For those last minute exam preppers... A helpful summary of most of the important points in the textbook to help you prepare for your upcoming 2021 exam.
Chapter 1 – What is interaction design
1.2 GOOD AND POOR DESIGN
Central concern of interaction design – Develop interactive products that are usable
Easy to learn
Effective to use
Provides an enjoyable user experience
Poor design characteristics
Infuriating
Confusing
Inefficient
Difficult to use
Not obvious what to do
Good design characteristics
Aesthetically pleasing
Enjoyable to use
Requires one step actions
Simple but elegant
Designing interactive products requires considering
Who will be using the product
How are they going to use it
When are they going to use it
Kind of activities people are doing when interacting with the product
Key question of interaction design – How do you optimise a user’s interaction with the system, environment and
product so that they support the user’s activities in effective, useful, usable and enjoyable ways?
Understanding the users involve
Considering what people are good and bad at
What might help people with the way they currently do things
What might provide quality user experiences
Listening to what people want & getting them involved
Using user-centered techniques
1.3 WHAT IS INTERACTION DESIGN
Interaction design – Designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their
everyday and working lives
Put in another way – Creating user experiences that enhance and augment the way people work, communicate and
interact
1.4 USER EXPERIENCE
User experience – How a product behaves and how it is used by people in the real world
How people feel about a product and their pleasure and satisfaction when using it, looking at it, holding it
and opening and closing it
One cannot design a user experience, only design for a user experience
,1.6 ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSIVENESS
Accessibility – Extent to which in interactive product is accessible by as many people as possible
Focus is on people with disabilities
Accessibility achieved in two ways
Inclusive design
Design of assistive technology
Types of impairments
Sensory – Visual or hearing impairments
Physical – Loss of body part functions
Cognitive – Learning disabilities
Inclusiveness – Means being fair, open and equal to everyone
Approach where designers strive to make their products and services accommodate the widest possible
number of people
1.7 USABILITY AND USER EXPERIENCE GOALS
1.7.1 Usability goals
Concerned with – Meeting specific usability criteria
Usability involves – Optimizing the interactions people have with interactive products to enable them to carry out
activities
Usability goals
Effective to use (effectiveness)
o How good a product is at doing what it is supposed to do
o Question - Is the product capable of allowing people to learn, carry out their work efficiently, access
the information that they need, or buy the goods that they want?
Efficient to use (efficiency)
o Way a product supports users in carrying out their tasks
o Question - Once users have learned how to use a product to carry out their tasks, can they sustain a
high level of productivity?
Safe to use (Safety)
o Protecting the user against dangerous conditions and undesirable situations
o Question - What is the range of errors that are possible using the product, and what measures are
there to permit users to recover easily from them?
Having good utility (Utility)
o Extent to which a product provides the right kind of functionality
o Question - Does the product provide an appropriate set of functions that will enable users to carry
out all of their tasks
Easy to learn (Learnability)
o How easy a system is to learn to use
o Question - Is it possible for the user to work out how to use the product by exploring the interface
and trying certain actions?
, Easy to remember how to use (Memorability)
o How easy a product is to remember how to use, once learned
o Question - What types of interface support have been provided to help users remember how to carry
out tasks, especially for products and operations they use infrequently?
1.7.2 User experience goals
Concerned with – Clarifying the nature of user experience and covers a range of emotions and felt experiences
How users experience an interactive product from their perspective
User experience goals
Quality of user experience can be affected by:
Concept of flow – State of intense emotional involvement that comes from being completely involved in an
activity
Micro-interactions – One-off actions performed infrequently or multiple times a day that users never get
tired of
1.7.3 Design principles
Design principles – Generalizable concepts designed to guide a designer toward thinking about different aspects of
their designs
Design principles
Visibility
o The more visible functions are the more likely the user will know what to do next
Feedback
o Related to visibility
o Involves sending back information about what action has been done and what has been
accomplished
Constraints
o Determining ways of restricting the kinds of user interaction that can take place at any given
moment
o Such as deactivating certain menu options which prevents the user from selecting incorrect options
Consistency
o Designing interfaces to have similar operations and use similar elements for achieving similar tasks
o Benefit – Makes interfaces easier to learn and use – Able to learn only a single mode of operations
Affordance
o Attribute of an object that allows people to know how to use it
, o Afford means to ‘Give a clue’
o Two kinds of affordance
Real – Applies to physical objects
Perceived – Applies to screen-based interfaces
Chapter 2 – The process of interaction design
Commonalties in different fields of design captured in the double diamond of design
Four phases of the double diamond of design
Discover – Gather insight about the problem
Define – Develop a clear brief
Develop – Solutions are created, prototyped, tested and iterated
Deliver – Resulting project is finalized, produced and launched
2.2 WHAT IS INVOLVED IN INTERACTION DESIGN
Activities that focus on discovering requirements, designing something to fulfil those requirements and
producing prototypes that will then be evaluated
Design focuses on users and their goals
Design trade-offs – How much choice will be given to the user and how much direction the system should
offer
Generating alternatives – Generating lots of ideas
Involving users
o Designs and potential solutions are communicated to users
Capturing and expressing designs to users in the form of
o A series of sketches
o Description written in natural language
o A series of diagrams
o Prototypes
2.2.1 Understanding the problem space
Involves understanding what the user experience or product is, why a change is needed and how this change
will improve the user experience
2.2.2 Importance of involving users
Ensures that the end product will be usable and that it indeed will be used
Helps to gain a good understanding of user’s goals
Helps with expectation management because they can see a product’s capabilities from an early stage
o Expectation management – Ensure that user’s expectations of a product are realistic
Users who are involved feel that they have contributed to a product’s development and are more likely to
feel a sense of ownership towards it and support its use
2.2.3 Degrees of user involvement
Degrees of user involvement
Full time involvement
o Fully engaged throughout the development
Part-time involvement
o Targeted participation in specific activities
Types of user involvement
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