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ITP212 - Introduction to Human-
Computer Interaction
Unit A: What is Interaction Design? Course Content/Subject Matter
- Good and Poor Design
- Interaction Design
- The User Experience
- Understanding Users
- Usability and Accessibility
- User Experience Goals Good and Poor Design A central concern of interaction design is to develop interactive products that are usable. Usability means products that are generally: **_- Easy to learn
- Effective to use
- Provide an enjoyable experience_** To better understand how to design usable interactive products, we can compare examples of well-designed and poorly designed ones. By identifying the specific weaknesses and strengths of these products, we can start to grasp what usability truly means.
Good or Poor? #Poor Design
- It is difficult to use, inefficient, and confusing.
- It requires multiple steps to accomplish basic tasks. #Good Design
- It requires only one step to perform core tasks.
- It is pleasing and enjoyable to use.
- The design is simple and elegant.
Examples of Poor Design: Voice Mail System Using the voice mail system in a hotel can be troublesome. Common problems include:
- It can be infuriating and confusing.
- It's inefficient, requiring many steps for basic tasks.
- It's difficult to use.
- There's no clear indication of whether any messages have been left or how many there are; you have to pick up the handset and go through several steps to check.
- It’s not clear what you need to do; the instructions are given partially by the system and partially by a card beside the phone.
Example of Good Design: The Marble Answering Machine In contrast, the marble answering machine has several advantages: - It uses familiar physical objects to visually indicate how many messages have been left.
- It is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to use.
- It requires only one step for core tasks.
- The design is simple yet elegant.
- It offers limited functionality so anyone can listen to any of the messages.
Remote Control Design Issues - What is wrong with the APEX remote?
- Why is the TiVo remote so much better designed? APEX Remote
- Peanut-shaped to fit in hand
- Logical layout with color-coded, distinctive buttons
- Easy to locate buttons
Considerations in Designing Interactive Products When designing interactive products, consider: - Who will use them? - How will they be used? - Where will they be used? - What activities will users be performing while interacting with these products? The suitability of different interfaces and arrangements of input and output devices depends on the activities being supported. For example, if the goal is to enable people to bank online, then a secure, trustworthy, and easy-to- navigate interface is essential. An interface that allows users to find information on new bank services without being intrusive would also be beneficial.
The Internet of Things (IoT) The Internet of Things (IoT) connects numerous products and sensors via the internet, enabling them to communicate with each other. Examples include:
_- Smart heating and lighting
- Home security systems
- Car parking solutions
- Consumer electronics
- Self-checkouts_
Understanding Users’ Needs A critical question in interaction design is: “How do you optimize the user’s interactions with a system, environment, or product to support their activities effectively, usefully, and pleasurably?” To make informed design choices, it is essential to understand users by: _- Considering their strengths and weaknesses.
- Identifying what might assist them in their tasks.
- Listening to their needs and involving them in the design process.
- Utilizing proven user-centered methods._
What is Interaction Design? Interaction design involves designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives. Various terms have been used to highlight different aspects of design, including: _- User Interface Design (UI/UID)
- Web Design
- Software Design
- User Experience Design (UX/UXD)
- User-Centered Design
- Interactive System Design
- Product Design_ While "Interaction Design" is often considered the overarching term for this field —including its methods, theories, and approaches—"UX" is more commonly used in industry and may be utilized interchangeably based on branding and ethos.
Goals of Interaction Design
- Develop usable products that are easy to learn, effective to use, and enjoyable.
- Involve users in the design process.
The Component of Interaction Design Interaction design intersects with various disciplines, fields, and approaches concerned with researching and developing computer- based systems for people, including: _- Ergonomics
- Psychology/Cognitive Science
- Cognitive Engineering
- Informatics
- Computer Science/Software Engineering
- Engineering
- Social Sciences
- Ubiquitous Computing
- Human Factors
- Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)_
Relationship Between Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction, and Other Fields Academic Disciplines Contributing to Interaction Design include: _- Psychology
- Social Sciences
- Computing Sciences
- Engineering
- Ergonomics
- Informatics_ Design Practices Contributing to Interaction Design include: _- Graphic Design
- Product Design
- Artistic Design
- Industrial Design
- The Film Industry_
Working in Multidisciplinary Teams
- Teams often consist of members from different backgrounds who offer various perspectives and terminologies. - Benefits: More ideas and designs created.
