STS BCS foundations for UX

Iterative Design

Design methodology involving repeated cycles of design, evaluation, and analysis. Refinements are made for the next cycle based on the analysis and feedback.

Efficiency

The attribute of usability that focuses on being able to accomplish a task in minimum time with a minimum of effort.

Engaging

The attribute of usability that focuses on capturing and holding the user's attention and interest.

Effective

The attribute of usability that focuses on task completion, guiding the user through all parts of the task and ensuring that the task is properly completed.

Accessibility

The attributes and characteristics of a system that allow people with limited vision, hearing, dexterity, cognition or physical mobility to interact effectively with the system. Accessibility aids, such as screen readers, may be added to a system to allow people with disabilities to use those systems.

Hick's law (Hick-Hyman law)

The time it takes to make a decision increases proportionally to the number and complexity of choices. Hick's law is the appropriate model in choosing an alternative from a menu or navigation bar for decision times, rather than Miller's "magic number" of seven plus or minus two.

Nielsen usability as being composed of five components:

•Learn-ability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design? •Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks? •Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency? •Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors? •Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design? (Nielsen, Usability 101: Introduction to Usability L>E>M>E>S

6 key principles of user centered design?

•The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments. •Users are involved throughout design and development. •The design is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation. •The process is iterative. •The design addresses the whole user experience. •The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.

Facilitator

A person that works with a person or group to lead a discussion or activity in order to extract feedback and information

Patrick Jordan Metrics for usability :

"Effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction"

ISO9241 as an important standard in the field of usability.

"The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use"

Efficiency:

"resources spent by user in order to ensure accurate and complete achievement of the goals".

Diary Studies

A diary study is a research method used to collect qualitative data about user behaviors, activities, and experiences over time. In a diary study, data is self-reported by participants longitudinally — that is, over an extended period of time that can range from a few days to even a month or longer.

Think-aloud Protocol

A direct observation method of user testing that involves asking users to think out loud as they are performing a task.

HCI

A discipline concerned with the design,evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them.

Focus Group

A focus group is a focused discussion where a moderator leads a group of participants through a set of questions on a particular topic. Focus groups are often used in the early stages of product planning and requirements gathering to obtain feedback about users, products, concepts, prototypes, tasks, strategies, and environments.

Fishbone Diagram (cause and effect)

A graphic that is created to identify cause-and-effect relationships among factors in a given situation. It is made up of a 'head' which states a problem and bones along the spine which represent factors and categories of factors.

Prototype

A lightweight initial design of an interface or product, used to capture initial concepts and layouts to gather feedback from users, as well as project participants and stakeholders.

Mapping

A mathematical term synonymous with function, which is a relationship between a set of inputs and a set of permissible outputs. For instance, to turn the volume of the tv up (turning the tv's volume up or down is an affordance of the remote)

Learnability

A measure of the degree to which a user interface can be learned; an attribute of a usable system

Readability

A measure of the degree to which an interface can be easily and accurately read; an attribute of a usable system.

Brainstorming

A method for generating ideas, intended to inspire the free-flowing sharing of thoughts of an individual or a group of people, typically while withholding criticism in order to promote uninhibited thinking.

Card Sorting

A method for organizing information that involves sorting a series of cards into groups that make sense to the participants. Each card represents a single term, function or object. Card sorting helps to reveal users' mental models, or patterns that the end users would expect to find. (affinity diagram)

Critical Incident Technique (CIT)

A method of gathering facts (incidents) from domain experts or less experienced users of the existing system to gain knowledge of how to improve the performance of the individuals involved. CIT is used to look for the cause of human-system (or product) problems to minimize loss to person, property, money or data.

Parallel Design

A method where several design groups produce alternative designs in parallel, with the objective of incorporating the best aspects of each design in the final solution.

Moderator

A person that works with a group to regulate, but not lead, a discussion.

Participatory Design

A process that involves developers, business representatives, and users working together to design a solution. It actively involves users in the design process to help ensure that the product designed meets their needs and is usable in the process.

