CONTENTS
Cov er
Series Page
Title Page
Copy right
What's Inside
Chapter 1 : What is Interaction Design?
1 .1 Introduction
1 .2 Good and Poor Design
1 .3 What Is Interaction Design?
1 .4 The User Experience
1 .5 The Process of Interaction Design
1 .6 Interaction Design and the User Experience
Interv iew with Harry Brignull
Chapter 2 : Understanding and Conceptualizing Interaction
2 .1 Introduction
2 .2 Understanding the Problem Space and Conceptualizing Interaction
2 .3 Conceptual Models
2 .4 Interface Metaphors
2 .5 Interaction Ty pes
2 .6 Paradigm s, Visions, Theories, Models, and Fram eworks
Interv iew with Kees Dorst
Chapter 3 : Cognitiv e Aspects
3 .1 Introduction
3 .2 What Is Cognition?
3 .3 Cognitiv e Fram eworks
Chapter 4 : Social Interaction
4 .1 Introduction
4 .2 Being Social
4 .3 Face-to-Face Conv ersations
4 .4 Rem ote Conv ersations
4 .5 Telepresence
4 .6 Co-presence
Chapter 5: Em otional Interaction
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Em otions and the User Experience
5.3 Expressiv e Interfaces
5.4 Annoy ing Interfaces
5.5 Detecting Em otions and Em otional Technology
5.6 Persuasiv e Technologies and Behav ioral Change
5.7 Anthropom orphism and Zoom orphism
Chapter 6 : Interfaces
6 .1 Introduction
6 .2 Interface Ty pes
6 .3 Natural User Interfaces and Bey ond
6 .4 Which Interface?
Interv iew with Leah Beuchley
Chapter 7 : Data Gathering
7 .1 Introduction
7 .2 Fiv e Key Issues
7 .3 Data Recording
7 .4 Interv iews
7 .5 Questionnaires
7 .6 Observ ation
7 .7 Choosing and Com bining Techniques
Chapter 8: Data Analy sis, Interpretation, and Presentation
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Qualitativ e and Quantitativ e
8.3 Sim ple Quantitativ e Analy sis
8.4 Sim ple Qualitativ e Analy sis
8.5 Tools to Support Data Analy sis
8.6 Using Theoretical Fram eworks
8.7 Presenting the Findings
Chapter 9 : The Process of Interaction Design
9 .1 Introduction
9 .2 What Is Inv olv ed in Interaction Design?
9 .3 Som e Practical Issues
Interv iew with Ellen Gottesdiener
Chapter 1 0: Establishing Requirem ents
1 0.1 Introduction
1 0.2 What, How, and Why ?
1 0.3 What Are Requirem ents?
1 0.4 Data Gathering for Requirem ents
1 0.5 Data Analy sis, Interpretation, and Presentation
1 0.6 Task Description
1 0.7 Task Analy sis
Chapter 1 1 : Design, Prototy ping, and Construction
1 1 .1 Introduction
1 1 .2 Prototy ping
1 1 .3 Conceptual Design
1 1 .4 Concrete Design
1 1 .5 Using Scenarios
1 1 .6 Generating Prototy pes
1 1 .7 Construction
Interv iew with the Late Gary Marsden
Chapter 1 2 : Interaction Design in Practice
1 2 .1 Introduction
1 2 .2 AgileUX
1 2 .3 Design Patterns
1 2 .4 Open Source Resources
1 2 .5 Tools for Interaction Design
Chapter 1 3 : Introducing Ev aluation
1 3 .1 Introduction
1 3 .2 The Why , What, Where, and When of Ev aluation
1 3 .3 Ty pes of Ev aluation
1 3 .4 Ev aluation Case Studies
1 3 .5 What Did We Learn from the Case Studies?
1 3 .6 Other Issues to Consider when Doing Ev aluation
Chapter 1 4 : Ev aluation Studies: From Controlled to Natural Settings
1 4 .1 Introduction
1 4 .2 Usability Testing
1 4 .3 Conducting Experim ents
1 4 .4 Field Studies
Interv iew with Danah Boy d
Chapter 1 5: Ev aluation: Inspections, Analy tics, and Models
1 5.1 Introduction
1 5.2 Inspections: Heuristic Ev aluation and Walkthroughs
1 5.3 Analy tics
1 5.4 Predictiv e Models
References
Index
End User License Agreem ent
List of Tables
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Figure 1 5.7
“Preece, Sharp & Rogers have become a recognized brand name trusted by students, researchers, developers, and design
practitioners in an increasingly diverse field across user experience design, ubiquitous computing, urban informatics, and mobile
applications. The 4th edition refreshes this foundational textbook that continues to provide a comprehensive, current, and compelling
coverage of concepts, methods, and cases of interaction design. Informed by the combined wisdom and thought leadership of these
three senior academics, the book is a trusted source of applied knowledge grounded and refined by years of experience.”
Professor Marcus Foth, Director, Urb an Informatics Research Lab Interactive & Visual Design, School of Design, Queensland University
of Technology Brisb ane, Australia
“The authors of this book have succeeded! Again! This new edition reflects in full richness what constitutes modern interaction design.
While being the most comprehensive and authoritative source in the field it is also amazingly accessible and a pleasure to read.”
Dr. Erik Stolterman, Professor in Informatics, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
“The speed of change in ICT is both the cause and the consequence of new ways to view, design and support human interactions with
digital technology. Keeping a textbook up-to-date in HCI is therefore a major challenge. Thanks to the authors’ firm commitment to
education and outstanding capacity to combine, in every new edition, an account of the deep foundations of the field with a broad
selection of advanced topics, the complete set of all four editions of this book testifies to the remarkable evolution of HCI as a
discipline. Interaction Design is thus not only a first-class textbook for HCI education but also an insightful depiction of how the
discipline has grown and contributed to the pervasiveness of digital technology in everyday life.”
Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza, Departamento de Informática, PUC-Rio, Brazil
“I've loved Interaction Design in the past, as it provided a contemporary line of sight between theory and practice. Its style encouraged
interaction, especially for readers where English is not their first language, by capturing the wisdom in engagingly readable ways. This
4th edition updates what is already wholesome and good, to deliver more, especially with the e-text version. I'd say this latest revision
not only gives its readers the best chance to know where their learning journey ought to start, it takes them well down the track to
understanding this important field with a much more critical lens.”
Patrick O'Brien, Managing Director, The Amanuenses Network Pte Ltd, Singapore
“Interaction Design has been my textbook of choice for generalist and introductory HCI courses ever since the first edition. It is well
written, with great use of examples and supplementary resources. It is authoritative and has excellent coverage. The latest edition
brings the material up-to-date. Importantly, it is also an engaging read.”
Ann Blandford, Professor of Human-Computer Interaction, University College London, UK
“Interaction Design by Preece, Sharp and Rogers offers an engaging excursion through the world of interaction design. The new edition
offers a view on a broad range of topics needed for students in the field of interaction design, human-computer interaction, information
design, web design or ubiquitous computing. The book should be one of the things every student should have in their backpack. It
guides one through the jungle of information in our digital age. The online resources are a great help to create good classes my
students and remove some weight from my backpack.”
Johannes Schöning, Professor of Computer Science, Hasselt University, Belgium
“Interaction Design has been one of the textbooks of reference at the University of Castilla – La Mancha (Spain) for several years. It
covers the main topics in Human Computer Interaction offering a comprehensive equilibrium between theoretical and practical
approaches to the discipline. The new chapter about ‘Interaction Design in Practice’ and the remarkable updates in some chapters,
with new case studies and examples, allow the user to explore the book from different perspectives and facilitate its use as a textbook
in different subjects.”
Professor Manuel Ortega, CHICO Group (Computer Human Interaction and Collab oration), University of Castilla - La Mancha, Spain
“Interaction Design is an excellent textbook for general HCI courses that covers topics from the essential theoretical and
methodological knowledge to the state-of-the-art practical knowledge in HCI and interaction design. The fourth edition again maintains
this book's position as a must-have book for all HCI and interaction design students.”
Youn-kyung Lim, Department of Industrial Design, KAIST, Korea
“For years this book has been my recommendation for a general introduction to Human–Computer Interaction. What I particularly
admire is the combination of theoretical content exploring human understanding and behaviour, along with practical content on
designing, developing, and evaluating interaction systems – all with references to the literature. The new edition updates existing
content, and adds important material on recent developments, for example touch-interaction on smartphones and tablets.”
Rob ert Biddle, Professor of Human–Computer Interaction, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
“This new edition provides another wonderful opportunity to reflect on the core issues of Interaction Design and their ongoing definition
and redefinition in changing contexts. It's great to see the maker community welcomed into the new edition along with all the other
updated material. I am confident I can continue to set this book as the basic text for my classes and for those wishing to learn more
about Interaction design and related areas.”
