Block 3 - Unit 3: Understanding users.

Question 1

What is cognition?

Answer 1

‘What goes on in our head when we carry out everyday activities.’

Question 2

2 general modes of cognition. (sentence and examples)

Answer 2

Experimental - state of mind in which we perceive, act, and react to events effectively and effortlessly.
Requires a level of expertise and engagement. Eg. driving, reading.

Reflective cognition - thinking, comparing, decision-making. Leads to new ideas and creativity. Eg. designing, learning, writing a book.

Each requires different kinds of tech support.

Question 3

Kinds of process that cognition can be described by. (6)

Answer 3

Attention.

Perception and recognition.

Memory.

Learning.

Reading, speaking and listening.

Problem-solving, planning, reasoning, decision-making.

(Several may be needed for a given activity).

Question 4

Attention?

Answer 4

The process of selecting things to concentrate on.

Auditory - eg. waiting for name to be called at the doctors.

Visual - eg. scanning football results for your team’s.

Attention allows us to focus on info relevant to what we’re doing.

Question 5

What factors affect how easy the process of attention is? (2)

Answer 5

(i) Our goals.
If we know exactly what we want to find out we try to match this with the info available.
If goals are not clear, attention can drift to interesting items, eg. news articles.

(ii) Info presentation.
Easier to find info if well structured, eg. into columns of meaningful categories, even if info density is the same.

Question 6

Design implications of attention. (4)

Answer 6

Make info salient when it needs attending to at a given stage of a task.

Use eg. animation, colour, underlining, ordering, spacing, etc. to achieve this.

Avoid cluttering with too much (distracting / annoying) info.

Use simple search and form fill-ins - can find quickly.

Question 7

Perception.

Answer 7

How info is acquired from the environment, via different senses, and transformed into experiences of objects, events, sounds and tastes.

Complex - involves other cognitive processes (memory, attention, language).

Question 8

Design implications of perception.

Answer 8

Representation of info needs to be designed to be perceptible / recognisable across different media:

• Icons / graphics should enable users to readily distinguish their meaning.
• Bordering / spacing are effective visual ways to group info so it’s easy to perceive and locate items.
• Sounds should be audible and distinguishable so it is clear what they represent (including speech).
• Text should be legible and contrast to background.

Question 9

Memory.

Answer 9

Versatile - recall different types of knowledge.

Things are filtered to avoid overloading, but can forget what we might not want to.

Filtering process - decide which info is attended to and how it is interpreted.
The more attention paid, the more likely something is to be remembered.
Processing info - reflecting, exercises, discussions, etc. helps.

Question 10

Context of encoding.

Answer 10

May be difficult to eg. recognise someone out of context.

Question 11

Recognition and recall.

Answer 11

Easier to recognise than recall, eg. menu over command.
Visual cues are easier to recognise than eg. phone numbers.

Personal info management (PIM) - storing files etc.
Recall-directed - memorised info about file.
Recognition-based scanning - look down list.
Should be able to narrow search by what you do remember, eg. time-stamps, flagging, type; search with partial name.

Question 12

Problem with 7 +/- 2.

Answer 12

Theory - only 7 (+/- 2) chunks of information can be held in short term memory.

Designers may limit menu items, tabs, bullet points, etc. to 7, but this is not necessary as they don’t need to be recalled, but simply recognised from scanning.

Question 13

Memory load.

Answer 13

Can be high, eg security checks for phone banking.

Question 14

Design implications of memory.

Answer 14

Don’t overload users’ memories with complicate procedures for carrying out tasks.

Design interfaces that promote ‘recognition’ rather than ‘recall’ - menus, icons, consistently placed objects.

Provide a variety of ways of encoding digital info, (eg. files, emails, images), to help remember where they’ve stored them, through use of categories, colour, flagging, time-stamping, icons, etc.

Question 15

Learning.

Answer 15

Can be considered in terms of:

(i) how to use a computer based app, or
(ii) using a computer-based app to understand a given topic.

People find it hard to learn from instructions in a manual - prefer to ‘learn by doing’.
GUI and DM interfaces support active learning - exploratory interaction, allowing users to ‘undo’ actions.

Question 16

‘Training-wheels’ approach.

Answer 16

Restrict possible functions for novices so initial learning is easier, then extend with experience.

Question 17

Dynalinking.

Answer 17

Abstract representations, eg. diagrams, are linked together with a more concrete illustration of what they stand for, such as simulation.
Changes in one are matched in the other - gives a better understanding of abstraction. Eg. PondWorld - ecological concepts.

Question 18

Evolutionary vs Revolutionary upgrading.

Answer 18

Where and how to place new functions?

• Keep same structure and add more buttons / menu options - no new conceptual model to learn, but can get overloaded.
• Design a new model of interaction better suited to organising and categorising increased function set.

Is relearning relative to gains from new functionality acceptable to user?

Question 19

Design implications of learning.

Answer 19

Design interfaces that encourage exploration.

Design interfaces than constrain an guide users to select appropriate actions when initially learning.

Dynamically link concrete representations and abstract concepts to facilitate learning of complex material.

Question 20

Reading, speaking and listening.

Answer 20

Forms of language processing that have similar and different properties.

Meaning of sentences / phrases is the same, but, the ease with which people can read, listen or speak differs depending on the person, task and context.

Eg. many find listening easier than reading.

Question 21

Differences between reading, speaking and listening. (5)

Answer 21

Written language is permanent.

Reading can be quicker - can scan rapidly.

Listening requires less cognitive effort.

Written language tends to be grammatical, while spoken language is often ungrammatical, eg. stop midsentence to allow others to speak.

