The document discusses principles of efficient and usable user experience design. It begins with an overview of efficient experience and why usability should be considered more broadly. It then discusses various usability models and principles that can be used to design efficient experiences, including stability, scalability, simplicity, and consistency. The document provides questions to consider for each principle to help guide prototype design.

1. Efficient Experience
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The User Experience
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#comp33512
Week 05 – Lectures 09/10
Simon Harper
University of Manchester
Semester 2 – 2013/14
last update: February 25, 2014
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UX Pop Quiz
1. Give an example of why Accessibility is for everyone.
2. What is your view regarding ‘Combinatorial Impairment’ ?
3. Pick an interface bridge and describe it.
4. What is the relationship between effective and accessible
design?
5. What are the five main principles of effective design?
...expanded in on pg. ??.
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Efficient Experience
Efficient, adj. and n.
“Productive of effects; effective; adequately operative. The cause
which makes effects to be what they are (esp. of a system or
machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted
effort or expense” OED – 1787 J. Barlow Oration July 4th.
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Efficient Experience
Efficient, adj. and n.
“Productive of effects; effective; adequately operative. The cause
which makes effects to be what they are (esp. of a system or
machine) achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted
effort or expense” OED – 1787 J. Barlow Oration July 4th.
Why Not Just Usability?
Think of usability in more general terms; the more general terms
of efficient use. The concept of usability is much broader than
the narrow confines of it is often associated with.
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Efficiency is for Everyone...
Figure: ‘Modern Thermostat’
Figure: ‘Nest Learning Thermostat’
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Efficiency is for Everyone...
Figure: ‘Modern Thermostat’
Figure: ‘Nest Thermostat Control’
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Consensus on Meaning
Relationship of UX, ergonomics, or human factors to
usability
1. Some think of usability ‘. . . as the software specialisation of
the larger topic of ergonomics’;
2. Others view topics as tangential, with ergonomics focusing
on physiological matters, and usability focusing on
psychological matters; but
3. Experts have written separate, but overlapping, frameworks
for aspects of usability which should be taken into account
when designing and building systems interfaces.
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Universal Design and Design for All!
‘Universality’ suggests
...to most UXers and engineers that the solutions they come up
with must best fit most of the population most of the time.
Many organisations follow the viewpoint that universal usability
means design-for-all.
“A focus on designing products so that they are usable by the
widest range of people operating in the widest range of situations
as is commercially practical”
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Universal Design and Design for All!
‘Universality’ suggests
...to most UXers and engineers that the solutions they come up
with must best fit most of the population most of the time.
Many organisations follow the viewpoint that universal usability
means design-for-all.
“Thus, universal usability is more a function of keeping all of the
people and all of the situations in mind and trying to create a
product which is as flexible as commercially practical, so that it
can accommodate the different users and situations.”
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Universal Design and Design for All!
My Unconventional View
By trying to address all user needs in one design the
technologist is apt to address none;
Making software usable is not just about a utilitarian view of
software use, it is also about the personal choice of the user;
Greater flexibility and configurability of both interfaces and
interactions are the solution.
...expanded in: S. Harper. Is There Design-For-All? Universal Access in the Information Society, 6(1):111–113, 2007.
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Usability Models
The Human Processor Model –Card, Moran, & Newell
Calculate how long it takes to perform a certain task;
Experimental times to calculate cognitive and motor
processing time;
Allows a system designer to predict the performance;
Uses the cognitive, perceptual, and motor processors along
with the visual image, working memory, and long term
memory stores;
Each processor has a cycle time and each memory has a
decay time;
Combining input pathways with cycle or decay times allows
task completion time can be calculated; but...
...not very accurate, too many variables / confounding variables.
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Usability Models
GOMS –Card, Moran, & Newell
Goals are what the user intends to accomplish;
Operators are actions that are performed to get to the goal;
Methods are sequences of operators that accomplish a goal; and
Selection rules are used to choose a from multiple methods.
Specialisation of HPM;
Reductionist - reduces a user’s interaction with a computer
to their primary actions;
Trying to reduce number of possible variables / confounding
variables; but...
...expects users to follow logical routines and is not resilient to
user unpredictability.
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Usability Models – Keystroke Level Modelling (KLM)
KLM –Card, Moran, & Newell, also Kieras
More simplistic specialisation of GOMS;
Amenable to Computation; i.e.
CogTool - CMU http://cogtool.hcii.cs.cmu.edu.
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Usability Models – Keystroke Level Modelling (KLM)
...from: Richards, Bellamy, John, Swart, Thomas (2010) Using CogTool to Model Programming Tasks.
Presented at the Psychology of Programming Work in Progress Workshop, Dundee, Scotland.
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Usability Models – Keystroke Level Modelling (KLM)
...from: Richards, Bellamy, John, Swart, Thomas (2010) Using CogTool to Model Programming Tasks.
Presented at the Psychology of Programming Work in Progress Workshop, Dundee, Scotland.
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Usability Models – Keystroke Level Modelling (KLM)
...from: Richards, Bellamy, John, Swart, Thomas (2010) Using CogTool to Model Programming Tasks.