- Disadvantages: Communication can be challenging, and projects may face obstacles or costs.
significantly.
Accessibility and Inclusiveness Accessibility Accessibility refers to how many people can use an interactive product. Companies like Google and Apple provide tools to promote accessibility, focusing particularly on individuals with disabilities. Inclusive Design An inclusive design approach aims to accommodate the widest possible user base. Disability can arise from interaction designs that do not consider varied user needs. It views the disconnect between users and technology as a design flaw rather than just a limitation stemming from the impairment.
Types of Impairments 1. Sensory Impairment: Conditions affecting one or more senses.
- Physical Impairment: Loss of physical functioning impeding daily activities. 3. Cognitive Impairment: Confusions or disorientation from intellectual decline. Categories of Impairments
- Permanent: Disabilities such as loss of limb or sensory abilities. - Temporary: Short-term injuries affecting interaction capabilities.
- Situational: Challenges arising from varying environments.
Facts to Remember _- The number of individuals with permanent disabilities increases with age.
- 80% of people will experience a disability by age 85.
- Functional abilities typically diminish as people age._ How HCI Helps Individuals with Disabilities HCI can vastly improve life quality through: _- Assistive technology
- The Internet of Things
- Wearables
- Virtual Reality
- Prosthetics_
**Usability and User Experience Goals** Understanding users necessitates defining primary objectives for developing interactive products, whether for productivity or achieving educational challenges. **Classifying Goals:** - **Usability Goals:** Concerned with fulfilling specific criteria like efficiency. - **User Experience Goals:** Focus on enhancing the quality of user experience, ensuring projects are aesthetically pleasing. **Usability Goals** Usability goals are operationalized as questions that provide interaction designers concrete measures to assess interactive products and user experience aspects. Usability Goals: **Effectiveness** - Refers to how well a product performs its intended functions. - Question: Is the product capable of enabling learning, efficient working, and access to needed information? Usability Goals **: Efficiency** - How well a product assists users in completing tasks. - Question: Once users learn the product, can they maintain high productivity? Usability Goals **: Safety** - Protecting users from dangers and undesirable outcomes. - Question: What range of errors is possible, and what measures are there for users to recover easily? Usability Goals: **Utility** - The extent to which a product provides necessary functionality. - Question: Does the product offer suitable functions to enable users to perform their tasks? Usability Goals: **Learnability** - How easily a system can be learned. - Question: Can users discover how to use the product by exploring the interface?
Usability Goals: Memorability
- How easy it is to remember how to use a product after learning.
- Question: What support is provided to help users remember tasks?
User Experience Goals User experience encompasses both desirable and undesirable aspects, such as:
- Desirable Aspects: Satisfying, enjoyable, engaging, rewarding, etc.
- Undesirable Aspects: Boring, annoying, frustrating, etc. User Experience Goals : Aesthetically Pleasing Focusing on how attractive a design appears to users can influence their decision-making. User Experience Goals: Rewarding Creating a rewarding experience enhances user loyalty and reinforces positive interactions. User Experience Goals: Satisfaction Meeting user expectations and fulfilling their purposes for using a product is essential for satisfaction. User Experience Goals: Emotional Fulfillment Understanding emotional motivators enhances emotional connection with users. User Experience Goals: Support Creativity Encouraging innovative designs ensures that products remain fresh and appealing to users' needs. User Experience Goals: Enjoyment Creating enjoyable design is necessary to establish products as user favorites.
Unit B: The Process of Interaction
Design
What is Involved in Interaction Design Interaction design has specific activities focused on:
**_- Discovering requirements for the product
- Designing something to fulfill those requirements
- Producing prototypes
- Evaluation_** In addition, interaction design focuses attention on users and their goals. Generating alternatives is a key principle in most design disciplines and is central to interaction design. “The best way to get a good idea is to get lots of ideas.” – Linus Pauling Generating a lot of ideas is not necessarily hard, but choosing which of those ideas to pursue can be challenging.
What is Involved in Interaction Design Involving users and others in the design process means that designs and potential solutions need to be communicated to people other than the original designer. This requires the design to be captured and expressed in a form that allows for review, revision, and improvement. There are many ways to do this: - Series of sketches - Writing a description in natural language - Drawing a series of diagrams - Building a prototype A form that users can interact with is most effective, so building prototypes is an extremely powerful approach.