Toni Rob ertson, Professor of Interaction Design, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
“This book teaches interaction design by motivating and activating the student, and there really is no other way.”
Dr. Alb ert Ali Salah, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
“I picked up the first edition of Interaction Design when I started learning about HCI and interaction design and haven't left it since. Now I
use the latest edition to introduce the subject to both undergraduate and research students because the book provides a truly
multidisciplinary overview of IxD, doing justice to the natures of the discipline. It offers an excellent balance: from general concepts, to
design, prototyping and evaluation methodology and, importantly, to plenty of colourful and inspiring examples. The new section on IxD
practice is a much needed addition, as the industry keeps growing and reaches maturity.”
Enrico Costanza, Electronics and Computer Science, The University of Southampton, UK
“This fourth edition is going to continue to be the Interaction Design reference book for academics and students. Our work in
communication sciences and technologies will continue to find many enlightening pathways and references within the traditional
human-centric approach but also deeper into social and emotional interaction issues. The updates to this edition are of utmost
relevance and also underline very well the strategic relation with industry's use of HCI R&D methods and techniques nowadays.”
Oscar Mealha, Department of Communication and Art, University of Aveiro, Portugal
“I have used all editions of the book in my courses. I love how each new edition continues to be relevant, vibrant and central for
educating interaction designers, and keeping them up to date with the changes in the field. Thumbs up for the fourth edition, too!”
Alma Leora Culén, Design of Information Systems, University of Oslo, Norway
“The book is great. Now, I have very good resources to support me teaching my undergraduate HCI course. I really liked how the
information is presented in the book; an excellent blend of theories, concepts, examples, and case studies. Moreover, I would like to
use the book as one of my resources in research on HCI education. I would highly recommend this book for HCI instructors and
students.”
Dr. Harry B. Santoso, Instructor of Interaction System (HCI) course at Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia
“For many years, Interaction Design: Beyond Human–Computer Interaction has been used as a major textbook or reference book for
human–computer interaction (HCI) related courses for undergraduate and postgraduate students in computer science, design and
industrial engineering in Chinese universities. I especially appreciate its focus on HCI design, instead of just focusing on those
technological aspects of HCI. This gives students a basic but very important body of knowledge and skills in the user-centered design
approach for developing usable and enjoyable products in industry settings or conducting HCI research in an academic context. The
timely four revisions of the book in the past years have always kept it well updated to the newest developments in the field.”
Zhengjie Liu, Professor, Director, Sino-European Usab ility Center, Dalian Maritime University, P.R. China
INTERACTION DESIGN
beyond human–computer interaction
Fourth Edition
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WHAT'S INSIDE
Welcome to the fourth edition of Interaction Design: Beyond Human–Computer Interaction, and our interactive website at www.idbook.com. Building on the success of the previous editions, we have substantially updated and streamlined the material to provide a
comprehensive introduction to the fast-growing and multidisciplinary field of interaction design. But rather than let the book expand, we
have again made a conscious effort to reduce its size – with a little help from our publisher.
Our textbook is aimed primarily at undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students from a range of backgrounds studying introductory
classes in human–computer interaction, interaction design, web design, software engineering, digital media, information systems, and
information studies. It will also appeal to a wide range of professionals and technology users who can dip into it and learn about a
specific approach, interface, or topic.
It is called Interaction Design: Beyond Human–Computer Interaction because interaction design is concerned with a broader scope of
issues, topics, and methods than was traditionally the scope of human–computer interaction (HCI), with a focus on the diversity of
design and evaluation processes involved. We define interaction design as
designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives.
This relies on an understanding of the capabilities and desires of people and on the kinds of technology available to interaction
designers, together with a knowledge of how to identify requirements and develop them into a suitable design. Our textbook provides
an introduction to all of these areas, teaching practical techniques to support development as well as discussing possible
technologies and design alternatives.
The number of different types of interface available to today's interaction designers continues to increase steadily so our textbook,
likewise, has been expanded to cover this. For example, we discuss and provide examples of brain, mobile, robotic, wearable,
shareable, mixed reality, and multimodel interfaces as well as more traditional desktop, multimedia, and web interfaces.
The book has 15 chapters and includes discussion of the wide range of interfaces that are now available, how cognitive, social, and
affective issues apply to interaction design, and how to gather, analyze, and present data for interaction design. A central theme is that
design and evaluation are interleaving, highly iterative processes, with some roots in theory but which rely strongly on good practice to
create usable products. The book has a hands-on orientation and explains how to carry out a variety of techniques used to design and
evaluate the wide range of applications coming onto the market. It also has a strong pedagogical design and includes many activities
(with detailed comments), assignments, and the special pedagogic features discussed below.
Tasters
We address topics and questions about the what, why, and how of interaction design. These include:
Why some interfaces are good and others are poor
Whether people can really multitask
How technology is transforming the way people communicate with one another
What users’ needs are and how we can design for them
How interfaces can be designed to change people's behavior
How to choose between the many different kinds of interactions that are now available (e.g. talking, touching, wearing)
What it means to design truly accessible interfaces
The pros and cons of carrying out studies in the lab versus in the wild
When to use qualitative versus quantitative methods
How to construct informed consent forms
How the detail of interview questions affects the conclusions that can safely be drawn
How to move from a set of scenarios, personas, and use cases to initial low-fidelity prototypes
How to represent the results of data analysis clearly
Why it is that what people say can be different from what they do
The ethics of monitoring and recording people's activities
What are Agile UX and Lean UX and how do they relate to interaction design?
The style of writing throughout the book is intended to be accessible to students, as well as professionals and general readers. It is
largely conversational in nature and includes anecdotes, cartoons, and case studies. Many of the examples are intended to relate to
readers’ own experiences. The book and the associated website are also intended to encourage readers to be active when reading
and to think about seminal issues. For example, a popular feature that we have included throughout is the dilemma, where a
controversial topic is aired. The aim is for readers to understand that much of interaction design needs consideration of the issues,
and that they need to learn to weigh up the pros and cons and be prepared to make trade-offs. We particularly want readers to realize
that there is rarely a right or wrong answer, although there is a world of difference between a good design and a poor design. This book
is accompanied by a website (www.id-book.com), which provides a variety of resources, including slides for each chapter, comments
on chapter activities, and a number of in-depth case studies written by researchers and designers. Pointers to respected blogs, online
tutorials, and other useful materials are provided.
Changes from Previous Editions
New to this edition is an e-text version. Publishing technology has matured considerably in recent years, to the extent that it is possible
to create an interactive textbook. Our e-text version is in full color and supports note sharing, annotating, contextualized navigating,
powerful search features, inserted videos, links, and quizzes. To reflect the dynamic nature of the field, the fourth edition has been
thoroughly updated and new examples, images, case studies, dilemmas, and so on have been included to illustrate the changes. A
brand new Chapter 12 has been included called ‘Interaction design in practice,’ which covers how practical UX methods, such as Agile
UX and Lean UX, have become increasingly popularized and more widely used in the world of commerce and business. Old examples
and methods no longer used in the field have been removed to make way for the new material (some of which can now be found on
www.id-book.com). The former Chapter 12 has been removed (but is still available on the website), making the evaluation section three
compact chapters. Some chapters have been completely rewritten whilst others have been extensively revised. For example, Chapters
4 and 5 have been substantially updated to reflect new developments in social media and emotional interaction, while also covering
the new interaction design issues they raise, such as privacy and addiction. Many examples of new interfaces and technologies have
been added to Chapter 6. Chapters 7 and 8 on data collection and analysis have also been substantially updated. We have updated
our interviews with leading figures involved in innovative research, state-of-the-art design, and contemporary practice (with the
exception of Gary Marsden who, we are sorry to report, died unexpectedly at the end of 2013).
Acknowledgments
Many people have helped us over the years in writing the four editions. We have benefited from the advice and support of our many
professional colleagues across the world, our students, friends, and families. We especially would like to thank everyone who
generously contributed their ideas and time to help make all the editions successful.
These include our colleagues and students at the College of Information Studies – ‘Maryland's iSchool’ – University of Maryland, and
the Human–Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) and Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information (CASCI), the
Open University, University College London, and Indiana University. We would especially like to thank (in alphabetical first name order)
all of the following who have helped us over the years:
Alex Quinn, Alice Robbin, Alice Siempelkamp, Alina Goldman, Allison Druin, Anijo Mathew, Ann Blandford, Ann Jones, Anne Adams, Ben
Bederson, Ben Shneiderman, Carol Boston, Connie Golsteijn, Dan Green, Dana Rotman, danah boyd, Debbie Stone, Derek Hansen,
Duncan Brown, Edwin Blake, Eva Hornecker, Gill Clough, Harry Brignull, Janet van der Linden, Jennifer Ferreira, Jennifer Golbeck, Jeff
Rick, Joh Hunt, Johannes Schöning, Jon Bird, Jonathan Lazar, Judith Segal, Julia Galliers, Kent Norman, Laura Plonka, Leeann
Brumby, Mark Woodroffe, Michael Wood, Nadia Pantidi, Nick Dalton, Nicolai Marquardt, Paul Marshall, Philip ‘Fei’ Wu, Rachael Bradley,
Rafael Cronin, Richard Morris, Richie Hazlewood, Rob Jacob, Rose Johnson, Stefan Kreitmayer, Stephanie Wilson, Tammy Toscos,
Tina Fuchs, Tom Hume, Tom Ventsias, Toni Robertson and Youn-kyung Lim.