Marked differences between people’s ability / preference of language use.
Eg. hard for dyslexics to understand / recognise written words - hard to write grammatical sentences and spell correctly.

Question 22

Ways apps capitalise on skills, or support / replace where people lack skill. (6)

Answer 22

Interactive books / web material to help reading / learning of foreign languages.

Speech-recognition systems.

Speech-output systems.

Natural-language systems - allow users to type questions and give text responses.

Customised I/O devices.

Interactive techniques to allow blind people to read graphs etc. on the web through auditory navigation and tactile diagrams.

Question 23

Design implications of reading, speaking and listening. (3)

Answer 23

Keep length of speech-based menus and instructions to a minimum 3 - 4 options for spoken menus.

Accentuate the intonation of artificial speech - harder to understand than human voices.

Provide options for larger text, without affecting formatting, for people who find small text hard.

Question 24

Problem-solving, planning, reasoning and decision making.

Answer 24

All involve reflective cognition.

Include thinking about what to do, the options and consequences.

Often involve conscious processes, discussion with others (or self) and use of artifacts - maps, books, pend and paper, etc.

Question 25

What effects the extent to which people engage in reflective cognition?

Answer 25

Their level of experience with a domain, app or skill.

Novice:

• may make assumptions based on knowledge of similar situations.
• often use trial and error, exploring and experimenting - this is slow, inefficient and more error prone.
• don’t think ahead of the consequences.

Expert:

• knowledge to select optimal strategies.
• think ahead more - consequences of particular move or solution.

Question 26

Design implications of problem-solving, planning, reasoning and decision making. (2)

Answer 26

Provide additional hidden info that is easy to access for users who wish to understand more about how to carry out an activity more effectively, eg. Web searching.

Use simple and memorable functions at the interface for computational aids intended to support rapid decision-making and planning that takes place while on the move.

Question 27

Why is it beneficial to be able to explain the implications of problem-solving, planning, reasoning and decision making?

Answer 27

For ID it helps understand the impact of design decisions on the users and their experience.

Also, helps apply guidelines that are based on what we know about these processes more appropriately.

Question 28

5 cognitive frameworks useful for ID.

Answer 28

Developed to explain and predict user behaviour based on theories of cognition:

• Mental models
• The theory of action
• Information processing
• External cognition
• Distributed cognition

Question 29

Mental model.

Answer 29

Mental construct in the head of a user which consists of knowledge of how to use something and how it works.

Helps user understand and predict the behaviour of a product. If the model is appropriate, it can make it much easier to achieve goals when using the product.

Designer can’t inspect or build a users’ mental model. However, by eg. using metaphors and maintaining consistency through families of apps, can help users construct an appropriate mental model.

Ideally, model would map to designer’s conceptual model.

Question 30

Theory of action.

Answer 30

Specifies 7 stages of an activity (establish a goal; form an intention; specify an action sequence, execute an action; perceive the system state; interpret the state, evaluate the system state with respect to the goals and intentions), and proposes these stages take place sequentially (actually an approximation).

Also highlights gulf of execution and gulf of evaluation which represent the distance between the user and the interface and how to overcome these gaps.

Question 31

Information processing.

Answer 31

Views the mind as an information processor in which info enters and exits the mind through a series of ordered processing steps.

However, most cognitive activities take place in everyday environment, not exclusively in one’s head. So, models are too simplified.

Question 32

External cognition.

Answer 32

Unlike information processing, recognises cognitive activity is influenced by elements from the external environment - books, maps, diagrams, etc.

Combined with tools - pens, calculators, computers, etc. - extends the ability for cognitive activities.

Question 33

Distributed cognition.

Answer 33

Looks at cognitive system distributed across individuals, artifacts, and internal and external representations, rather than cognition just within a person’s head.

Eg. airplane cockpit - top-level goal is to fly. Involves pilot, co-pilot and air-traffic controller ‘interacting’, pilots ‘interacting’ with instruments and environment.

Question 34

UB points on mental models. (2)

Answer 34

Usually formed over time, and are organic rather than well-formed from the outset.

In ID, mental models can be associated with complete system / product, or with sections of it.
Eg. suggested names/emails when you start to type in ‘To’ box - model can still apply within different email systems.

Question 35

Design model (UB)

Answer 35

More detailed version of conceptual model in Unit 1 - is an explicit and consciously developed model, while user’s mental model evolves over time.

Contains more detail than user would need.

Question 36

Requirements activity and design model.

Answer 36

Requirements activity is important to the development of the design model - meeting and observing users to gain understanding of goals / perspectives.

Designers aim to communicate their own understanding of how the product works (design model) through the working system.

If done well, users should develop an accurate mental model, which helps achieve goals more easily.

Question 37

System image (UB).

Answer 37

Means by which functionality and state of a system is presented to user, through - interface, training, manuals, etc.

Users acquire knowledge of a system from the system image.
Interface is the most important part - by interacting with i, users build their own mental model.

Question 38

User’s model (UB).

Answer 38

When faced with a new product, users often unconsciously ‘run’ existing mental models to interpret the new situation, explain it and make predictions about the outcomes of their interaction.

Question 39

2 things a user’s mental model of a new system will be based on.

Answer 39

1. Existing mental models of systems, devices, tasks and other experiences they see as relevant to the new product. (If expectations are not met, they may experience difficulties.
2. The system image for the new product.
   Should be designed to communicate effectively the relevant parts of the design model, in particular how users need to operate the product to achieve their goals.

Important to take into account users’ prior knowledge and experience.