What is Involved in Interaction Design: The Double Diamond of Design - Discover: Insight into the problem
- Define: The area to focus upon
- Develop: Potential solutions
- Deliver: Solutions that work
What is Involved in Interaction Design: Understanding the Problem Space Understanding the problem space is the first phase in the double diamond of design, but it can sometimes be overlooked by those new to interaction design. The problem with starting here is that potential users and their context
Participatory Design: Sometimes referred to as cooperative design or co-design, this overarching philosophy places end-users and stakeholders at the center of the creation process. Instead of being passive recipients of new technologies or services, users and stakeholders become active participants in the design process.
What is Involved in Interaction Design: What is User-Centered Approach Early Focus on Users and Tasks: This involves understanding who users will be by studying their cognitive, behavioral, anthropomorphic, and attitudinal characteristics. This requires users to perform their normal tasks, studying those tasks' nature, and involving users in the design process. Underlying Principles:
_- Users’ tasks and goals drive development.
- Users’ behavior and context of use are studied, and the system is designed to support them.
- Users’ characteristics are documented and designed for.
- Users are consulted throughout development from the earliest to the latest phases.
- All design decisions consider the users, their activities, and their environment._
What is Involved in Interaction Design: What is User-Centered Approach Empirical Measurement: Early in development, the reactions and performance of intended users are observed and recorded during evaluations of printed scenarios, manuals, and similar materials. Later, users interact with simulations and prototypes, and their performance and reactions are analyzed. User-Centered Design (UCD): This is an iterative design process in which designers focus on users and their needs at each phase of the design process.
What is Involved in Interaction Design: What is User-Centered Approach Iterative Design: This approach allows designs to be refined based on feedback. When problems are identified during user testing, they are fixed, and then additional tests and observations are conducted to evaluate the effects of these fixes. The design process consists of cycles of design-test-measure- redesign, repeated as needed. “Iteration is inevitable because designers never get the solution right the first time.” – Gould and Lewis, 1985 --- What is Involved in Interaction Design: Four Basic Activities of Interaction Design 1. Discovering Requirements 2. Designing Alternatives 3. Prototyping 4. Evaluating A simple interaction design lifecycle model. --- What is Involved in Interaction Design: Four Basic Activities of Interaction Design Discovering Requirements: This activity covers the left side of the double diamond design model, focused on discovering new insights about the world and defining what will be developed. It includes understanding target users and how an interactive product can support them usefully, gleaned through data gathering and analysis. --- What is Involved in Interaction Design: Four Basic Activities of Interaction Design Designing Alternatives: This is the core activity of designing and falls under the Develop phase of the double diamond. This activity can be divided into two sub- activities: - Conceptual Design: Producing the conceptual model for the product. - Conceptual Model: Describes an abstraction outlining what people can do with a product and what concepts are needed to interact with it. - Concrete Design: Consider details of the
product, including colors, sounds, images, menu design, and icon design. Alternatives are explored at every point.
What is Involved in Interaction Design: Four Basic Activities of Interaction Design Prototyping: This involves designing the behavior of interactive products, as well as their appearance and feel. It is also part of the Develop phase of the double diamond. The most effective way for users to evaluate designs is to interact with them, achievable through prototyping.
What is Involved in Interaction Design: Four Basic Activities of Interaction Design Evaluating: The process of determining the usability and acceptability of the product or design, measured in terms of various usability and user-experience criteria, is also part of the Develop phase of the double diamond. Evaluation does not replace activities concerned with quality assurance and testing to ensure the final product is fit for its intended purpose, but it complements and enhances them.
2. Social Interaction Being Social A fundamental aspect of everyday life is social interaction between people. We continuously update each other about news, changes, activities, etc. While face-to-face conversation remains central to many of our social interactions, the use of social media has dramatically increased. It is also commonplace for people at work to stay connected via workplace communication tools.
Social Interaction: Face-to-Face Conversations Talking is something effortless and comes naturally to most people.
Social Interaction: Face-to-Face Conversations Conversational Mechanisms: These enable people to coordinate their talk, knowing how to start and stop. Conversation analysis describes these mechanisms using three basic rules:
- Rule 1 : The current speaker chooses the next speaker by asking a question, inviting an opinion, or making a request.
- Rule 2 : Another person decides to start speaking.
- Rule 3 : The current speaker continues talking. These rules are applied in order, creating opportunities for speakers to change.
Social Interaction: Remote Conversation Remote Conversations: Conversations when people are at a distance from each other. Telephone: Invented in the nineteenth century, it enables two people to talk at a distance.