Site Map

A representation of the information that can be found on a Website or of a system. When presented as content on a Website it is typically organized in a hierarchical listing.

Taxonomy

A scheme for classifying a body of knowledge and defining the relationships among the pieces. Sometimes referred to as a controlled vocabulary, a taxonomy is often used to classify content to aid in the creation of information architecture.

Contextual Inquiry

A semi-structured field interviewing method based on a set of principles that allow it to be molded to different situations. This technique is generally used at the beginning of the design process and is good for getting rich information, but can be complex and time consuming.

Phone Interview

A semi-structured or structured interview that is conducted over a phone or Internet audio line. Phone interviews can supplement other HCI methods and allow HCI specialists to follow users over an extended time.

Rating Scales

A series of response options to research questions, representing degrees of a particular characteristic. The options are specifically ordered with sequential values (known as "ordinal") and have little overlap between neighboring option

Scenario

A story which has the key elements of a realistic situation when the user would interact with the system being designed or evaluated. The scenario includes consideration of the user's goals, tasks and interaction. Scenarios can be created for user groups, workflows or tasks to explore, understand and test the different types of needs and goals

Paper Prototyping .

A study conducted on a paper version of a design to get feedback early on in the design process

Storyboard

A technique for illustrating an interaction between a person and a product (or multiple people and multiple products) in narrative format, which includes a series of drawings, sketches, or pictures and sometimes words that tell a story. Read more about the Storyboard method

Heuristic Evaluation

A usability evaluation method in which one or more reviewers, preferably experts, compare a software, documentation, or hardware product to a list of design principles (commonly referred to as heuristics) and identify where the product does not follow those principles.

Heuristic

A usability guideline for evaluating a user interface, which can be used to identify design problems. Usability heuristics often need to be adjusted depending on the interface and the technology used. There are lists of heuristics that have been compiled by various people and organizations that are commonly used for this method.

Pluralistic Usability Walkthrough

A usability test method employed to generate early design evaluation by assigning a group of users a series of paper-based tasks that represent the proposed product interface and including participation from developers of that interface.

Interface

A view or presentation of an object, service, or environment that a person (or group) interacts with.

Case Study

A way of learning about a complex instance through extensive description and analysis. The case study articulates why the instance occurred as it did by exploring the factors contributing to its success or failure, and what one might consider in similar situations.

Describe the kinds of data that should be collected during a site visit and report on appropriate data collection methods, such as AEIOU

Activities, environments, interactions, objects and users) and Empathy Map.

UCD

An approach or philosophy that emphasizes early and continuous involvement of users in the design and evaluation process.

Observation vs Behavioral

An observational research method is where an experimenter researches participants by watching their behavior in their natural setting. Opinion based research methods generally involve designing an experiment and collecting quantitative data. For this type of research, the measurements are usually arbitrary, following the ordinal or interval type.

Usability Evaluation

Assessing the usability of a product with the purpose of identifying usability problems and/or obtaining usability measures. The purpose of evaluation can be to improve the usability of the product as part of design/development (formative evaluation), or to assess the extent to which usability objectives have been achieved (summative evaluation)

Brainwriting

Brainwriting is a method for quickly generating ideas by asking participants to write their ideas on paper (or online) rather than announcing them in traditional group brainstorming sessions

Recall how user journey maps are constructed from affinity diagrams.

Braking down users's insight to 3 subgroups under each category. Then pull subgroups out to form personas. Identify users needs pain points

Context of Use Analysis

Collecting and analyzing detailed information about the intended users, their tasks, and the technical and environmental constraints. The data for a context of use analysis can be gathered using interviews, workshops, surveys, site visits, artifact analysis, focus groups, observational studies, and contextual inquiry.

Constraints

Constraints are limitations or restrictions, and they give us clues that allow us to determine a course of action by limiting the possible actions available to us. According to Norman, there are 4 types of constraints: Physical - This pertains to the limitations caused by physical features such as size and shape. Cultural - Restrictions that are a consequence of what is socially and culturally deemed as acceptable behavior. Semantical - Limitations that rely upon the meaning of the situation to control the set of possible actions. Logical - A type of constraint that comes to our attention because of its obviousness or because our logic was violated. .

