HCI_Week 5

1. HUMAN COMPUTER
SEMESTER GANJIL 2023/2024
INTERACTION
Week 5 – 5 November 2023
MKP121407

2. • User-centered Design (UCD)
OUTLINE WEEK 5

3. User-Centered Approach
Interaction design tries to bridge between 2 worlds:
1. World of the software professionals (developer)
2. World of the end users
• Each world has its own knowledge and practices
• Each world has well defined boundaries
• Movement from one world to the other is known
to be difficult

4. Most of the traditional methods of communication
between the two worlds are relatively one directional :
• We analyze the requirements from the users
• We deliver a system to the users
• We collect usability data from the users
User-Centered Approach (cont.)
“Relatively few [method] involve two way discussions, and fewer still afford
opportunities for the software professionals to be surprised – i.e., to learn
something that we didn’t know we needed to know”
Michael J. Muller, Participatory Design: The Third Space in HCI

5. It is a process:
• a goal directed problem solving activity informed by intended
use, target domain, materials, cost, and feasibility
• a creative activity
• a decision making activity to balance trade offs
What is “Design” in HCI?
It is a representation:
• a plan for development
• a set of alternatives & successive elaborations

6. Better understanding of user needs leads to a more appropriate and usable product.
Expectation management :
“Better to exceed users’
expectations than to fall
below them.”
Why Involve Users?
Ownership :
Users who are involved are
more likely to feel a sense of
ownership towards the product
and be receptive towards it
when it emerges

7. Who are The Users?
Not as obvious as you think :
• those who interact directly with the product
• those who manage direct users
• those who receive output from the product
• those who make the purchasing decision
• those who use competitor’s products ???
3 categories of user:
• Primary : frequent hands on
• Secondary : occasional or via someone else;
• Tertiary : affected by its introduction, or will influence its purchase.
Wider term: stakeholders

8. Who are The Users? (cont.)
What are their capabilities?
Humans vary in many dimensions!
Some examples are:
• size of hands may affect the size and positioning of
input buttons;
• motor abilities may affect the suitability of certain
input and output devices;
• height if designing a physical kiosk;
• strength - a child’s toy requires little strength to
operate, but greater strength to change batteries

9. Degrees of
Involvement
3
1
2
Full time
involvement
Keeping users
informed
Not
involving
users

10. 1 Full time involvement
How :
Hire as part of the design team
Pro :
Very familiar with the system
Con :
Could lose touch with the user group

11. 2 Keeping users informed
How :
Regular newsletters and communication channels,
workshops and evaluation sessions
Pro :
Achieving some level of involvement even with
several users
Con :
Changes are possible only from an already decided
starting point

12. 3 Not involving users
Pro :
Allows for more development time that would
otherwise be spent managing, organizing and
controlling such involvement
Con :
Users will reject the product if it doesn’t fit their
needs

13. What is a User Centered Approach?
Development driven by real users and their goals,
not just technology.
• Makes the most of human skill
• Directly relevant to the work in hand
• Supports the user, doesn’t constrain
Gould and Lewis principles for a “useful and
easy to use computer system”
• Early focus on users and tasks
• Empirical measurement
• Iterative design

14. What are ‘Needs’?
• Users rarely know what is possible
• Users can’t tell you what they ‘need’ to help them
achieve their goals
• Instead, look at existing tasks:
o their context
o what information do they require?
o who collaborates to achieve the task?
o why is the task achieved the way it is?
• Envisioned tasks :
o can be rooted in existing behaviour
o can be described as future scenarios

15. One approach to
user-centered
design has been
the introduction
of explicit
usability
engineering
goals into the
design process