Social Interaction: Remote Conversation In the late 1980s and 1990s, various "media spaces" were tested, combining audio, video, and computer systems to extend traditional environments. An early example of a media space was the
- VideoWindow: Developed to enable people in different locations to have conversations as if they were in the same room, enjoying coffee together.
Social Interaction: Remote Conversation Since early research, video conferencing has advanced significantly. The availability of affordable webcams and cameras embedded in
- Advertising agencies have developed techniques to influence emotions (for example, displaying images of cute animals or children with big eyes to evoke compassion and a desire to help, such as making a donation). Understanding how emotions work allows for designing user experiences that can elicit effects or reflections.
**Emotional Interaction: Emotional Design
Emotional Design:** This concept involves creating designs that evoke emotions resulting in positive user experiences. Designers aim to engage users on three cognitive levels – visceral, behavioral, and reflective – fostering positive associations with products and brands. Emotional design anticipates and accommodates users’ needs and responses. Designers must address three levels of cognitive responses:
- Visceral: Users’ initial gut reactions or first impressions of the design.
- Behavioral: Users subconsciously evaluate how the design assists them in achieving goals and whether they feel satisfied and in control with minimal effort.
- Reflective: Following interaction with the design, users consciously assess its performance, benefits, and overall value. If satisfied, they are likely to continue using it, form emotional bonds, and recommend it to others.
Emotional Interaction: How to Apply Emotional Design Applying emotional design starts with a solid functional design and requires a deep understanding of user needs through UX research. Here are strategies to benefit from emotional design:
- Give your work a signature personality, perhaps through a face or mascot that resonates with your brand.
- Engage users as if they were characters, incorporating personal touches to create the illusion of a personable helper.
- Use color contrasts effectively; for example, blue for banking conveys trustworthiness.
- Craft copy with appropriate tones to inspire or accommodate emotions, using terms, phrases, fonts, and styles that align with your intended image.
- Customize microcopy that resonates with users to maintain a consistent voice.
Emotional Interaction: How to Apply Emotional Design - Apply audio and video elements that convey messages "in character."
- Personalize experiences for different users.
- Introduce elements of surprise or rewards, consider including hidden features (Easter eggs).
- Utilize storytelling techniques.
- Pay attention to details, especially in error messages by including light-hearted or humorous elements to alleviate user frustration during issues. Consider offering small treats to compensate for inconveniences. Unit III Cognitive Aspect Introduction In the past 10–15 years, it has become increasingly common for people to be switching their attention constantly among multiple tasks. The study of human cognition can help us understand the impact of multitasking on human behavior. It can also provide insights into other types of digital behaviors, such as decision- making, searching, and designing when using computer technologies by examining human abilities and limitations. This chapter covers these aspects by examining the cognitive aspects of interaction design. It considers what humans are good and bad at, and it shows how this knowledge can inform the design of technologies that both extend human capabilities and compensate for human weaknesses. Finally, relevant cognitive theories, which have been applied in HCI to inform technology design, are described. Lesson 1: What is Cognition? There are many different kinds of cognition, such as thinking, remembering, learning,
daydreaming, decision-making, seeing, reading, writing, and talking. A well-known way of distinguishing between different modes of cognition is in terms of whether it is experiential or reflective (Norman, 1993). Experiential cognition is a state of mind where people perceive, act, and react to events around them intuitively and effortlessly. It requires reaching a certain level of expertise and engagement. Examples include driving a car, reading a book, having a conversation, and watching a video. In contrast, reflective cognition involves mental effort, attention, judgment, and decision-making, which can lead to new ideas and creativity. Examples include designing, learning, and writing a report. Both modes are essential for everyday life. Another popular way of describing cognition is in terms of fast and slow thinking (Kahneman, 2011). Fast thinking is similar to Don Norman’s experiential mode insofar as it is instinctive, reflexive, and effortless, and it has no sense of voluntary control. Slow thinking, as the name suggests, takes more time and is considered to be more logical and demanding, and it requires greater concentration. The difference between the two modes is easy to see when asking someone to give answers to the following two arithmetic equations: 2+2= 21 * 19 = The former can be done by most adults in a split second without thinking, while the latter requires much mental effort; many people need to externalize the task to be able to complete it by writing it down on paper and using the long multiplication method. Nowadays, many people simply resort to fast thinking by typing the numbers to