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of opinion-based methods, like surveys and focus groups.

Cost effective and inexpensive. Generally quick and easy to complete. Typically they are short and easy to understand. Privacy usually not an issue and issues easily resolved. Design flexibility Can administer to large numbers. c. Disadvantages of questionnaires include: Lower response rate. Can't verify truthfulness of respondent. Can't follow up on responses. Nobody to explain if a question isn't understood.

Cultural Probe

Cultural probes are sets of simple artifacts (such as maps, postcards, cameras, or diaries) that are given to users for them to record specific events, feelings or interactions in their usual environment.

Localization

Customizing an internationalized product for a specific market. When a product has been properly internationalized, the visual design can be preserved when it is adapted for a particular audience, even while the language is translated, formats converted and layout adjusted.

Phases of Human centered design

Define Ideate Prototype and test Implement

What is affinity diagram

Definition: Refers to organizing related facts into distinct clusters. Also known as affinity mapping, collaborative sorting, snowballing, or even card sorting.

State the key principles of contextual inquiry

Early assessment of requirements persona building user flows architecture (informational) content strategy error management

User Experience (UE)

Every aspect of the user's interaction with a product, service, or company that make up the user's perceptions of the whole. User experience design as a discipline is concerned with all the elements that together make up that interface, including layout, visual design, text, brand, sound, and interaction.

Persona

Fictional person created to model and describe the goals, needs, and characteristics of a specific type or group of users. Does not describe a real, individual user nor an average user. Often includes made-up personal details to make the fictional person more "real".

Discuss behaviour-based methods, like contextual inquiry.

Good response rates. More information is usually provided. Subjects can elaborate on answers Time taken can be longer and follow up questions Interviewer can adapt questions to the specific individual and situation Disadvantages: Interviews are expensive. They can be time-consuming. Interviewer may influence responses. (leading) Requires well-trained interviewer to be well conducted.

Feedback

Happens when an object or system notifies the user that it is working towards the completion of its objective. A clear example of this is elevators.

Learnability:

How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?

Errors:

How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?

Satisfaction:

How pleasant is it to use the design? (Nielsen, Usability 101: ISO-9241 standard defines Satisfaction with the product as "comfort and relevance of application

Gestalt Principles

Humans visually perceive items not in isolation, but as part of a larger whole. These principles include humans tendencies towards similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure.

Signifiers

Indicators of any type that communicate the action needed so the affordance can take place, and it's a term that's widely used in the field of semiotics.

Conceptual model

Is a synonym for a psychological term called association, which refers to a connection between conceptual entities or mental states that result from the similarity between those states or their proximity in space or time.

Fitts' Law equation

MT = a + b* [Log2 (2A/W)] *[Log2 (2A/W)] The further away a target is, and the smaller its size, the longer it will take for a user to reach it. The time required to move from a starting point to within the confines of a target area is dependent on a logarithmic relationship between the distance from the point to the target area and the size of the target.

Affinity Diagramming

Sorting a large amount of data that has already be collected until categorized and relationships are drawn

Easy to Learn

The aspect of usability that focuses on facilitating the users learning of an interface, with minimum time and effort spent in the learning phase.

ISO 9241-210:2010

Provides requirements and recommendations for human-centered design principles and activities throughout the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems. It is intended to be used by those managing design processes and is concerned with ways in which both hardware and software components of interactive systems can enhance human-system interaction.

. Wireframe

Rough outline of navigation and content elements that make up a user interface. Typically visual design and precise layout are not addressed

Discount usability research techniques

Simplified user testing, which includes a handful of participants. 5 users /then iterate and repeat. (remember SUT saves on ROI) Narrowed-down prototypes (low fidelity— usually paper prototypes. Heuristic evaluation - in which you evaluate user interface designs by inspecting them relative to established usability guidelines.

Observation vs. Interpretation

So, recording of data on the basis of the values one gets through recording instruments, or recording the activities in an unbiased manner on the basis of one's sense of sight, is termed as observation in any experiment. Interpretation is another way of generating or gathering information useful to arrive at a conclusion in an experiment, whether scientific or based upon social sciences.

