Summary Foundations in New Media Design for Premaster CIS – Fall 2019
Summary Foundations in New Media Design for Premaster CIS – Fall 2019
Interaction Design: beyond human-computer interaction (HCI), 5th edition
Chapter 1: What is interaction design?
1.1 Introduction
Many products (such as smartphones and fitness trackers) that require users to interact with them, have been
design primarily with the user in mind. à Generally easy and enjoyable to use.
Other products are engineered primarily as software system to perform set functions. For example, setting the
time on the stove that requires a combination of buttons presses that are not obvious as to which ones to press
together or separately.
1.2 Good and Poor Design
A central concern of interaction design is to develop interactive products that are usable.
By this we mean:
- Products that are generally easy to learn
- Effective to use
- Provide an enjoyable user experience
Two examples of poorly designed products that have persisted over the years:
1.2.1 Voice-Mail system
The example in book about the voicemail system on the telephone in the hotel explains that it will get unclear
when a person has to take 6 steps to understand the Voice-Mail system. A couple of reasons:
- Infuriating
- Confusing
- Inefficient, requiring you to carry out a number of steps for basic tasks.
- Difficult to use
- It has no means of letting you know a glance whether any messages have been left or how many there
are. You have to pick up the handset to find out and then go through a series of steps to listen to them
- It is not obvious what to do: The instructions are provided partially by the system and partially by a card
beside the phone.
The difference with the above Voice-Mail system and the marble answering machine system designed by Durrel
Bishop are:
- It uses familiar physical object that indicate visually at a glance how many messages has been left.
- It is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to use.
- It requires only one-step actions to perform core tasks.
- It offers less functionality and allows anyone to listen to any of the messages.
à Goal of this marble answering machine was to design an answering machine that represented its basic
functionality in terms of the behaviour of everyday objects.
à A perfect example of an interactive design with the users in mind (a pleasurable experience but one that also
makes efficient the activity of receiving messages).
Of course, this marble answering machine is not usable in a hotel (it’s not practical), so always keep in mind that
where the product is going and who is going to use it.
1.2.2 Remote control
Many people find it hard to use a remote control because of the many buttons and colours the buttons have,
but also the effort a person with glasses has to take in account to read the buttons on the remote control.
à Much effort and thought went into the design of the TiVo remote control (it’s a digital video recorder that
was originally developed to enable the viewer to record TV shows).
à The remote control was designed with large buttons that were clearly labelled and logically arranged (easier
to locate them on the remote control and easier to use in conjunction with the menu interface that appeared on
the TV screen). Also designed to fit in the palm of the hand, and a look and feel.
à TiVo showed the effort to follow a user-designed process.
, Summary Foundations in New Media Design for Premaster CIS – Fall 2019
1.2.3 What to design
Designing interactive products requires:
- Considering who is going to be using them.
- How they are going to be used.
- Where they are going to be used.
- Understand the kind of activities people are doing when interacting with these products.
The appropriateness of different kinds of interfaces and arrangements of input and output devices depends on
what kinds of activities are supported.
The Internet of Things (IoT) now means that many products and sensors can be connected to each other via
Internet, which enables them to talk to each other.
à Popular examples: Smart heating and Lighting and Home Security systems where users can control them via
an App on their phones (you can check for instance who is at your front door).
Consumer electronics are products which used to be physical and the realm of the product design, are now
predominantly digitally bases, requiring interaction design.
The move from human-human transactions into interface-based ones has also introduced a new kind of
customer interaction à Self-checkouts at grocery stores and libraries à It is cost-effective and efficient while
impersonal and puts the onus on the person to interact with the system à Also, when pressing the wrong
button or standing in the wrong at a self-service checkout can result in a frustrating, and sometimes mortifying,
experience.
Key question for interaction design: ‘’How do you optimize the users’ interactions with a system, environment,
or product so that they support the users’ activities in effective, useful, usable and pleasurable ways?’’