be added or multiplied into a calculator app on a smartphone or computer. Other ways of describing cognition are in terms of the context in which it takes place, the tools that are employed, the artifacts and interfaces that are used, and the people involved (Rogers, 2012). Depending on when, where, and how it happens, cognition can be distributed, situated, extended, and embodied. Cognition has also been described in terms of specific kinds of processes (Eysenck and Brysbaert, 2018). These include the following: Attention Perception Memory Learning Reading, speaking, and listening Problem-solving, planning, reasoning, and decision-making It is important to note that many of these cognitive processes are interdependent: several may be involved for a given activity. It is rare for one to occur in isolation. For example, when reading a book one has to attend to the text, perceive and recognize the letters and words, and try to make sense of the sentences that have been written. Attention Attention is central to everyday life. It enables us to cross the road without being hit by a car or bicycle, notice when someone is calling our name, and be able to text while at the same time watching TV. It involves selecting things on which to concentrate, at a point in time, from the range of possibilities available, allowing us to focus on information that is relevant to what we are doing. The extent to which this process is easy or difficult depends on (1) Clear Goals (whether someone has clear goals). If someone knows exactly what they want to find out, they try to match this with the information that is available. When someone is not sure exactly what they are looking for, they may browse through information, allowing it to guide their attention to interesting or salient items. (2) Information Presentation (whether the information they need is salient in the environment). The way information is displayed can also greatly influence how easy or difficult it is to comprehend appropriate pieces of information.
information resources are being switched between. When developing new technology to provide more information for people in their work settings, it is important to consider how best to support them so that they can easily switch their attention back and forth among the multiple displays or devices and be able to return readily to what they were doing after an interruption (for instance, the phone ringing or people entering their space to ask questions). Design Implications (Attention) Consider context. Make information salient when it requires attention at a given stage of a task. Use techniques to achieve this when designing visual interfaces, such as animated graphics, color, underlining, ordering of items, sequencing of different information, and spacing of items. Avoid cluttering visual interfaces with too much information. This applies especially to the use of color and graphics: It is tempting to use lots of these attributes, which results in a mishmash of media that is distracting and annoying rather than helping the user attend to relevant information. Consider designing different ways of supporting effective switching and returning to a particular interface. This could be done subtly, such as the use of pulsing lights gradually getting brighter, or abruptly, such as the use of alerting sounds or voice. How much competing visual information or ambient sound is present also needs to be considered. Memory Memory involves recalling various kinds of knowledge that allow people to act appropriately. For example, it allows them to recognize someone’s face, remember someone’s name, recall when they last met them, and know what they said to them last. It is not possible for us to remember everything that we see, hear, taste, smell, or touch, nor would we want to, as our brains would get overloaded. A filtering process is used to decide what information gets further processed and memorized. This filtering process, however, is not without its problems. Often, we forget things that we would like to remember and conversely remember things that we would like to forget. For example, we may find it difficult to remember everyday things, like people’s names, or scientific knowledge such as mathematical formulae. On the other hand, we may effortlessly remember trivia or tunes that cycle endlessly through our heads. How does this filtering process work? Initially, encoding takes place, determining which information is paid attention to in the environment and how it is interpreted. The extent to which it takes place affects people’s ability to recall that information later. The more attention that is paid to something and the more it is processed in terms of thinking about it and comparing it with other knowledge, the more likely it is to be remembered. For example, when learning about a topic, it is much better to reflect on it, carry out exercises, have discussions with others about it, and write notes rather than passively reading a book or watching a video about it. Thus, how information is interpreted when it is encountered greatly affects how it is represented in memory and how easy it is to retrieve subsequently. Another factor that affects the extent to which information can be subsequently retrieved is the context in which it is encoded. One outcome is that sometimes it can be difficult for people to recall information that was encoded in a different context from the one in which they are at present. Consider the following scenario: You are on a train and someone comes up to you and says hello. You don’t recognize this person for a few moments, but then you realize it is one of your neighbors. You are only used to seeing them in the hallway of your apartment building and seeing them out of context makes this person initially difficult to recognize. Another well-known memory phenomenon is that people are much better at