We are particularly grateful to Nadia Pantidi and Mara Balestrini for filming, editing, and compiling a series of on the spot ‘talking heads’
videos, where they posed probing questions to the diverse set of attendees at CHI'11 and CHI'14, including a variety of CHI people from
across the globe. The questions included asking about the future of interaction design and whether HCI has gone too wild. There are
about 50 of them – which can be viewed on our website. We are also indebted to danah boyd, Harry Brignull, Leah Beuchley, Kees
Dorst, Ellen Gottesdiener, and the late Gary Marsden for generously contributing in-depth text-based interviews in the book.
Finally, we would like to thank our editor and the production team at Wiley who once more have been very supportive and encouraging
throughout the process of developing this fourth edition: Georgia King, Deborah Egleton and Juliet Booker.
About the Authors
The authors are senior academics with a background in teaching, researching, and consulting in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and
Europe. Having worked together on three previous editions of this book, and an earlier textbook on Human–Computer Interaction, they
bring considerable experience in curriculum development, using a variety of media for distance learning as well as face-to-face
teaching. They have considerable knowledge of creating learning texts and websites that motivate and support learning for a range of
students. All three are specialists in interaction design and human–computer interaction (HCI). In addition they bring skills from other
disciplines. Yvonne Rogers started off as a cognitive scientist, Helen Sharp is a software engineer, and Jenny Preece works in
information systems. Their complementary knowledge and skills enable them to cover the breadth of concepts in interaction design
and HCI to produce an interdisciplinary text and website.
Jennifer Preece is Professor and Dean in the College of Information Studies – Maryland's iSchool – at the University of Maryland.
Jenny's research focuses at the intersection of information, community, and technology. She is particularly interested in community
participation on- and offline. She has researched ways to support empathy and social support online, patterns of online participation,
reasons for not participating (i.e. lurking), strategies for supporting online communication, development of norms, and the attributes of
successful technology-supported communities. Currently Jenny is researching how technology can be used to educate and motivate
citizens to contribute quality data to citizen science projects. This research contributes to the broader need for the collection of data
about the world's flora and fauna at a time when many species are in rapid decline due to habitat loss, pollution, and climate change.
She was author of one of the first books on online communities: Online Communities: Designing Usab ility, Supporting Sociab ility
(2000) published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Jenny is widely published, a regular keynote speaker, and a member of the ACM's CHI
Academy.
Helen Sharp is Professor of Software Engineering and Associate Dean in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology at the
Open University. Originally trained as a software engineer, it was watching the frustration of users and the clever ‘work-arounds’ they
developed that inspired her to investigate HCI, user-centered design, and the other related disciplines that now underpin the field of
interaction design. Her research focuses on the study of professional software practice and the effect of human and social aspects on
software development, leveraging her expertise in the intersection between interaction design and software engineering, and working
closely with practitioners to support practical impact. She is very active in both the software engineering and CHI communities and has
had a long association with practitioner-related conferences. Helen is on the editorial board of several software engineering journals
including IEEE's Transactions on Software Engineering, and is a regular invited speaker at academic and practitioner venues.
Yvonne Rogers is the Director of the Interaction Centre at University College London and a Professor of Interaction Design. She is
internationally renowned for her work in HCI and ubiquitous computing and, in particular, for her pioneering approach to innovation and
ubiquitous learning. She was awarded a prestigious EPSRC dream fellowship to rethink the relationship between ageing, computing,
and creativity. Yvonne is widely published and the author of two recent books: The Secrets of Creative People (2014, Belmont Press)
and HCI Theory: Classical, Modern and Contemporary (2012, Morgan Claypool). She is also a regular keynote speaker. Former
positions include: Professor of Interaction Design at the Open University (2006–2011), Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the
School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University (2003–2006), and Professor in the former School of Cognitive and
Computing Sciences at Sussex University (1992–2003). She has also been a Visiting Professor at University of Cape Town, Melbourne
University, Stanford, Apple, Queensland University, and UCSD. She is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and the ACM's CHI
Academy.
Chapter 1
What is Interaction Design?
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Good and Poor Design
1.3 What Is Interaction Design?
1.4 The User Experience
1.5 The Process of Interaction Design
1.6 Interaction Design and the User Experience
Objectives
The main aims of this chapter are to:
Explain the difference between good and poor interaction design.
Describe what interaction design is and how it relates to human–computer interaction and other fields.
Explain the relationship between the user experience and usability.
Describe what and who is involved in the process of interaction design.
Outline the different forms of guidance used in interaction design.
Enable you to evaluate an interactive product and explain what is good and bad about it in terms of the goals and core
principles of interaction design.
00:00 / 00:00
00:00 / 00:00
1.1 Introduction
How many interactive products are there in everyday use? Think for a minute about what you use in a typical day: smartphone, tablet,
computer, remote control, coffee machine, ATM, ticket machine, printer, iPod, GPS, e-reader, TV, electric toothbrush, radio, games
console . . . the list is endless. Now think for a minute about how usable they are. How many are actually easy, effortless, and enjoyable
to use? Some, like the iPod, are a joy to use. Others, like a ticket machine, can be very frustrating. Why is there a difference?
Many products that require users to interact with them, such as smartphones and social networking sites, have been designed
primarily with the user in mind. They are generally easy and enjoyable to use. Others, such as switching from viewing a rented movie
on your smart TV to watching a sports channel, or setting the alarm on a digital clock, have not necessarily been designed with the
users in mind, but have been engineered primarily as systems to perform set functions. While they may work effectively, it can be at the
expense of how they will be used by real people.
One main aim of interaction design is to reduce the negative aspects (e.g. frustration, annoyance) of the user experience while
enhancing the positive ones (e.g. enjoyment, engagement). In essence, it is about developing interactive products 1 that are easy,
effective, and pleasurable to use – from the users’ perspective. In this chapter we begin by examining what interaction design is. We
look at the difference between good and poor design, highlighting how products can differ radically in how usable and enjoyable they
are. We then describe what and who is involved in the process of interaction design. The user experience, which is a central concern of
interaction design, is then introduced. Finally, we outline how to characterize the user experience in terms of usability goals, user
experience goals, and design principles. An assignment is presented at the end of the chapter in which you have the opportunity to put
into practice what you have read by evaluating the design of an interactive product.
1.2 Good and Poor Design
A central concern of interaction design is to develop interactive products that are usable. By this is generally meant easy to learn,
effective to use, and providing an enjoyable user experience. A good place to start thinking about how to design usable interactive
products is to compare examples of well- and poorly-designed ones. Through identifying the specific weaknesses and strengths of
different interactive products, we can begin to understand what it means for something to be usable or not. Here, we describe two
examples of poorly designed products – a voice mail system used in hotels and the ubiquitous remote control device – and contrast
these with two well-designed examples of products that perform the same function.
(1) Voice Mail System
Imagine the following scenario. You are staying at a hotel for a week while on a business trip. You discover you have left your cell phone
at home so you have to rely on the hotel's facilities. The hotel has a voice mail system for each room. To find out if you have a message,
you pick up the handset and listen to the tone. If it goes ‘beep, beep, beep’ there is a message. To find out how to access the message
you have to read a set of instructions next to the phone. You read and follow the first step:
‘1. Touch 41.’
The system responds: ‘You have reached the Sunny Hotel voice message center. Please enter the room number for which you
would like to leave a message.’
You wait to hear how to listen to a recorded message. But there are no further instructions from the phone. You look down at the
instruction sheet again and read:
‘2. Touch*, your room number, and #.’
You do so and the system replies: ‘You have reached the mailbox for room 106. To leave a message, type in your password.’
You type in the room number again and the system replies: ‘Please enter room number again and then your password.’
You don't know what your password is. You thought it was the same as your room number, but clearly it's not. At this point you give up
and call reception for help. The person at the desk explains the correct procedure for recording and listening to messages. This
involves typing in, at the appropriate times, the room number and the extension number of the phone (the latter is the password, which
is different from the room number). Moreover, it takes six steps to access a message and five steps to leave a message. You go out
and buy a new cell phone.
What is problematic with this voice mail system?
It is infuriating.
It is confusing.
