SIMS 213: User Interface Design

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SIMS 213 User Interface Design Development

• Marti Hearst
• Thurs, Feb 6, 2003

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Cooper on Designing for Goals

• We do tasks to achieve goals dont equate them!
• Traveling safely in 1849 vs. 1999
• Goal of good design help users achieve practical
  goals while not violating their personal goals
• No unnatural acts
• Distinctions
• Personal goals
• Corporate goals
• Practical goals
• False goals
• Example goal-directed tv news system

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Think Outside-in versus Inside-out

• Do not expect others to think or behave
• as you do
• as you would like them to
• Assess the meaning of the displays and controls
  based on what a user can be assumed to know, not
  based on what you know

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Example Playing Pictionary

• Getting into someone elses head

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However (from Cooper)

• Being a victim of a problem does not necessarily
  bestow the power to see the solution
• An individual is not always representative
• Company president example

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Personas (from Cooper)

• Hypothetical Archetypes
• Archetype (American Heritage)
• An original model or type after which other
  similar things are patterned a prototype
• An ideal example of a type quintessence
• A precise description of a user and what they
  want to accomplish
• Imaginary, but precise
• Specific, but stereotyped
• Real people have non-representative quirks

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The Essence of Personas

• Describe a person in terms of their
• Goals in life (especially relating to this
  project)
• Capabilities, inclinations, and background
• People have a visceral ability to generalize
  about real and fictional people
• We can have detailed discussions about what Harry
  Potter, Scarlett OHara, or Colin Powell will
  think or do.
• They wont be 100 accurate, but it feels natural
  to think about people this way

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Reasons for Personas

• A compromise design pleases no-one
• The broader you aim, the more likely you miss the
  bulls-eye
• 50 of the people 50 happy doesnt work
• Car example soccer mom, carpenter, dot-com exec
• Every time you extend functionality to include
  another constituency, you put another speed bump
  of features and controls across every other
  users road.
• A targeted design can achieve
• 10 people 100 ecstatic
• Examples
• Ram pickup truck
• Sony aibo
• There is no such thing as an average user

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Reasons for Personas

• Examples of results of targeted design
• Dodge Ram pickup
• Roller suitcases
• Sony Aibo
• Isnt useful for anything
• Not fuzzy and warm
• Too delicate to let children use it, but
• Passionate fan clubs
• Brisk sales despite steep price and prices now
  coming down

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Reasons for Personas

• Avoid the elastic user
• If the description is not specific, it can easily
  wiggle to suit the design needs of the moment
• Piston analogy
• Helps prevent designer / programmer from
  imagining they are the user

Image from www.howstuffworks.com
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Reasons for Personas

• Puts an end to feature debates
• Makes hypothetical arguments less hypothetical
• Q What if the user wants to print this out?
• A1 The user wont want to print often.
• A2 Emilee wont want to print often.
• User Persona, not Buyer Persona
• This is one way HCI differs from marketing
• Eventually it pays off in more sales

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Case Study using Personas

• Sony TransComs P_at_ssport
• Initial design Conventional solution
• Deep hierarchy of screens
• Uninformed consent
• Reflected the internal design of the software
• This design decision forced them to throw out the
  natural choice of a touchscreen
• 3D graphics, artistic icons, map-and-globe
  metaphor
• But no substance
• Painting the corpse

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Case Study using Personas

• Procedure
• Interviews inside Sony
• What are their goals?
• What is the project history?
• Interviews in the field
• Airline personnel, particularly flight attendants
• Every new story lead to a new persona
• 30 personas at one point
• Eventually, see commonalities, collapse them down
• 4 passengers, six airline employees
• Passengers are the hard part

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Case Study using Personas

• Passenger Personas
• Chuck Burgermeister
• Ethan Scott
• Marie Dubois
• Clevis McCloud
• Goal satisfy all of them, make no one unhappy,
  but dont have to make any of them exceptionally
  happy
• (contradiction of earlier point captive
  audience)
• Interesting development one persona became a
  common denominator and a touchstone

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Case Study using Personas

• Interesting design decisions
• No navigation
• Only one screen
• This isnt really accurate they had different
  screens for different kinds of entertainment
• This means not very many movies to choose from
  and is not what a computer scientist would
  design for
• Physical knob like a radio dial
• Few clicks means touchscreen is ok
• Content provided much of the value
• Movie vendors surprised the designers by being
  enthused about having to supply content
• Consequence of the fact that every movie is
  carefully marketed already
• Other interfaces needed for airline personnel

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Cooper on Scenarios

• Daily Use
• Fast to learn
• Shortcuts and customization after more use
• Necessary Use
• Infrequent but required
• Nothing fancy needed
• Edge Cases
• Ignore or save for version 2
• Example image cropping application
• It works so intuitively, it feels like magic

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Coopers Perpetual Intermediaries
Beginners
Intermediates
Experts
Programmers design for experts
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Perpetual Intermediaries
Beginners
Intermediates
Experts
Marketers design for beginners
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Perpetual Intermediaries
Beginners
Intermediates
Experts
People spend most of their time as intermediates
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Perpetual Intermediaries
Beginners
Intermediates
Experts
Paradoxical Curves
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Lets practice creating personas