Presentation Styles

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Presentation Styles

• Balancing Function And Fashion

Ben Carson Rajesh Golla Sunil Dsouza
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Introduction

• 4 Design Issues
• Error messages
• Non anthropomorphic design
• Display design
• Color

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Error Messages

• Specificity
• Constructive guidance positive tone
• User centered phrasing
• Physical format
• Effective messages

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Specificity
Specific error messages instead of vague
condemning messages

• POOR
• Syntax Error
• Invalid Data

• BETTER
• Unmatched left parenthesis
• Days range from 1 to 31

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Constructive guidance and positive tone

• Help users to rectify mistakes rather than
  condemn them

• POOR
• Disastrous string overflow

• BETTER
• Use shorter strings or
  expand string space

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User centered phrasing

• Give user the feeling that he controls the system
  rather than just responds to commands
• E.g. POOR
  BETTER
• Enter Data Ready
  For Data

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Physical format

• Upper-case only text v/s Mixed-case
• Placement near the error v/s same position
• Sound alerts can be annoying

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Develop better error messages

• Better wording - consult technical writers
• Quality Control - approval of expert committees
• Develop guidelines
• a) Positive tone
• b) Specific
• c) user centric
• d) neat comprehensible format
• Carry out usability tests
• Collect user performance data

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Non anthropomorphic Design

• Failure of anthropomorphic design
• Ex bank tellers Tillie the teller and BOB,
  postal buddy
• Text only preferred over anthropomorphic designs
• Anthropomorphic interfaces using first person
  pronouns may be counter productive
• Poor I will begin the lesson when you press
  RETURN
• Better You can begin the lesson by pressing
  RETURN
• Better To begin the lesson, press RETURN

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Display Design

• Display's key to successful design
• Smith and Mosiers 162 guidelines of data display
• Designers thorough knowledge of users tasks
• Effective designs ( proper sequence, grouping,
  consistency, orderly format, highlighting,
  shading, color, font etc)

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Non anthropomorphic guidelines

• Avoid presenting computers as people
• Choose appropriate humans for introductions or
  guides
• Use caution in designing computer generated human
  faces or cartoon characters
• Use cartoon characters in games
• Design comprehensible, predictable, and
  controllable interfaces
• Provide user centered overviews
• Do not use I when computer responds to human
  actions
• Use you to guides users, or just state facts

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• Six categories of principles which show
  complexity of designers task
• Elegance and simplicity
• Scale, contrast and proportion
• Organization and visual structure
• Module and program
• Image and representation
• Style

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Field layout

• Explore with a variety of layouts.

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Empirical results
Structured form
Narrative form
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display complexity metrics

• The four task independent metrics for
  alphanumeric displays
• Overall density
• Local density
• Grouping
• Layout complexity

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Structured format
Unstructured format
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Layout appropriateness
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Color

• Use of color for a system is subjective.
• Some systems require color
• Alphanumeric displays can be helped or hurt by
  the use of color

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Guidelines for Using Color

• Use color conservatively
• Limit the number of colors
• Recognize that color is a coding technique
• Color coding should support the task
• Color coding appears with minimal input
• Color coding is under user control
• Design for monochrome first
• Consider needs of color deficient users

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More Guidelines

• Color can help with formatting
• Use a consistent color scheme
• Be aware of common expectations about color codes
• Be aware of problems with color pairings
• Use color changes to indicate status changes
• Use color in graphic displays for greater
  information density

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Conclusion

• Hoadley, 1990 study of display charts
• uncritical addition of color may not be
  uniformly beneficial
• Color can improve some displays and lead to more
  efficient use of the system, but improper use of
  color can mislead and be counterproductive