Interaction Styles

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Interaction Styles

• Direct Manipulation
• Menu selection, Form Fillin, Dialog boxes
• Command Languages, Natural Languages
• Course 6, CMC, 07/10/03

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Toward an Interaction Style

• High concept definition
• functionality
• goals
• benefits
• Task analysis
• users and tasks
• Choice of interaction style
• easy to learn, to apply, to retain over time
• relevant to users task

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OAI model
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Direct Manipulation 3 integrated principles

• Continuous representation of objects and actions
  of interest with meaningful visual metaphors
• Physical actions or presses of labeled buttons
  instead of complex syntax
• Rapid incremental reversible operations whose
  effect on objects of interest is visible
  immediately

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Visual Thinking and Icons

• Commercial graphic designers, semiotically
  oriented academics, data-visualization gurus
• Preferences vary by user and by task
• Icons or Text?
• How to design icons?
• Sound and Animation added?

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Problems with Direct Manipulation

• Visual representations too large for screen, too
  detailed
• Visual representations without obvious meaning
• Misleading metaphors
• Shift hardware devices

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Menu Selection

• Effective recognition
• Early systems (selection via keyboard)
• full screen menus numbered, textual
• Modern systems (selection by mouse clicks)
• pull-down and pop-up menus
• radio buttons and check boxes
• embedded links
• menu items textual, graphic, auditory

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Organization Menu Items

• Meaningful Superiority categorical menu
  organization over alphabetical organization
• Menu structures single menus linear sequence of
  menus strict tree structures acyclic networks
  cyclic networks
• Key to menu structure task-related objects and
  actions

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Single Menus

• binary menus
• multiple-item menus
• multiple-selection menus (check boxes)
• pull-down and pop-up menus
• scrolling and two-dimensional menus
• alphasliders
• embedded links
• iconic menus, toolbars, palettes

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Alphaslider
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(No Transcript)
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Embedded Links (example)Glosser
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Tree Structures
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Pull-down menu (example)
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Pie menu (example)
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Tree-Structured Menus Problems

• overlapping categories
• extraneous items
• conflicting classifications
• unfamiliar jargon
• generic terms
• too many levels
• users loss of orientation

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Suggested Rules

• create task-related groups of logically similar
  items
• form groups that cover all possibilities
• make sure that items ar nonoverlapping
• use familiar terminology, but ensure that items
  are distinct from one another
• the fewer the levels, the greater the ease of
  decision making
• add menu map to help users stay oriented

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Sequence of Item Presentation

• There is a task-related ordering
• chronological
• increasing/decreasing (number, length, volume,
  temperature, )
• There is no task-related ordering
• alphabetic
• grouping of related items
• most frequently used first
• most important first

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Response Time Display Rate

• Long response times
• Slow display rates
• Use command language
• Greater memory demands

• Short response times
• Rapid display rates
• Use menu selection
• Cues to elicit recognition

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Form Fillin

• Many fields of data are necessary
• Some guidelines from practitioners
• meaningful title
• comprehensible instructions
• logical grouping and sequencing of fields
• familiar field labels
• error prevention, correction, messages
• completion signal
• List- and Combo Boxes, Coded Fields

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Dialog Boxes

• Combine Menu Selection and Form Fillin
• Additional concerns
• consistency across all system dialog boxes
• relationships with other items on screen
• Guidelines for internal layout and external
  relationships

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Dialog Box (example)
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Command Languages

• Strategies for command syntax
• simple command set
• command argument(s) DELETE FILEA
• command option(s) argument(s)
• PRINT/3, HQ FILEA
• A0821DCALGA0300P
• hierarchical command structure
• CREATE FILEA LOCPR1
• DISPLAY DIR1 SCR2

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Command Languages

• meaningful structure
• consistent argument ordering
• keywords vs. Symbols
• change all KO to OK vs. RS /KO/, /OK/
• congruent hierarchical forms of commands
• move robot forward vs. advance vs. go
• move robot backward vs. retreat vs. Back
• naming and abbreviations

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Natural Language in Computing

• Natural-language interaction
• restricted to specific tasks
• \erase worksheet \insert row \total all columns
• annoying cursor movements from object to toolbar
• automatic speech for selecting painting tools
• Natural-language Queries
• Text-database Searching