It is inefficient, requiring you to carry out a number of steps for basic tasks.
It is difficult to use.
It has no means of letting you know at 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.
Now consider the following phone answering machine. Figure 1.1 shows two small sketches of an answering machine phone.
Incoming messages are represented using physical marbles. The number of marbles that have moved into the pinball-like chute
indicates the number of messages. Dropping one of these marbles into a slot in the machine causes the recorded message to play.
Dropping the same marble into another slot on the phone dials the caller who left the message.
Figure 1.1 The marble answering machine
Source: Adapted from Gillian Crampton Smith: “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” ID Magazine, May/June 1995, pp. 60–65.
How does the marble answering machine differ from the voice mail system?
It uses familiar physical objects that indicate visually at a glance how many messages have been left.
It is aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to use.
It only requires one-step actions to perform core tasks.
It is a simple but elegant design.
It offers less functionality and allows anyone to listen to any of the messages.
The marble answering machine is considered a design classic and was designed by Durrell Bishop while he was a student at the
Royal College of Art in London (described by Crampton Smith, 1995). One of his goals was to design a messaging system that
represented its basic functionality in terms of the behavior of everyday objects. To do this, he capitalized on people's everyday
knowledge of how the physical world works. In particular, he made use of the ubiquitous everyday action of picking up a physical object
and putting it down in another place. This is an example of an interactive product designed with the users in mind. The focus is on
providing them with an enjoyable experience but one that also makes efficient the activity of receiving messages. However, it is
important to note that although the marble answering machine is a very elegant and usable design, it would not be practical in a hotel
setting. One of the main reasons is that it is not robust enough to be used in public places: for instance, the marbles could easily get
lost or be taken as souvenirs. Also, the need to identify the user before allowing the messages to be played is essential in a hotel
setting. When considering the design of an interactive product, therefore, it is important to take into account where it is going to be used
and who is going to use it. The marble answering machine would be more suited in a home setting – provided there were no children
who might be tempted to play with the marbles!
Video of Durrell Bishop's answering machine at http://vimeo.com/19930744
(2) Remote Control Device
Every home entertainment system, be it the TV, cable, smart TV, music system, and so forth, comes with its own remote control device.
Each one is different in terms of how it looks and works. Many have been designed with a dizzying array of small, multicolored, and
double-labeled buttons (one on the button and one above or below it) that often seem arbitrarily positioned in relation to one another.
Many viewers, especially when sitting in their living room, find it difficult to locate the right ones, even for the simplest of tasks, like
pausing or finding the main menu. It can be especially frustrating for those who need to put on their reading glasses each time to read
the buttons. The remote control device appears to have been put together very much as an afterthought.
In contrast, much effort and thought went into the design of the TiVo remote control. The buttons were large, clearly labeled, and logically
arranged, making them easy to locate and use in conjunction with the menu interface that appears on the TV monitor. In terms of its
physical form, the remote device was designed to fit into the palm of a hand, having a peanut shape. It also has a playful look and feel
about it: colorful buttons and cartoon icons were used that are very distinctive, making it easy to identify them in the dark and without
having to put reading glasses on.
How was it possible to create such a usable and appealing remote device where so many others have failed? The answer is simple:
TiVo invested the time and effort to follow a user-centered design process. Specifically, TiVo's director of product design at the time
involved potential users in the design process, getting their feedback on everything from the feel of the device in the hand to where best
to place the batteries – making them easy to replace but not prone to falling out. He and his design team also resisted the trap of
‘buttonitis’ – to which so many other remote controls have fallen victim – where buttons breed like rabbits, one for every new function.
They did this by restricting the number of control buttons embedded in the device to the essential ones. Other functions were then
represented as part of the menu options and dialog boxes displayed on the TV screen, which could be selected via the core set of
physical control buttons. The result was a highly usable and pleasing device that has received much praise and numerous design
awards.
Dilemma
What is the best way to interact with a smart TV?
A challenge facing Smart TV providers is how to enable users to interact with online content such that it can still be as easy and
enjoyable to do as it was with previous generations of TV, with a remote control device. Viewers can now select a whole range of
content via their TV screens, but it also involves having to type in passwords and search terms, while scrolling through lots of
menus, etc. In many ways it has become more like a computer than a TV. This raises the question of whether the remote control
is the best input device to use for someone who is sat on a sofa or chair that is some distance from the TV wide screen. Another
possibility is to add a keyboard and touch pad to the remote for menu/icon selection and text input. However, this can be clunky
and awkward to use, especially with only one hand. An alternative is to provide an on-screen keyboard and number pad – as
Apple TV has done (see Figure 1.2). It has designed a slimline remote device that controls the cursor on the TV screen.
However, to type requires pecking at a grid of alphanumeric letters/numbers that is not the same as the conventional QWERTY
keyboard on phones and computers. This style of interaction can be painstakingly slow; it is also easy to overshoot and select
the wrong letter or number. Another option is to download an app onto a smartphone and interact with the keypad as if texting.
But the app has to be opened each time to act as ‘a remote’ and is only as good as the person whose smartphone it is.
Figure 1.2 (a) Interacting with digital content on a TV screen using Apple TV remote controller (b) The online table of
letters and numbers that the user has to select by pressing one button on the remote (c) Minuum's small staggered
keyboard
Source: Image (c) Courtesy of Whirlscape http://minuum.com/.
Might there be a better way to choose between thousands of films or send an email whilst sat on the sofa using the TV?
One innovative solution is Minuum's new keyboard that works a bit like a Wii remote, except that you point at an online staggered
line keyboard to select characters. This layout seems more intuitive and faster to use on a small device, especially with one
hand.
Link to a more in-depth discussion of the ins and outs of the different kinds of remote physical and digital input devices, at
http://minuum.com/who-forgot-the-smart-tv/
1.2.1 What to Design
Designing interactive products requires considering who is going to be using them, how they are going to be used, and where they are
going to be used. Another key concern is to understand the kind of activities people are doing when interacting with the products. The
appropriateness of different kinds of interfaces and arrangements of input and output devices depends on what kinds of activities are to
be supported. For example, if the activity is to enable people to bank online, then an interface that is secure, trustworthy, and easy to
navigate is essential. In addition, an interface that allows the user to find out new information about the services offered by the bank
without it being intrusive would be useful.
The world is becoming suffused with technologies that support increasingly diverse activities. Just think for a minute what you can
currently do using computer-based systems: send messages, gather information, write essays, control power plants, program, draw,
plan, calculate, monitor others, play games – to name but a few. Now think about the types of interfaces and interactive devices that are
available. They, too, are equally diverse: multitouch displays, speech-based systems, handheld devices, and large interactive displays
– to name but a few. There are also many ways of designing how users can interact with a system, e.g. via the use of menus,
commands, forms, icons, gestures, etc. Furthermore, ever more innovative everyday artifacts are being created, using novel materials,
such as e-textiles and wearables (see Figure 1.3).
Figure 1.3 Turn signal biking jacket using e-textiles developed by Leah Beuchley
Source: Photos courtesy of Leah Buechley.
The interfaces for everyday consumer items, like cameras, microwave ovens, and washing machines, that used to be physical and the
realm of product design, are now predominantly digitally based, requiring interaction design (called consumer electronics). The move
towards transforming human–human transactions into solely interface-based ones has also introduced a new kind of customer
interaction. Self-checkouts at grocery stores, airports, and libraries are becoming the norm where customers themselves have to check
in their own goods, luggage, or books. Instead of a friendly face helping them out, interfaces bark orders at them. While more costeffective, it puts the onus on the users to interact with the system. Accidentally pressing the wrong button can result in a frustrating, and
sometimes mortifying, experience, especially for first-time users.
What this all amounts to is a multitude of choices and decisions that interaction designers have to make for an ever-increasing range
of products. A key question for interaction design is: how do you optimize the users’ interactions with a system, environment, or product,
so that they support and extend the users’ activities in effective, useful, and usable ways? One could use intuition and hope for the best.
Alternatively, one can be more principled in deciding which choices to make by basing them on an understanding of the users. This
involves:
Taking into account 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 user experiences.
Listening to what people want and getting them involved in the design.
Using tried and tested user-based techniques during the design process.
The aim of this book is to cover these aspects with the goal of teaching you how to carry out interaction design. In particular, it focuses
on how to identify users’ needs and the context of their activities, and from this understanding move to designing usable, useful, and
pleasurable interactive products.
1.3 What Is Interaction Design?
By interaction design, we mean
designing interactive products to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives.
Put another way, it is about creating user experiences that enhance and augment the way people work, communicate, and interact.
More generally, Winograd describes it as “designing spaces for human communication and interaction” (1997, p. 160). Thackara views
it as “the why as well as the how of our daily interactions using computers” (2001, p. 50) while Saffer emphasizes its artistic aspects:
“the art of facilitating interactions between humans through products and services” (2010, p. 4).
