Design for usability
E6: Human Factors Design
IB Technology
User-product interfaces
The user-product interfaces of many
electronic products are extremely
complex rather than being intuitive
and easy to use.
Products with intuitive and easily
accessible interfaces are likely to be
more popular with consumers
(especially more affluent and older
customers).
Important characteristics
Three important characteristics for a userproduct interface are:
• Simplicity and ease of use
• Intuitive logic and organisation
• Low memory burden
Consider which product features are
essential or likely to be used with greatest
frequency, the functionality required by a
typical user and the common learning
problems encountered by users.
Bad design!
There are disadvantages to products which
are not well organised and cannot be learnt
intuitively and remembered easily.
This user interface is
too difficult to
understand or
decipher what to do.
So, I installed the facebook application on my phone, along with a handful of other free
and pay-for downloads from the Apple App Store.
Facebook, however, took an approach that I haven't yet seen any of the other App Store
software downloads take... They've incorporated Apple's Icon-based "alerts" into their
own Facebook application icon.
If I was a heavy facebooker, I'd probably appreciate this. If I cared so much about my
virtual friendships that I really needed to know when one of my friends sent me a request
to eat zombies, plant a virtual flower or figure out how much more "like" others I am,
then I'd really be into knowing the moment that a new request was sent to my Facebook
account. The problem is... I don't really care that much.
I don't question the value of having
these numeric indicators on my
screen. I do, however, question the
necessity of having them displayed,
with no way of being able to disable
them... simply telling the Facebook
application that "I don't really care that
much about you, so STOP stressing
me out!".
Logically, you'd think that Facebook's
application design team would have
thought to put a preference in the
application that allowed me to turn
these numeric notifications on or off.
Novice users of a product should be able to
learn all its basic functions within one or two
hours. However, many products are full of
confusing detail and are difficult to learn.
This can lead to
incomplete use of
the product’s
functionality and
frustration for the
user. Instruction
manuals are often
poorly organised.
Memory burden
Poor organisation of a product imposes a
memory burden on the users, who have to
learn and remember how the various functions
work. This results in them not using the full
functionality of a product but focusing on a
limited set of features and ignoring those that
are difficult to remember.
As a designer you should be thinking about
how intuitively the product features can be
accessed by users to reduce memory burden
and make the product more user friendly.
Why is it difficult for a designer to develop
simple, intuitive user-product interfaces?
• It is difficult for a designer to distance him/herself
from the product and look at it through the eyes of
the prospective user.
• Re-innovation of a product often involves adding
features to the basic design rather than
redesigning the user-product interface from
scratch, and this can result in a disorganised
interface.
• It is important to consider necessary and desirable
features, not ones that increase complexity without
enhancing usefulness for most users.
Paper prototyping
Definition:
Representative users perform realistic
tasks by interacting with a paper version of
the user-product interface that is
manipulated by a person acting as a
computer, who does not explain how the
interface works.
See paper prototyping handout and video for a working example.
Paper prototyping is one example of
participatory design.
Paper prototyping is sometimes called
low-fidelity prototyping. It is one example
of participatory design, that is, it involves
the users in design development.
In a paper prototyping session there are 4 roles:
Facilitator: explains the purpose of the session to
the user and how to interact with the prototype.
User: represents the target market for the product,
and interacts with the user-product interface to
“use” the product in response to guidance from
the facilitator.
Computer: a human being simulating the
behaviour of the computer program in response
to instructions from the user.
Observer: watches what happens and can ask
more questions of the user.
Advantages of paper prototyping
• It is cheap and easy to implement. A paper
prototype can be quickly and easily modified
and retested in the light of feedback from
representative users, so designs can be
developed more quickly.
• It promotes communication between members
of the development team.
• No computer programming is required, so
paper prototyping is platform-independent and
does not require technical skills.
• A multidisciplinary design team can collaborate
on design development.