recognizing things than recalling things. Furthermore, certain kinds of information is easier to recognize than others. In particular, people are good at recognizing thousands of pictures even if they have only seen them briefly before. In contrast, people are not as good at remembering details about the things they photograph when visiting places, such as museums. It seems that they remember less about objects when they have photographed them than when they observe them with the naked eye (Henkel, 2014). The reason for this is that the study participants appeared to be focusing more on framing the photo and less on the details of the object being photographed. Consequently, people don’t process as much information about an object when taking photos of it compared with when they are actually looking at it; hence, they are unable to remember as much about it later. Increasingly, people rely on the Internet and their smartphones to act as cognitive prostheses. Smartphones with Internet access have become an indispensable extension of the mind. Sparrow et al. (2011) showed how expecting to have readily available Internet access reduces the need and hence the extent to which people attempt to remember the information itself, while enhancing their memory for knowing where to find it online. Many people will whip out a smartphone to find out who acted in a movie, the name of a book, or what year a pop song was first released, and so on. Besides search engines, there are a number of other cognitive prosthetic apps that instantly help people find out or remember something, such as Shazam.com, the popular music recognition app. Personal Information Management The number of documents written, images created, music files recorded, videoclips downloaded, emails with attachments saved, URLs bookmarked, and so on, increases every day. A common practice is for people to store these files on a phone, on a computer, or in the cloud with a view to accessing them later. This is known as personal information management (PIM). The design challenge here is deciding which is the best way of helping users organize their content so that it can be easily searched, for example, via folders, albums, or lists. The solution should help users readily access specific items at a later date, for example, a particular image, video, or document. It can become frustrating if an item is not easy to locate, especially when users have to spend lots of time opening numerous folders when searching for a particular image or an old document, simply because they can’t remember what they called it or where they stored it. How can we improve upon this cognitive process of remembering? Ofer Bergman and Steve Whittaker (2016) have proposed a model for helping people manage their “digital stuff” based on curation. The model involves three interdependent processes: how to decide what personal information to keep, how to organize that information when storing it, and which strategies to use to retrieve it later. The first stage can be assisted by the system they use. For example, email, texts, music, and photos are stored as default by many devices. Users have to decide whether to place these in folders or delete them. In contrast, when browsing the web, they have to make a conscious decision as to whether a site they are visiting is worth bookmarking as one they might want to revisit later. A number of ways of adding metadata to documents have been developed, including time stamping, categorizing, tagging, and attribution (for example color, text, icon, sound, or image). Surprisingly, however, the majority of people still prefer the oldfashioned way of using folders for holding their files and other digital content. One reason is that folders provide a powerful metaphor that people can readily understand—placing things that have something in common into a container. To help users with searching, a number of search and find tools, such as Apple’s Spotlight, now enable them to type a partial name or even the first letter of a file that
Mental models are used by people when needing to reason about a technology, in particular, to try to fathom what to do when something unexpected happens with it or when encountering unfamiliar products for the first time. The more someone learns about a product and how it functions, the more their mental model develops. For example, broadband engineers have a deep mental model of how Wi-Fi networks work that allows them to work out how to set them up and fix them. In contrast, an average citizen is likely to have a reasonably good mental model of how to use the Wi-Fi network in their home but a shallow mental model of how it works. Within cognitive psychology, mental models have been postulated as internal constructions of some aspect of the external world that are manipulated, enabling predictions and inferences to be made (Craik, 1943). This process is thought to involve the fleshing out and the running of a mental model (Johnson-Laird, 1983). This can involve both unconscious and conscious mental processes, where images and analogies are activated. General Valve Theory (Kempton 1986) -This assumes the underlying principle of more is more: the more you turn or push something, the more it causes the desired effect. This principle holds for a range of physical devices, such as faucets, where the more you turn them, the more water that comes out. However, it does not hold for thermostats, which