A number of terms have been used to emphasize different aspects of what is being designed, including user interface design, software
design, user-centered design, product design, web design, experience design, and interactive system design. Interaction design is
increasingly being accepted as the umbrella term, covering all of these aspects. Indeed, many practitioners and designers, who in the
1990s would have described what they were doing as interface design or interactive system design, now promote what they are doing
as interaction design.
The focus of interaction design is very much concerned with practice, i.e. how to design user experiences. It is not wedded to a
particular way of doing design, but is more eclectic, promoting the use of a range of methods, techniques, and frameworks. Which is
given prominence or is currently in vogue will very much depend on the time and context (Lowgren and Stolterman, 2004; Saffer, 2010).
How does interaction design differ from other approaches to the design of computer-based systems, such as software engineering? A
simple analogy to another profession, concerned with creating buildings, may clarify this difference. In his account of interaction design,
Winograd (1997) asks how architects and civil engineers differ when faced with the problem of building a house. Architects are
concerned with the people and their interactions with each other and with the house being built. For example, is there the right mix of
family and private spaces? Are the spaces for cooking and eating in close proximity? Will people live in the space being designed in the
way it was intended to be used? In contrast, engineers are interested in issues to do with realizing the project. These include practical
concerns like cost, durability, structural aspects, environmental aspects, fire regulations, and construction methods. Just as there is a
difference between designing and building a house, so too is there a distinction between designing an interactive product and
engineering the software for it.
1.3.1 The Components of Interaction Design
We view interaction design as fundamental to all disciplines, fields, and approaches that are concerned with researching and
designing computer-based systems for people (see Figure 1.4). Why are there so many and what do they all do? Furthermore, how do
the various disciplines, fields, and design approaches differ from one another?
Figure 1.4 Relationship among contributing academic disciplines, design practices, and interdisciplinary fields concerned with
interaction design (double-headed arrows mean overlapping)
We have already described the distinction between interaction design and software engineering. The differences between interaction
design and the other approaches referred to in the figure are largely down to which methods, philosophies, and lenses they use to
study, analyze, and design computers. Another way they vary is in terms of the scope and problems they address. For example,
Information Systems is concerned with the application of computing technology in domains like business, health, and education,
whereas Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) is concerned with the need also to support multiple people working together
using computer systems (Greif, 1988).
BOX 1.1
Is interaction design beyond HCI?
We see the main difference between Interaction Design (ID) and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) as one of scope. ID has
cast its net much wider, being concerned with the theory, research, and practice of designing user experiences for all manner of
technologies, systems, and products, whereas HCI has traditionally had a narrower focus, being “concerned with the design,
evaluation, and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena
surrounding them” (ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p. 6). That is one of the reasons why we chose to call our book Interaction Design:
Beyond Human– Computer Interaction, to reflect the wider scope.
What about Human Factors and Ergonomics? We see Ergonomics and Human Factors as having closely overlapping goals
with HCI, being concerned with understanding the interactions among humans and other aspects of a system in order to
optimize human well-being and overall system performance.
1.3.2 Who Is Involved in Interaction Design?
From Figure 1.4 it can also be seen that many people are involved, ranging from social scientists to movie-makers. This is not
surprising given that technology has become such a pervasive part of our lives. But it can all seem rather bewildering to the onlooker.
How does the mix of players work together?
Designers need to know many different things about users, technologies, and interactions between them in order to create effective
user experiences. At the very least, they need to understand how people act and react to events and how they communicate and interact
with each other. To be able to create engaging user experiences, they also need to understand how emotions work, what is meant by
aesthetics, desirability, and the role of narrative in human experience. Developers also need to understand the business side, the
technical side, the manufacturing side, and the marketing side. Clearly, it is difficult for one person to be well versed in all of these
diverse areas and also know how to apply the different forms of knowledge to the process of interaction design. Interaction design is
mostly carried out by multidisciplinary teams, where the skill sets of engineers, designers, programmers, psychologists,
anthropologists, sociologists, artists, toy makers, and others are drawn upon. It is rarely the case, however, that a design team would
have all of these professionals working together. Who to include in a team will depend on a number of factors, including a company's
design philosophy, its size, purpose, and product line.
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. However, the downside is the costs
involved. The more people there are with different backgrounds in a design team, the more difficult it can be to communicate and make
progress forward with the designs being generated. Why? People with different backgrounds have different perspectives and ways of
seeing and talking about the world. What one person values as important others may not even see (Kim, 1990). Similarly, a computer
scientist's understanding of the term ‘representation’ is often very different from a graphic designer's or a psychologist's.
What this means in practice is that confusion, misunderstanding, and communication breakdowns can surface in a team. The various
team members may have different ways of talking about design and may use the same terms to mean quite different things. Other
problems can arise when a group of people who have not previously worked as a team is thrown together. For example, Philips found
that its multidisciplinary teams that were responsible for developing ideas and products for the future experienced a number of
difficulties, namely that project team members did not always have a clear idea of who needed what information, when, and in what
form (Lambourne et al, 1997).
Activity 1.1
In practice, the makeup of a given design team depends on the kind of interactive product being built. Who do you think should
be involved in developing:
1. A public kiosk providing information about the exhibits available in a science museum?
2. An interactive educational website to accompany a TV series?
Comment
Ideally, each team will have a number of different people with different skill sets. For example, the first interactive product would
include:
Graphic and interaction designers, museum curators, educational advisers, software engineers, software designers,
ergonomists.
The second project would include:
TV producers, graphic and interaction designers, teachers, video experts, software engineers, software designers.
In addition, as both systems are being developed for use by the general public, representative users, such as school children
and parents, should be involved.
In practice, design teams often end up being quite large, especially if they are working on a big project to meet a fixed deadline.
For example, it is common to find teams of 15 people or more working on a website project for an extensive period of time, like
six months. This means that a number of people from each area of expertise are likely to be working as part of the project team.
1.3.3 Interaction Design Consultants
Interaction design is now widespread in product development. In particular, website consultants, global corporations, and the
computing industries have all realized its pivotal role in successful interactive products. The presence or absence of good interaction
design can make or break a company. To get noticed in the highly competitive field of web products requires standing out. Being able to
say 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, customer return rate, and customer satisfaction are greatly affected by the usability of a website.
There are many interaction design consultancies now. These include established companies, such as Cooper, NielsenNorman Group,
and IDEO, and more recent ones that specialize in a particular area, such as job board software (e.g. Madgex) or mobile design (e.g.
CXpartners). IDEO is a large global enterprise, with branches across the world and 30 years of experience in the area. They design
products, services, and environments for other companies, pioneering new user experiences (Spreenberg et al, 1995). They have
developed thousands of products for numerous clients, each time following their particular brand of interaction design (see Figure 1.5).
Some of their most famous designs include the first mouse used by Apple, the Palm V and mMode, the integrated service platform for
AT&T cell phones. They were also involved in the design of the TiVo system. More recently, they have focused on designing solutions
with climate change at the forefront. Their approach emphasizes design thinking and lies at the intersection of insight and inspiration,
informed by business, technology, and culture.
Figure 1.5 An innovative product developed by IDEO: wireless cell phones for Telespree. The phones were designed to be
inexpensive, playful, and very simple to use, employing voice recognition for driving the interaction and only one button, for
turning them on and off
Source: IDEO, http://www.ideo.com/.
1.4 The User Experience
The user experience (UX) is central to interaction design. By this it is meant how a product behaves and is used by people in the real
world. Nielsen and Norman (2014) define it as encompassing “all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services,
and its products.” As stressed by Garrett (2010, p. 10), “every product that is used by someone has a user experience: newspapers,
ketchup bottles, reclining armchairs, cardigan sweaters.” 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 impression of how
good it is to use, right down to the sensual effect small details have on them, such as how smoothly a switch rotates or the sound of a
click and the touch of a button when pressing it. An important aspect is the quality of the experience someone has, be it a quick one,
such as topping up a cell phone, a leisurely one, such as playing with an interactive toy, or an integrated one, such as visiting a
museum (Law et al, 2009).
It is important to point out that one cannot design a user experience, only design for a user experience. In particular, one cannot design
a sensual experience, but only create the design features that can evoke it. For example, the outside case of a cell phone can be
designed to be smooth, silky, and fit in the palm of a hand; when held, touched, looked at, and interacted with, that can provoke a
sensual and satisfying user experience. Conversely, if it is designed to be heavy and awkward to hold, it is much more likely to end up
providing a poor user experience, one that is uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Designers sometimes refer to UX as UXD. The addition of the D to UX is meant to encourage design thinking that focuses on the
quality of the user experience rather than on the set of design methods to use (Allanwood and Beare, 2014). As Norman (2004) has
stressed for many years, “It is 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.”
