was used to measure user satisfaction of an intranet service for Korean Expatriate workers of four organizations located in South Carolina, USA.  That is, while about 236 questionnaires were distributed to workers, management of the four organizations was interviewed. Having measured the variables observed – work group characteristics, attitude toward change, job stress, ease of use,  usefulness, user satisfaction – it came out that the first three (work group characteristics, attitude toward change, job stress) were all related to the ease of use variable of IT which, in turn, informs usefulness of IT, and ultimately user satisfaction. That is, the first five variables interrelate with the aim of generating user satisfaction.

 Analysis

This article raises some of the issues that we have already seen in class. It reads like a great contribution to the call on systems designers to make user satisfaction a priority. For example, although the discussion in this article did not make particular reference to the Ten Usability Heuristics, the researchers’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a clear invitation to uphold the ten usability principles. As the writers have argued, we may distinguish between individual and organizational characteristics, or the antecedents of technology acceptance, and try to understand how they relate to one another, and so on and so forth, but the most important thing (I believe) is that keeping information systems simple (perceived ease of use) and the belief that such simple technology use enhances performance both at the individual and organizational level (perceived usefulness of the IT system) make a good recipe for user satisfaction. Would it be right to suggest that this position translates into the usability principles seen in class? Also, in line with Sara’s AA1, can we say keeping web pages simple guarantees satisfaction for all users, as the generalizability-oriented results of this study suggest?

 Reference

Lee, D., Rhee, Y., & Dunham, B. R. (2009).  The role of organizational and individual characteristics in technology acceptance. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 25 (7), 623 – 646.