instead function based on the principle of an on-off switch. What seems to happen is that in everyday life, people develop a core set of abstractions about how things work and apply these to a range of devices, irrespective of whether they are appropriate. Using incorrect mental models to guide behavior is surprisingly common. Just watch people at a pedestrian crossing or waiting for an elevator. How many times do they press the button? A lot of people will press it at least twice. When asked why, a common reason is that they think it will make the lights change faster or ensure the elevator arrives. Many people’s understanding of how technologies and services work is poor, for instance, the Internet, wireless networking, broadband, search engines, computer viruses, the cloud, or AI. Their mental models are often incomplete, easily confusable, and based on inappropriate analogies and superstition (Norman, 1983). As a consequence, they find it difficult to identify, describe, or solve a problem, and they lack the words or concepts to explain what is happening. How can user experience (UX) designers help people to develop better mental models? A major obstacle is that people are resistant to spending much time learning about how things work, especially if it involves reading manuals or other documentation. An alternative approach is to design technologies to be more transparent, which makes them easier to understand in terms of how they work and what to do when they don’t. This includes providing the following: Clear and easy-to-follow instructions Appropriate online help, tutorials, and context-sensitive guidance for users in the form of online videos and chatbot windows, where users can ask how to do something Background information that can be accessed to let people know how something works and how to make the most of the functionality provided Affordances of what actions an interface allows (for example, swiping, clicking, or selecting). The concept of transparency has been used to refer to making interfaces intuitive to use so that people can simply get on with their tasks, such as taking photos, sending messages, or talking to someone remotely without having to worry about long sequences of buttons to press or options to select. An ideal form of transparency is where the interface simply disappears from the focus of someone’s attention. Imagine if every time you had to give a presentation that all you had to do was say, “Upload and start my slides for the talk I
prepared today,” and they would simply appear on the screen for all to see. That would be bliss! Instead, many AV projector systems persist in being far from transparent, requiring many counterintuitive steps for someone to get their slides to show. This can include trying to find the right dongle, setting up the system, typing in a password, setting up audio controls, and so forth, all of which seems to take forever, especially when there is an audience waiting. Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation The gulf of execution and the gulf of evaluation describe the gaps that exist between the user and the interface (Norman, 1986; Hutchins et al., 1986). The gulfs are intended to show how to design the latter to enable the user to cope with them. The first one, the gulf of execution, describes the distance from the user to the physical system while the second one, the gulf of evaluation, is the distance from the physical system to the user (see Figure 3.1). Don Norman and his colleagues suggest that designers and users need to concern themselves with how to bridge the gulfs to reduce the cognitive effort required to perform a task. This can be achieved, on the one hand, by designing usable interfaces that match the psychological characteristics of the user (for example, taking into account their memory limitations) and, on the other hand, by the user learning to create goals, plans, and action sequences that fit with how the interface works. Fig. 3.1 Bridging the gulfs of execution and evaluation The conceptual framework of the gulfs is still considered useful today, as it can help designers consider whether their proposed interface design is increasing or decreasing cognitive load and whether it makes it obvious as to which steps to take for a given task. For example, Kathryn Whitenton (2018), who is a digital strategy manager, describes how the gulfs prevented her from understanding and why she could not get her Bluetoothheadset to connect with her computer despite following the steps in the manual. She wasted a whole hour repeating the steps and getting more and more frustrated and not making any progress. Eventually, she discovered that the system she thought was toggled “on” was actually showing her that it was “off” (see Figure 3.2). She found this out by searching the web to see whether someone else could help her. She found a site that showed a screenshot of what the settings switch looks like when turned on. There was an inconsistency between the labels of two similar-looking switches, one showing the current status of the interaction (off) and the other showing what would happen if the interaction were engaged (Add Bluetooth Or Other Device). This inconsistency of similar functions illustrated how the gulfs of execution and evaluation were poorly bridged, making it confusing and difficult for the user to know what the problem was or why they could not get their headset to connect with their computer despite many attempts. In the article, she explains how the gulfs could be easily bridged by designing all sliders to give the same information as to what happens when they are moved from one side to the other.