ACTIVITY 1.2
The iPod phenomenon
Apple's classic (and subsequent) generations of iPods (e.g. Touch, Nano, Shuffle) have been a phenomenal success. How do
you think this happened?
Comment
Apple realized early on that successful interaction design involves creating interactive products that have a quality user
experience. The sleek appearance of the iPod music player (see Figure 1.6), its simplicity of use, its elegance in style, its distinct
family of rainbow colors, a novel interaction style that many people discovered was a sheer pleasure to learn and use, the catchy
naming of its product and content (iTunes, iPod), among many other design features, led to it becoming one of the greatest of its
kind and a must-have fashion item for teenagers, students, and others alike. While there were many competing players on the
market at the time – some with more powerful functionality, others that were cheaper and easier to use, or with bigger screens
and more memory, and so on – the quality of the overall user experience paled in comparison with that provided by the iPod.
Figure 1.6 The iPod Nano Touch
Source: ©Press Association, reproduced with permission.
There are many aspects of the user experience that can be considered and ways of taking them into account when designing
interactive products. Of central importance are the usability, the functionality, the aesthetics, the content, the look and feel, and the
sensual and emotional appeal. In addition, Carroll (2004) stresses 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,
e.g. age, ethnicity, race, disability, family status, occupation, education. At a more subjective level, McCarthy and Wright (2004) discuss
the importance of people's expectations and the way they make sense of their experiences when using technology.
How realistic is it for interaction designers to take all of these factors (and potentially many others) into account and, moreover, be able
to translate and combine them to produce quality user experiences? Put frankly, there is no magic formula to help them. As of yet, there
isn't a unifying theory or framework that can be readily applied by interaction designers. However, there are numerous conceptual
frameworks, tried and tested design methods, guidelines, and many relevant research findings – these are described throughout the
book. Here, we begin by outlining the process and goals of interaction design.
More generally, McCarthy and Wright's (2004) Technology as Experience framework accounts for the user experience largely in terms of
how it is felt by the user. They recognize that defining experience is incredibly difficult because it is so nebulous and ever-present to us,
just as swimming in water is to a fish. Nevertheless, they have tried to capture the essence of human experience by describing it in
both holistic and metaphorical terms. These comprise a balance of sensual, cerebral, and emotional threads. Their framework draws
heavily from the philosophical writings of Dewey and Pragmatism, which focus on the sense-making aspects of human experience. As
Dewey (1934) points out: “Emotion is the moving and cementing force. It selects what is congruous and dyes what is selected with its
color, thereby giving qualitative unity to materials externally disparate and dissimilar. It thus provides unity in and through the varied
parts of experience.”
McCarthy and Wright propose four core threads that make up our holistic experiences: sensual, emotional, compositional, and spatiotemporal:
The sensual thread. This is concerned with our sensory engagement with a situation and is similar to the visceral level of Norman's
model. It can be equated with the level of absorption people have with various technological devices and applications, most notable
being computer games, smartphones, and chat rooms, where users can be highly absorbed in their interactions at a sensory level.
These can involve thrill, fear, pain, and comfort.
The emotional thread. Common examples of emotions that spring to mind are sorrow, anger, joy, and happiness. In addition, the
framework points out how emotions are intertwined with the situation in which they arise – e.g. a person becomes angry with a
computer because it does not work properly. Emotions also involve making judgments of value. For example, when purchasing a
new cell phone, people may be drawn to the ones that are most cool-looking but be in an emotional turmoil because they are the
most expensive. They can't really afford them but they really would like one of them.
The compositional thread. This is concerned with the narrative part of an experience, as it unfolds, and the way a person makes
sense of it. For example, when shopping online, the options laid out to people can lead them in a coherent way to making a desired
purchase or they can lead to frustrating experiences resulting in no purchase being made. When in this situation, people ask
themselves questions such as: What is this about? Where am I? What has happened? What is going to happen next? What would
happen if . . . ? The compositional thread is the internal thinking we do during our experiences.
The spatio-temporal thread. This refers to the space and time in which our experiences take place and their effect upon those
experiences. There are many ways of thinking about space and time and their relationship with one another: for example, we talk of
time speeding up, standing still, and slowing down, while we talk of space in terms of public and personal places, and needing
one's own space.
The threads are meant as ideas to help designers think and talk more clearly and concretely about the relationship between technology
and experience. By describing an experience in terms of its interconnected aspects, the framework can aid thinking about the whole
experience of a technology rather than as fragmented aspects, e.g. its usability, its marketability, or its utility. For example, when buying
clothes online, the framework can be used to capture the whole gamut of experiences, including: the fear or joy of needing to buy a new
outfit; the time and place where it can be purchased, e.g. online stores or shopping mall; the tensions of how to engage with the vendor,
e.g. the pushy sales assistant or an anonymous website; the value judgment involved in contemplating the cost and how much one is
prepared to spend; the internal monologue that goes on where questions are asked such as will it look good on me, what size should I
buy, do I have shoes to match, do I need to try it on, how easy will it be to wash, will I need to iron it each time, and how often will I be
able to wear it? All of these aspects can be described in terms of the four threads and in so doing highlight which aspects are more
important for a given product. For example, if you were to do this exercise when buying a new car versus a domestic energy-saving
device, you would find you would get quite different descriptions.
1.5 The Process of Interaction Design
The process of interaction design involves four basic activities:
1. Establishing requirements
2. Designing alternatives
3. Prototyping
4. Evaluating.
These activities are intended to inform one another and to be repeated. For example, measuring the usability of what has been built in
terms of whether it is easy to use provides feedback that certain changes must be made or that certain requirements have not yet been
met. Eliciting responses from potential users about what they think and feel about what has been designed, in terms of its appeal,
touch, engagement, usefulness, and so on, can help explicate the nature of the user experience that the product evokes.
Evaluating what has been built is very much at the heart of interaction design. Its focus is on ensuring that the product is appropriate. It
is usually addressed through a user-centered approach to design, which, as the name suggests, seeks to involve users throughout
the design process. There are many different ways of achieving this: for example, through observing users, talking to them, interviewing
them, modeling their performance, asking them to fill in questionnaires, and even asking them to become co-designers. The findings
from the different ways of engaging and eliciting knowledge from users are then interpreted with respect to ongoing design activities
(we give more detail about all these aspects of evaluation in Chapters 13 to 15).
Equally important as involving users when evaluating an interactive product is understanding what people do. Chapters 3, 4, and 5
explain in detail how people act and interact with one another, with information, and with various technologies, together with describing
their abilities, emotions, needs, desires, and what causes them to get annoyed, frustrated, lose patience, and get bored. Such
knowledge can greatly help designers determine which solutions to choose from the many design alternatives available, and how to
develop and test these further. Chapter 10 describes how an understanding of people and what they do can be translated to
requirements, while Chapters 9 and 11 discuss how to involve users effectively in the design process.
A main reason for having a better understanding of people in the contexts in which they live, work, and learn is that it can help designers
understand how to design interactive products that will fit those niches. A collaborative planning tool for a space mission, intended to be
used by teams of scientists working in different parts of the world, will have quite different needs from one targeted at customer and
sales agents, to be used in a furniture store to draw up kitchen layout plans. Understanding the differences between people can also
help designers appreciate that one size does not fit all; what works for one user group may be totally inappropriate for another. For
example, children have different expectations than adults about how they want to learn or play. They may find having interactive quizzes
and cartoon characters helping them along to be highly motivating, whereas most adults find them annoying. Conversely, adults often
like talking-heads discussions about topics, but children find them boring. Just as everyday objects like clothes, food, and games are
designed differently for children, teenagers, and adults, so interactive products should be designed for different kinds of user.
Learning more about people and what they do can also reveal incorrect assumptions that designers may have about particular user
groups and what they need. For example, it is often assumed that because of deteriorating vision and dexterity, old people want things
to be big – be it text or graphical elements appearing on a screen or the physical controls, like dials and switches, used to control
devices. This may be true for some old people, but studies have shown that many people in their 70s, 80s, and older are perfectly
capable of interacting with standard-size information and even small interfaces, e.g. cell phones, just as well as those in their teens
and 20s, even though, initially, some might think they will find it difficult (Siek et al, 2005). It is increasingly the case that as people get
older, they do not like to consider themselves as lacking in cognitive and manual skills. Being aware of people's sensitivities is as
important as knowing how to design for their capabilities.
Being aware of cultural differences is also an important concern for interaction design, particularly for products intended for a diverse
range of user groups from different countries. An example of a cultural difference is the dates and times used in different countries. In
the USA, for example, the date is written as month, day, year (e.g. 05/21/15) whereas in other countries it is written in the sequence of
day, month, year (e.g. 21/05/15). This can cause problems to designers when deciding on the format of online forms, especially if
intended for global use. It is also a concern for products that have time as a function, e.g. operating systems, digital clocks, car
dashboards. Which cultural group do they give preference to? How do they alert users to the format that is set as default? This raises
the question of how easily an interface designed for one user group can be used and accepted by another (Callahan, 2005). Moreover,
why is it that certain products, like the iPod, are universally accepted by people from all parts of the world, whereas websites are
designed differently and reacted to differently by people from different cultures?
