Block 3 Flashcards
Why is it inappropriate to start designing at the physical level?
If a designer begins by considering the physical aspects of an envisaged product, and maybe the technology to be used, then usability and user experience goals can easily be overlooked. You may feel that the Tokairo case study in Block 1 is a counter-example to this position because they decided on the input and output devices early on. However, they did consider other possibilities and discuss user requirements, and their decision was based on experience and a good understanding of the intended users. In this case, then, the exploration of the problemspace was very short. Review
What activities are central to working out the problem space for a product?
The central activities are clarifying your usability and user experience goals, and explicating your assumptions and claims.
Write down four questions that you can ask of a situation that will help you to start exploring the problem space.
The four questions identified are: 1 Are there problems with an existing product or user experience? If so, what are they? 2 Why do you think there are problems? 3 How do you think your proposed design ideas might overcome these? 4 If you have not identified any problems and instead are designing for a new user experience how do you think your proposed design ideas support, change or extend current
The definition of a conceptual model given in this section refers to four components of the intended product that should be described in the product’s conceptual model. What are these four components?
1 the major design metaphors and analogies that are used to convey to
the user how to understand what a product is for and how to use it
for an activity
2 the concepts that users are exposed to through the product, including
the task-domain data-objects users create and manipulate, their
attributes and the operations that can be performed on them
3 the relationships between those concepts, e.g. whether one object
contains another, the relative importance of actions to others, and
whether an object is part of another
4 the mappings between the concepts and the user experience the
product is designed to support or invoke.
Name three benefits for the design team of conceptualising design in general terms early on in the design process.
Three benefits for the design team of conceptualising design early on are:
1 to orient themselves towards asking specific kinds of questions about
how the conceptual model will be understood by the targeted users
2 not to become narrowly focused early on
3 to establish a set of common terms they all understand and agree
upon, reducing the chance of misunderstandings and confusion
arising later on.
What is the main benefit of using an interface metaphor?
Interface metaphors allow people to talk about what they are doing in
terms they are familiar with
Summarise the arguments against using interface metaphors.
Designers sometimes take the metaphor too literally and try to design an
interface that matches the characteristics of the metaphorical item.
Instantiating the metaphor literally in an interface often leads to
contradictions with the original item, and this can cause confusion rather
than illumination.
Metaphors can be too constraining, both of the designer by not providing
useful functionality, and of the user by blinding them to the existence of
useful functionality.
Metaphors can lead to conflicts with design principles or to the literal
translation of designs that were originally bad and have not been
improved.
Finally, it is argued by some that the use of metaphors limits the
designer’s imagination.
What are the main disadvantages of emulating strategies from the physical world in the digital world?
When strategies from the physical world are translated into the digital
world too literally they may over-constrain the user, or fail to make the
most of digital possibilities.
How is the idea of emulating physical world strategies in the digital world related to the use of interface metaphors?
Metaphors are used in order to help users understand new concepts by
building on familiar knowledge. This usually entails taking experience
from the real world and translating it somehow into the digital world.
Emulating strategies from the physical world is one way of developing
metaphors.
describes four different interaction types
instructing, conversing, manipulating and exploring
Why is it difficult to delegate tasks to digital agents or to leave it to the environment to determine how to respond to a situation?
The problem with delegating tasks to agents or leaving it to the
environment to determine how to respond is that it is very difficult to
predict what is happening and what users want done or the information
they require, and so on.
What does it mean for interaction to be tightly or loosely coupled? Give an example of each.
Coupling refers to the link between an action in the physical world and
the response from an interactive product. Tight coupling is where the
action causes an effect that is immediate and obvious, such as raising your
arm causes the light to go on. Loose coupling is where the effect of an
action is not immediate and not obvious, such as walking past a sensor
which causes a message to be sent to someone’s phone.
For each of theories, models and frameworks, distinguish how they might be used in interaction design.
Theories tend to be comprehensive, explaining interaction.
Models tend to simplify some aspect of interaction, providing a basis
for design.
Frameworks tend to be prescriptive, providing concepts, questions and
principles to consider when designing interaction.
Name and describe the three main elements in Don Norman’s framework for the relationship between the designer’s conceptual model and a user’s understanding of it.
The three elements are:
1 the designer’s model – the model the designer has of how the system
should work
2 the system image – how the system actually works (portrayed to the
user through the interface, manuals, help facilities, etc.)
3 the user’s model – how the user understands how the system works.
State one key design challenge for each of the interface types
A key design challenge for each of the interface types is:
. mobile: designing for a small screen space and limited control space
. multimodal: recognising different aspects of the user’s behaviour
. shareable: taking account of the effect that size, orientation and shape of
the display have on collaboration
. tangible: what kind of coupling to use between action and effect
(coupling was introduced in Box 2.4 in the Set Book)
. augmented and mixed reality: few design guidelines exist
. wearable: making the product comfortable to wear
. robotic: whether robotic interfaces should be designed to be as humanlike