environment in which the plane is flying (that is, the sky, runway, and so on) A primary objective of the distributed cognition approach is to describe these interactions in terms of how information is propagated through different media. By this we mean how information is represented and re-represented as it moves across individuals and through the array of artifacts that are used (for example, maps, instrument readings, scribbles, and spoken word) during activities. These transformations of information are referred to as changes in representational state. This way of describing and analyzing a cognitive activity contrasts with other cognitive approaches, such as the information processing model, in that it focuses not on what is happening inside the head of an individual but on what is happening across a system of individuals and artifacts. For example, in the cognitive system of the cockpit, a number of people and artifacts are involved in the activity of flying at a higher altitude. The air traffic controller initially tells the pilot when it is safe to ascend to a higher altitude. The pilot then alerts the captain, who is flying the plane, by moving a knob on the instrument panel in front of them, confirming that it is now safe to fly. Hence, the information concerning this activity is transformed through different media (over the radio, through the pilot, and via a change in the position of an instrument). This kind of analysis can be used to derive design recommendations, suggesting how to change or redesign an aspect of the cognitive system, such as a display or a socially mediated practice. In the previous example, distributed cognition could draw attention to the importance of any new design needing to keep shared awareness and redundancy in the system so that both the pilot and the captain can be kept aware and also know that the other is aware of the changes in altitude that are occurring. It is also the basis for the DiCOT analytic framework that has been developed specifically for understanding healthcare settings and has also been used for software team interactions. External Cognition People interact with or create information by using a variety of external representations, including books, multimedia, newspapers, web pages, maps, diagrams, notes, drawings, and so on. Furthermore, an impressive range of tools has been developed throughout history to aid cognition, including pens, calculators, spreadsheets, and software workflows. The combination of external representations and physical tools has greatly extended and supported people’s ability to carry out cognitive activities (Norman, 2013). Indeed, they are such an integral part of our cognitive activities that it is difficult to imagine how we would go about much of our everyday life without them. External cognition is concerned with explaining the cognitive processes involved when we interact with different external representations such as graphical images, multimedia, and virtual reality (Scaife and Rogers, 1996). A main goal is to explain the cognitive benefits of using different representations for different cognitive activities and the processes involved. The main ones include the following:
- Externalizing to reduce memory load - externalizing things that we find difficult to remember, such as birthdays, appointments, and addresses. Diaries, personal reminders, and calendars are examples of cognitive artifacts that are commonly used for this purpose, acting as external reminders of what we need to do at a given time, such as buy a card for a relative’s birthday. Externalizing, therefore, can empower people to trust that they will be reminded without having to remember themselves, thereby reducing their memory burden in the following ways:
- Reminding them to do something (for example, get something for mother’s birthday)
- Reminding them of what to do (such as buy a card)
- Reminding them of when to do something (for instance, send it by a certain date)
- Computational offloading - Computational offloading occurs when we use a tool or device in conjunction with an external representation to help us carry out a computation. An example is using pen and paper to solve a math problem as mentioned in the introduction of the chapter where you were asked to multiply 21 × 19 in your head versus using a pen and paper. Now try doing the sum again but using roman numerals: XXI × XVIIII. It is much harder unless you are an expert in using roman numerals—even though the problem is equivalent under both conditions. The reason for this is that the two different representations transform the task into one that is easy and one that is more difficult, respectively. The kind of tool used also can change the nature of the task to being easier or more difficult.
- Annotating and cognitive tracing - Another way in which we externalize our cognition is by modifying representations to reflect changes that are taking place that we want to mark. For example, people often cross things off a to-do list to indicate tasks that have been completed. They may also reorder objects in the environment by creating different piles as the nature of the work to be done changes. These two types of modification are called annotating and cognitive tracing.
- Annotating involves modifying external representations, such as crossing off or underlining items.
- Cognitive tracing involves externally manipulating items into different orders or structures. Annotating is often used when people go shopping. People usually begin their shopping by planning what they are going to buy. This often involves looking in their cupboards and fridge to see what needs stocking up. However, many people are aware that they won’t remember all this in their heads, so they often externalize it as a written shopping list. The act of writing may also remind them of other items that they need to buy, which they may not have noticed when looking through the cupboards. When they actually go shopping at the store, they may cross off items on the shopping list as they are placed in the shopping basket or cart. This provides them with an annotated externalization, allowing them to see at a glance what items are still left on the list that need to be bought. There are a number of digital annotation tools that allow people to use pens, styluses, or their fingers to annotate documents, such as circling data or writing notes. The annotations can be stored with the document, enabling the users to revisit theirs or others’ externalizations at a later date. Cognitive tracing is useful in conditions where the current situation is in a state of flux and the person is trying to optimize their position. This typically happens when playing games, such as the following: In a card game, when the continuous rearrangement of a hand of cards into suits, in ascending order, or collecting same numbers together helps to determine what cards to keep and which to play as the game progresses and tactics change In Scrabble, where shuffling letters around in the tray helps a person work out the best word given the set of letters (Maglio et al., 1999) Cognitive tracing has also been used as an interactive function, for example, letting students know what they have studied in an online learning package. An interactive diagram can be used to highlight all of the nodes visited, exercises completed, and units still to be studied. A general cognitive principle for interaction design based on the external cognition approach is to provide external representations at an interface that reduce memory load, support creativity, and facilitate computational offloading. Different kinds of information visualizations can be developed that reduce the amount of effort required to make inferences about a given topic (for example, financial forecasting or identifying programming bugs). In so doing,