As well as there being standard differences in the way cultures communicate and represent information, designers from different
cultures (that can be cross- or within-country) will often use different form factors, images, and graphical elements when creating
products and dialog features for an interface. This can take the form of contrasting designs, where different colors, types of images,
and structuring of information are used to appeal to people in different countries (see Figure 1.7).
Figure 1.7 Anna the online sales agent, designed to be subtly different for UK and US customers. What are the differences and
which is which? What should Anna's appearance be like for other countries, like India, South Africa, or China?
Source: Reproduced with permission from IKEA Ltd.
BOX 1.2
Accessibility
Accessibility refers to the degree to which an interactive product is accessible by as many people as possible. A focus is on
people with disabilities.2
But what does it mean to be disabled? Definitions vary, but the following captures the main points. People are considered to be
disabled if:
They have a mental or physical impairment.
The impairment has an adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.
The adverse effect is substantial and long term (meaning it has lasted for 12 months, or is likely to last for more than 12
months or for the rest of their life).
Whether or not a person is considered to be disabled changes over time with age, or as recovery from an accident progresses.
In addition, the severity and impact of an impairment can vary over the course of a day or in different environmental conditions.
It is quite common, when people first consider the topic of accessibility and interaction design, to consider it largely in terms of a
specific physical disability, such as the inability to walk or being visually impaired. However, it can often be the case that a person
will have more than one disability. There is a wide range of disabilities including:
Color-blindness: The inability to distinguish between two colors affects approximately 1 in 10 men and 1 in 200 women. This
has an impact on the use of color for highlighting or distinguishing interface elements.
Dyslexia: Although usually associated with difficulties in reading and writing, there are many different forms of dyslexia, some
of which affect the way in which people comprehend the totality of concepts. A relatively simple interaction design decision
that can cause difficulties for people with dyslexia is the contrast between foreground and background text or images.
Physical impairments: These range from conditions such as tremor or shaking, weakness, pain, reduced control of limbs,
inability to sit upright, to short or missing limbs.
Quesenbery (2009) comments on how accessibility is often considered as making sure there aren't any barriers to access for
assistive technologies but without regard to usability, while usability usually targets everyone who uses a site or product, without
considering people who have disabilities. The challenge is to create a good user experience for people with disabilities that is
both accessible and usable.
1.6 Interaction Design and the User Experience
Part of the process of understanding users is to be clear about the primary objective of developing an interactive product for them. Is it
to design an efficient system that will allow them to be highly productive in their work, or is it to design a learning tool that will be
challenging and motivating, or is it something else? To help identify the objectives we suggest classifying them in terms of usability and
user experience goals. Traditionally, usability goals have been viewed as being concerned with meeting specific usability criteria, e.g.
efficiency, whereas, more recently, user experience goals have been concerned with explicating the nature of the user experience, e.g.
to be aesthetically pleasing. It is important to note, however, that the distinction between the two types of goal is not clear-cut, since
usability is fundamental to the quality of the user experience and, conversely, aspects of the user experience, such as how it feels and
looks, are inextricably linked with how usable the product is. We distinguish between them here to help clarify their roles but stress the
importance of considering them together when designing for a user experience. Also, historically, HCI was concerned primarily with
usability (known as usability engineering) but has since become concerned with understanding, designing for, and evaluating a wider
range of user experience aspects.
1.6.1 Usability Goals
Usability refers to ensuring that interactive products are easy to learn, effective to use, and enjoyable from the user's perspective. It
involves optimizing the interactions people have with interactive products to enable them to carry out their activities at work, at school,
and in their everyday lives. More specifically, usability is broken down into the following goals:
effective to use (effectiveness)
efficient to use (efficiency)
safe to use (safety)
having good utility (utility)
easy to learn (learnability)
easy to remember how to use (memorability).
Usability goals are typically operationalized as questions. The purpose is to provide the interaction designer with a concrete means of
assessing various aspects of an interactive product and the user experience. Through answering the questions, designers can be
alerted very early on in the design process to potential design problems and conflicts that they might not have considered. However,
simply asking ‘is the system easy to learn?’ is not going to be very helpful. Asking about the usability of a product in a more detailed way
– for example, ‘how long will it take a user to figure out how to use the most basic functions for a new smartwatch; how much can they
capitalize on from their prior experience; and how long would it take a user to learn the whole set of functions?’ – will elicit far more
information. Below we give a description of each goal and a question for each one.
Effectiveness is a very general goal and refers to how good a product is at doing what it is supposed to do.
Question: Is the product capable of allowing people to learn, carry out their work efficiently, access the information they need, or buy the
goods they want?
Efficiency refers to the way a product supports users in carrying out their tasks. The marble answering machine described at the
beginning of this chapter was considered efficient in that it let the user carry out common tasks, e.g. listening to messages, through
a minimal number of steps. In contrast, the voice mail system was considered inefficient because it required the user to carry out
many steps and learn an arbitrary set of sequences for the same common task. This implies that an efficient way of supporting
common tasks is to let the user use single button or key presses. An example of where this kind of efficiency mechanism has been
employed effectively is in online shopping. Once users have entered all the necessary personal details in an online form to make a
purchase, they can let the website save all their personal details. Then, if they want to make another purchase at that site, they don't
have to re-enter all their personal details again. A highly successful mechanism patented by Amazon.com is the one-click option,
which requires users only to click a single button when they want to make another purchase.
Question: Once users have learned how to use a product to carry out their tasks, can they sustain a high level of productivity?
Safety involves protecting the user from dangerous conditions and undesirable situations. In relation to the first ergonomic aspect, it
refers to the external conditions where people work. For example, where there are hazardous conditions – such as X-ray machines
or toxic chemicals – operators should be able to interact with and control computer-based systems remotely. The second aspect
refers to helping any kind of user in any kind of situation avoid the dangers of carrying out unwanted actions accidentally. It also
refers to the perceived fears users might have of the consequences of making errors and how this affects their behavior. To make
interactive products safer in this sense involves (i) preventing the user from making serious errors by reducing the risk of wrong
keys/buttons being mistakenly activated (an example is not placing the quit or delete-file command right next to the save command
on a menu) and (ii) providing users with various means of recovery should they make errors. Safe interactive systems should
engender confidence and allow the user the opportunity to explore the interface to try out new operations (see Figure 1.8a). Other
safety mechanisms include undo facilities and confirmatory dialog boxes that give users another chance to consider their intentions
(a well-known example is the appearance of a dialog box, after issuing the command to delete everything in the trashcan, saying:
‘Are you sure you want to remove all the items in the Trash permanently?’ – see Figure 1.8b).
Figure 1.8 (a) A safe and unsafe menu. Which is which and why? (b) A warning dialog box for Mac OS X
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?
Utility refers to the extent to which the product provides the right kind of functionality so that users can do what they need or want to
do. An example of a product with high utility is an accounting software package that provides a powerful computational tool that
accountants can use to work out tax returns. An example of a product with low utility is a software drawing tool that does not allow
users to draw freehand but forces them to use a mouse to create their drawings, using only polygon shapes.
Question: Does the product provide an appropriate set of functions that will enable users to carry out all their tasks in the way they want
to do them?
Learnability refers to how easy a system is to learn to use. It is well known that people don't like spending a long time learning how
to use a system. They want to get started straight away and become competent at carrying out tasks without too much effort. This is
especially so for interactive products intended for everyday use (e.g. social media, email, GPS) and those used only infrequently
(e.g. online tax forms). To a certain extent, people are prepared to spend longer learning more complex systems that provide a wider
range of functionality, like web authoring tools. In these situations, pop-up tutorials can help by providing contextualized step-by-step
material with hands-on exercises. A key concern is determining how much time users are prepared to spend learning a product. It
seems a waste if a product provides a range of functionality that the majority of users are unable or not prepared to spend time
learning how to use.
Question: Is it possible for the user to work out how to use the product by exploring the interface and trying out certain actions? How
hard will it be to learn the whole set of functions in this way?
Memorability refers to how easy a product is to remember how to use, once learned. This is especially important for interactive
products that are used infrequently. If users haven't used an operation for a few months or longer, they should be able to remember
or at least rapidly be reminded how to use it. Users shouldn't have to keep relearning how to carry out tasks. Unfortunately, this
tends to happen when the operations required to be learned are obscure, illogical, or poorly sequenced. Users need to be helped to
remember how to do tasks. There are many ways of designing the interaction to support this. For example, users can be helped to
remember the sequence of operations at different stages of a task through meaningful icons, command names, and menu options.