Presented at the Psychology of Programming Work in Progress Workshop, Dundee, Scotland.
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Collated Usability Principles, Guidelines, and Rules
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‘Stability’ Are the interactions stable?
‘Scalability’ Does the interface and its data scale?
‘Simplicity’ Is interface and interaction simplicity
encouraged?
‘Situational Awareness’ Is perception of the interface facilitate decision
making?
‘Self-Description’ Does your system describe itself to the user?
‘Progressive Disclosure’ Are the interface options presented a step at a
time?
‘Familiarity’ Is your system us ‘intuitive’ ?
‘Learnability’ Are the interactions easy to learn?
‘Consistency’ Does your system exhibit internal and external
(OS) constancy?
‘Robustness’ Is the system robust to errors?
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SSSADD FLCR
‘Stability’ Are the interactions stable?
‘Scalability’ Does the interface and its data scale?
‘Simplicity’ Is interface and interaction simplicity
encouraged?
‘Situational Awareness’ Is perception of the interface facilitate decision
making?
‘Self-Description’ Does your system describe itself to the user?
‘Progressive Disclosure’ Are the interface options presented a step at a
time?
‘Familiarity’ Is your system us ‘intuitive’ ?
‘Learnability’ Are the interactions easy to learn?
‘Consistency’ Does your system exhibit internal and external
(OS) constancy?
‘Robustness’ Is the system robust to errors?
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Let’s Have a Break!
Back in 10 Minutes!
Come see me now if you have
Questions Regarding this Lecture!
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Interaction Stability
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Are you able to resume interrupted actions?
Are you able easily reverse an action, incorrectly taken?
Are you able to understand your location in the interaction?
Does your system recover well from an unexpected event?
Does your interactions (including dialogs) exhibit stable
non-cyclical behaviour and closure?
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Facilitate Scalability
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Does your interface scale to handle larger datasets then
envisaged etc?
Does your system handle data and interaction within an
acceptable time?
Do complex actions scale up in terms of data and user
requirements?
Do your interfaces remain simple when information is being
dynamically added?
Can new functionality be added to your system without
negatively impacting on its current interactions and
interfaces?
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Facilitate Simplicity
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Is your system presented simply?
Are the interactive elements simple to understand and use?
Can you understand the system behaviour without recourse
to manuals of help systems?
Does your system exploit natural interactive constrains?
Is complexity hidden from the novice user?
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Facilitate Situational Awareness
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Does your system facilitate orientation both within the
interface and within the interaction?
Is orientation and navigation, around and through the
interface (and interaction), easy?
Is error handling simple? Is feedback informative?
Are all components, needed for the interaction, visible?
Do you maintain a single focus of interactive attention,
without distractors?
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Facilitate Self-Description
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Is your system well documented?
Is help present and informative?
Is it possible to understand the program functionality without
recourse to the manual?
Is it possible to understand the interface, widgets, and
interactivity without recourse to the manual?
Is it possible to fully understand all dialogs, messages, and
status’ ?
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Facilitate Progressive Disclosure
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Does your interface look overly complex? If so, simplify.
Are there a lot of components displayed at one time? If so
clean it.
Are there a multitude of possible actions available to the
user? If so focus on building one action for one interface
element.
Is there a tight logical hierarchy of actions?
Is the user led along the interactive path?
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Facilitate Familiarity
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Does your system map real world concepts to the virtual
world?
Does your system use terms the user is familiar with
(including Jargon)?
Does the system work in familiar ways, with reference to
itself and other comparable applications?
Do you assuage ‘intuition’ for familiarity?
Does your system use easily understandable (and therefore
familiar) messages?
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Facilitate Learnability
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Is your system behaviour predictable?
Can users easily transit from novice to expert?
Can you understand the system behaviour without recourse
to manuals of help systems?
How easy is it to learn any bespoke system functionality?
Does your system facilitate self learning, and functionality
investigation?
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Facilitate Consistency
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Am my developing a consistent interface?
Are the interactions consistent across the platform and
development?
Is my command and event structure universal across the
development and platform?
Am I following standards and best practice?
Am I following the platform design guide?
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Facilitate Robustness
Questions to think about as you design your prototype:
Does your system recover well from an unexpected event?
Are errors easily dealt with?
Are incorrect user actions easily recoverable?
Is the user-state saved between sessions in the event of a
system failure?
How does your system handle abnormal input?
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Pop Quiz for next week...
1. What is the significance of the Xerox Star interface?
2. What are the five main principles proposed by the Xerox Star
team?
3. What does GOMS stand for and what does it involve?
4. What are the ten main principles of efficient design?
5. How do these principles differ from Shneiderman’s rules?
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To Do for next week...
1. Pop Quiz Discuss Next Week; and
2. Read your notes
3.
D. C. Smith, C. Irby, R. Kimball, B. Verplank, and E. Harslem., Designing the star user interface.,
BYTE, 7(4):242–282, 1982., URL
http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/designingthestaruserinterface.
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Any Questions?
Simon Harper 2.44 Kilburn Building
0161 275 0599 (OR x50599)
simon.harper@manchester.ac.uk
Office Hours: Friday 14:00–18:00
Figure: ‘Too Much Work!’
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