Transcript Chapter 9 User-centered approaches to interaction design

Chapter 9
User-centered approaches to
interaction design
By:
Sarah Obenhaus
Ray Evans
Nate Lynch
Introduction
 Some advantages of involving users
 Main principles of user-centered approach
 Ethnographic-based methods to understand
user’s work
 Design techniques that help users take
active part in design
Why involve users?
 Best way to ensure that users’ activities
taken into account
 Expectation management
– Process that makes sure what user expects is
realistic
– Users will know what to expect-no surprises
– Users less likely to be disappointed
 Ownership
– Users involved in design have a sense of
“ownership” and will be more receptive
Degrees of Involvement
 Co-opted full time
– Consistent input
– Could lose touch with user group
 Co-opted part time
– Consistent input with careful management
– Remain in touch with user group
 Newsletters, Workshops
– Good solution for large amount of users
What if short on time?
 Some argue that if the project is large scale
and the time is short, users will be a waste
of valuable time
 Braiterman conducted 2 studies that prove
otherwise:
– 3-week web shopping application
• Use paper prototypes
– 3-month gaming website
• Observed 32 teenagers to gain insight
“Too much of a good thing?”

Heinbokel (1996) – Users could make project have
less flexibility and lower team effectiveness

Communication problems:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Users want more sophisticated designs later in
project
Users’ fears lead to less constructive participation
Users unpredictable and unsympathetic
Higher stress levels from higher aspirations
What is user-centered approach?
 Real users and their goals should be the
driving force behind design
 Three principles:
1. Early focus on user and their tasks
2. Empirical measurements
3. Iterative design
Early focus on user
 Five principles that expand on this:
1. User’s goals are driving force
2. System designed to support users’ behavior
3. System designed for user’s characteristics
4. Users consulted from beginning to end, with
their input taken seriously
5. Design decisions taken within context of
users, their work, and environment
What is Ethnography?
 “writing the culture” (Hammersley and
Atkinson, 1983)
 Used to understand work
 Observers sit in on user’s work
environment and participate in daily
activities
 Experience is collected and documented
Ethnography and design
 Three ways it is associated with design:
1. “Ethnography of”
–
Studies of developers and workplace
2. “Ethnography for”
–
Studies of organizational work
3. “Ethnography within”
– Integrated into methods for development
Ethnography continued
 Design deals with abstraction, and
ethnography deals with detail
 Framework of ethnography for designers:
– Distributed co-ordination
– Plans and procedures
– Awareness of work
 Could train developers to do studies
Coherence
 Intended for integration of social analysis
and object-oriented analysis
 Present data from ethnographic studies
through
– “viewpoints”
– “concerns”
“Viewpoints”
 Focus question for each that guide observer
through users’ workplace
– Distributed coordination
– Plans and procedures
– Awareness of work
 See figure 9.1 for some questions
Concerns
1. Paperwork and computer work
 Plans and procedures; awareness of work
2. Skill and use of local knowledge
 “workarounds”
3. Spatial and temporal organization
 Physical layout
4. Organization memory
 Records and formal documents
Contextual Design
 Structural approach to gathering info from
field
 Seven parts:
– Contextual Inquiry, Work Modeling, Consolidation,
Work Redesign, User Environment Design, Mockup
and Test with Customers, Putting into Practice
Contextual Inquiry
 Approach to ethnographic study that
follows apprenticeship model
– designer works as apprentice to user
 Typical format includes interview,
observation, discussion, reconstruction
 4 main principles
4 principles of Inquiry
1. Context
–
Importance of going to workplace
2. Partnership
–
Developer and user should collaborate
3. Interpretation
–
Observations must be interpreted together by
developer and user
4. Focus
–
What do you look for?
Contextual Inquiry v. Ethnography
1. Contextual Inquiry shorter (2-3 hours)
2. Inquiry interview more intense and
focused
3. Designer inquiring, not observing
4. Inquiry has intention of designing a
system, ethnography has no intent
Working Model
 Five aspects of “work” modeled:
– Work flow model
– Sequence model
– Artifact model
– Cultural model
– Physical model
Interpretation Session
 Session occurs after inquiry, work models
produced at this time as team composes
view of users’ work
 Roles of team:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Interviewer
Work modelers
Recorder
Moderator
Participants
Rat-hole watcher
Consolidate Models
 Affinity diagram-organizes notes taken
during session into hierarchy
– Work flow – identify key roles
– Sequence – structure of tasks/strategies
– Artifact – how people organize
– Physical – physical structure commonality
– Cultural – what matters to workers
Work Flow Model
Sequence Model
Artifact Model
Physical Model
Cultural Model
Design Room
 Where all work models kept
 All known about customers found here
 Key element to contextual design
Participatory Design
 Users actively involved in design as equal
to design team
 Cultural differences has been a problem
 UTOPIA project
 PICTIVE
 CARD
PICTIVE
 Plastic Interface for Collaborative
Technology Initiatives through Video
Exploration
 Uses typical office supplies to design
screen and window layouts
 Group or one-on-one sessions of design
CARD
 Collaborative Analysis of Requirements
and Design
 Uses playing cards with pictures of
computers’ screens to study work flow
options
 Form of storyboarding
Review of techniques
 Ethnography
 Coherence
 Contextual design
 Participatory design
Key Points
 Pros and cons of user involvement
 User-centered approach requires much info about
users
 Ethnography good method for studying users in
natural surroundings
 Coherence-method that provides focus questions
 Contextual design-method that provides models
for gathering data
 PICTIVE and CARD-participatory design
techniques that empower user