Also, structuring options and icons so they are placed in relevant categories of options, e.g. placing all the drawing tools in the
same place on the screen, can help the user remember where to look to find a particular tool at a given stage of a task.
Question: What kinds of interface support have been provided to help users remember how to carry out tasks, especially for products
and operations they use infrequently?
As well as couching usability goals in terms of specific questions, they are turned into usability criteria. These are specific objectives
that enable the usability of a product to be assessed in terms of how it can improve (or not) a user's performance. Examples of
commonly used usability criteria are time to complete a task (efficiency), time to learn a task (learnability), and the number of errors
made when carrying out a given task over time (memorability). These can provide quantitative indicators of the extent to which
productivity has increased, or how work, training, or learning have been improved. They are also useful for measuring the extent to
which personal, public, and home-based products support leisure and information-gathering activities. However, they do not address
the overall quality of the user experience, which is where user experience goals come into play.
1.6.2 User Experience Goals
A diversity of user experience goals has been articulated in interaction design, which cover a range of emotions and felt experiences.
These include desirable and undesirable ones, as shown in Table 1.1.
TABLE 1.1
Desirable and undesirable aspects of the user experience
Desirable aspects
Satisfying
Helpful
Fun
Enjoyable
Motivating
Provocative
Engaging
Challenging
Surprising
Pleasurable
Enhancing sociability
Rewarding
Exciting
Supporting creativity
Emotionally fulfilling
Entertaining
Cognitively stimulating
Undesirable aspects
Boring
Unpleasant
Frustrating
Patronizing
Making one feel guilty Making one feel stupid
Annoying
Cutesy
Childish
Gimmicky
Many of these are subjective qualities and are concerned with how a system feels to a user. They differ from the more objective usability
goals in that they are concerned with how users experience an interactive product from their perspective, rather than assessing how
useful or productive a system is from its own perspective. Whereas the terms used to describe usability goals comprise a small
distinct set, many more terms are used to describe the multifaceted nature of the user experience. They also overlap with what they are
referring to. In so doing, they offer subtly different options for expressing the way an experience varies for the same activity over time,
technology, and place. For example, we may describe listening to music in the shower as highly pleasurable, but consider it more apt
to describe listening to music in the car as enjoyable. Similarly, listening to music on a high-end powerful music system may invoke
exciting and emotionally fulfilling feelings, while listening to it on an iPod Shuffle may be serendipitously enjoyable, especially not
knowing what tune is next. The process of selecting terms that best convey a user's feelings, state of being, emotions, sensations, and
so forth when using or interacting with a product at a given time and place can help designers understand the multifaceted and
changing nature of the user experience.
Activity 1.3
There are more desirable than undesirable aspects of the user experience listed in Table 1.1. Why do you think this is so?
Comment
The two lists we have come up with are not meant to be exhaustive. There are likely to be more – both desirable and undesirable
– as new products surface. The reason for there being more of the former is that a primary goal of interaction design is to create
positive experiences. There are many ways of achieving this.
Similar to usability goals, user experience concepts are most useful when turned into specific questions. For example, when
considering how engaging an interactive virtual agent is for an online store, one can ask:
How long do users interact with the virtual sales agent? Do they suspend their disb elief when typing in questions?
To consider the effect of its appeal one can ask:
What is the user's immediate response to the agent's appearance? Is it one of mockery, dismay, or enjoyment? Do they
smile, laugh, or scoff?
The concepts can be further defined in terms of elements that contribute to making a user experience pleasurable, fun, exciting,
etc. They include attention, pace, play, interactivity, conscious and unconscious control, style of narrative, and flow. The concept of
flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) is popular in interaction design for informing the design of user experiences for websites, video
games, and other interactive products. It refers to a state of intense emotional involvement that comes from being completely
involved in an activity, like playing music, and where time flies. Instead of designing web interfaces to cater for visitors who know
what they want, they can be designed to induce a state of flow, leading the visitor to some unexpected place, where they become
completely absorbed. In an interview with Wired magazine, Csikszentmihalyi (1996) uses the analogy of a gourmet meal to
describe how a user experience can be designed to be engrossing, “starting off with the appetizers, moving on to the salads and
entrées, and building toward dessert and not knowing what will follow.”
Those working in the computer games industry have acknowledged for a long time that there is an important relationship
between pleasure and usability. Counter-intuitively, they also realized it can work in a negative direction. Many gamers enjoy and
find most challenging non-easy video games, which contravene usability goals (Frohlich and Murphy, 1999). Banging a plastic
hammer to hit a virtual nail represented on the computer screen, compared with using a more efficient way to do the same thing,
e.g. selecting an option using command keys, may require more effort and be more error-prone but can result in a much more
enjoyable and fun experience.
Not all usability and user experience goals will be relevant to the design and evaluation of an interactive product being
developed. Some combinations will also be incompatible. For example, it may not be possible or desirable to design a process
control system that is both safe and fun. Recognizing and understanding the nature of the relationship between usability and
other user experience goals is central to interaction design. It enables designers to become aware of the consequences of
pursuing different combinations when designing products and highlight potential trade-offs and conflicts. As suggested by
Carroll (2004), articulating the interactions of the various components of the user's experience can lead to a deeper and more
significant interpretation of the role of each component.
BOX 1.3
Beyond usability: designing to persuade
Schaffer (2009) argues that we should be focusing more on the user experience and less on usability. He points out how many
websites are designed to persuade or influence rather than enable users to perform their tasks in an efficient manner. For
example, many online shopping sites are in the business of selling services and products, where a core strategy is to entice
people to buy what they might not have thought they needed. Online shopping experiences are increasingly about persuading
people to buy rather than being designed to make shopping easy. This involves designing for persuasion, emotion, and trust –
which may or may not be compatible with usability goals.
This entails determining what customers will do, whether it is to make a donation, buy a product, or renew a membership and
involves encouraging, suggesting, or reminding the user of things they might like or need. Many online travel sites try to lure
visitors to purchase additional items (such as hotels, insurance, car rental, car parking, day trips) besides the flight they went to
book originally and will add a list full of tempting graphics to the visitor's booking form, which they have to scroll through before
being able to complete their transaction. These persuasion opportunities need to be designed to be eye-catching and enjoyable
– in the same way an array of products are attractively laid out in the aisles of a grocery store that one is required to walk past
before reaching one's desired product. Some online sites, however, have gone too far; for example, adding items to the
customer's shopping basket (e.g. insurance, special delivery) that the shopper has to deselect if not wanted. This sneaky addon approach can often result in a negative experience. More generally, this deceptive approach to UX has been described by
Harry Brignull as ‘dark patterns’ (see http://darkpatterns.org/). Shoppers often become annoyed if they notice decisions, that cost
money, have been made on their behalf without them even being asked (see Figure 1.9). The key is to nudge people in subtle
and pleasant ways that they can trust and feel comfortable with.
Figure 1.9 Dark pattern. In order to get free WiFi at this airport, you have to subscribe to news, offers, and travel
information. The box is already checked and you cannot uncheck it
1.6.3 Design Principles
Design principles are used by interaction designers to aid their thinking when designing for the user experience. These are
generalizable abstractions intended to orient designers towards thinking about different aspects of their designs. A well-known
example is feedback: products should be designed to provide adequate feedback to the users to ensure they know what to do next in
their tasks. Another one that has become increasingly important is findability (Morville, 2005). This refers to the degree to which a
particular object is easy to discover or locate – be it navigating a website, moving through a building, or finding the delete image option
on a digital camera.
Design principles are derived from a mix of theory-based knowledge, experience, and common sense. They tend to be written in a
prescriptive manner, suggesting to designers what to provide and what to avoid at the interface – if you like, the dos and don'ts of
interaction design. More specifically, they are intended to help designers explain and improve their designs (Thimbleby, 1990).
However, they are not intended to specify how to design an actual interface, e.g. telling the designer how to design a particular icon or
how to structure a web portal, but act more like triggers to designers, ensuring that they have provided certain features at an interface.
A number of design principles have been promoted. The best known are concerned with how to determine what users should see and
do when carrying out their tasks using an interactive product. Here we briefly describe the most common ones: visibility, feedback,
constraints, consistency, and affordance.
Visibility.
The importance of visibility is exemplified by our contrasting examples at the beginning of the chapter. The voice mail system made the
presence and number of waiting messages invisible, while the answer machine made both aspects highly visible. The more visible
functions are, the more likely it is that users will be able to know what to do next. Norman (1988) describes the controls of a car to
emphasize this point. The controls for different operations are clearly visible, e.g. indicators, headlights, horn, hazard warning lights,
indicating what can be done. The relationship between the way the controls have been positioned in the car and what they do makes it
easy for the driver to find the appropriate control for the task at...
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