Also, take into account that you have to try to understand the users of your product:
- Considering what people are good and bad at.
- Considering what might help people with the way they currently do things.
- Thinking through what might provide quality users experiences.
- Listening to what people want and getting them involved in the design.
- Using user-centered techniques during the design process.
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 à Used as the overarching term to describe the field, including its method, theories,
and approaches.
à In another way: It is about creating user experiences that enhance and augment the way people work,
communicate, and interact.
à UX is used more widely in industry to refer to the profession.
1.3.1 The Components of Interaction Design
Figure 1.5 page 10 à Presents the core ones (disciplines, fields, and approaches that are concerned with
researching and designing computer-based systems for people) of interaction design along with interdisciplinary
fields that comprise one or more of these, such as cognitive ergonomics.
à The main differences between interaction design and the other approaches referred to in the figure come
largely down to which methods, philosophies, and lenses they use to study, analyse, and design products.
à Another way they vary is in terms of the scope and problems they address.
Example: Information systems vs. Ubiquitous computing technologies (e.g. IoT).
1.3.2 Who Is Involved in Interaction Design?
In figure 1.5 you can see that a lot of people are involved in performing interaction design (from social scientists
to moviemakers). But how does the mix of players work together?
, Summary Foundations in New Media Design for Premaster CIS – Fall 2019
Designers need to understand many things about users, technologies, and the interactions among them to
create effective user experiences:
- They need to understand how people act and react to events and how they communicate and interact
with each other.
- They need to understand how emotions work (aesthetics, desirability, and the role of narrative in
human experience).
- They need to understand the business side, technical side, manufacturing side, and marketing side.
So, it is clear that this cannot be done by just one person. It involves a multidisciplinary team to create effective
user experiences.
One of the benefits of bringing together people with different backgrounds and training is the potential of many
more ideas being generated, new methods developed, and more creative and original designs being produced.
The downside is the costs involved, also the more people with different backgrounds involved, the more difficult
it can be to communicate and make progress with the designs being generated.
à The use of the same terms to quite different things.
à A team who has not worked together in a previous project have been thrown together can create a problem.
à The more disparate the team members (culture, background, and organizational structures) the more
complex this is likely to be.
1.3.3 Interaction Design Consultancies
Financial services, retail, governments, and the public sector have realized the value of interaction design à The
absence or presence of good interaction design can make or break a company. Getting noticed in the highly
competitive field of web products requires standing out à Being able to demonstrate that your product is easy,
effective, and engaging to use is seen as central to this. Marketing departments are also realizing how branding,
the number of hits, the customer return rate, and customer satisfaction are greatly affected by the usability of a
website.
1.4 The User Experience
The user experience refers to how a product behaves and is used by people in the real world.
à More specifically, it is about how people feel about a product and their pleasure and satisfaction when using
it, looking at it, holding it, and opening or closing it. It includes their overall passion of how good it is to use.
An important aspect is the quality of the experience someone has.
Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman (2014) define it as encompassing ‘’all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with
the company, its services, and its products’’.
For example, when a phone case is designed smooth, silky, and fit right in the palm of the hand, it can provoke a
sensual and satisfying user experience. On the other hand, if it is designed to be heavy and awkward to hold, it is
much more likely to end up providing poor user experience à one that is uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Sometimes designers refer to UX as UXD à The ‘’D’’ refers to the Design of a product. As Don Norman (2004)
has stressed for many years, ‘’It’s not enough that we build products that function, that are understandable and
usable, we also need to build joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and yes, beauty to people’s lives.’’
There are many aspects of the user experience that can be considered and many ways of taking them into
account when designing interactive products:
- Usability
- Functionality
- Aesthetics
- Content
- Look and Feel
- Emotional appeal
à In addition, Jack Carrol (2004) stress other wide-reaching aspects, including fun, health, social capital (the
social resources that develop and are maintained through social networks, shared values, goals, and norms), and
cultural identity (age, ethnicity, race, disability, family status, occupation and education).