Likert Scale .

Survey question in which a person is asked to agree or disagree with a statement. The scale typically runs from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 or 7 ("strongly agree").

Graceful Degradation

Systems should be designed so that when features that take advantage of new technologies are disabled, the content maintains effectiveness for the users. For example, older Web browsers and browsers which allow users to disable features will display page content in a simplified format.

Conspicuity

The characteristics of a graphic element that enable the audience to differentiate the element from its surrounding environment. Conspicuity is achieved when each element can easily be distinguished separately by the user.

Rapid Prototyping

The creation of low-cost representations of the user interface to a system as a method of brainstorming, creating, testing and communicating ideas about the system being developed.

Usability

The degree to which something - software, hardware or anything else - is easy to use and a good fit for the people who use it.

Interaction Design

The discipline of Interaction Design (IxD) defines the structure and behavior of interactive systems.

Chunking

The human ability to group information into related small sets, which can then be stored in short-term memory.

The data for a context of use analysis can be gathered...

The intended users I Their tasks T The tools that support the users' goals T The physical environment in which a product will be used P The user's social and organizational millieu U The technical environment and associated technical constraints T Other contextual factors that will affect the user experience. C (I,T,T,PU,T,C)

Human Factors

The multidisciplinary study of human biological, physical, psychological, and social characteristics in relation to environments, objects and services.

Usability

The official ISO 9241-11 definition of usability is: "the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use."

Task

The procedures that include goals, steps, skills, start state, inputs, end state, and outputs required to accomplish an activity. They can be organized into larger tasks such as driving to work and sub-tasks such as opening the car door.

Internationalization

The process of developing a system whose core design works in multiple languages and in the cultural contexts of different locales, without having to be redesigned for each locale.

Ethnography

The process of gathering information about users and tasks directly from users in their normal work, home or leisure environment. Traditional more Ethnography focuses on long-term studies spanning weeks, months, or even years.

Information Architecture (IA)

The process of organizing information including the structure, design, layout and navigation in a way that is easy for people to find, understand and manage the information.

Testing (Usability)

The process of validating that a system meets pre-specified usability objectives. These objectives should be task-based, and should tie directly to product requirements, including results from analytic tools such as personas, scenarios, and task analysis.

Affordances

The properties of an object that inform people how the object could be used. The term 'perceived affordance' applies when the object properties are perceived in a way that differs from the real-world, physical properties, especially when the usage of the object depends on perceived rather than real-world properties.] example (Door affords to being pushed or pulled open top of bottle affords twisting)

Plan site visits to end users is beneficial how?

Their working habits How the user works with their software, hardware and other devices To create a persona To collect viable data To initiate interviews what are the red routes (neccessary constraints)

Braindrawing

Type of visual brainstorming in which a group of participants sketch ideas for designs, icons, screen layouts, or other visual concepts.

research method to understand the context of use

Usability testing Quantitative

Photo Study

Users take photos to highlight important aspects of their lives and context. The photos are assembled into collages and studied to highlight opportunities for new technologies and barriers to their acceptance.

Empathy mapping

Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users. The mapping process also reveals any holes in existing user data.

Recognize good and poor questions to ask in user interviews.

Watch out for leading questions Aim for open ended questions

Memorability:

When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?

Define affinity programming

are promotions for groups of people with common interests, and the variety of these programs is only limited by the creativity of the program developers. Offerings usually include discounts on a range of products and services

Explain the notion of affinity diagramming as a way to analyse the qualitative data from field visits.

card sorting Is a way to synthesize data taken from interviews from (Qualitative research) includes brainstorming organizing data a way to develop user attributes developing themes or ideas (also crossing off the ones which don't work.

Inclusive design

considers as many people's needs and abilities as possible. It goes further than accessibility, which is specifically focused on people with disabilities and how to make sites or apps usable for them.

Articulate the steps in a suitable user research technique, such as contextual inquiry, ethnography or a site visit.

qualitative research Establish goals conduct onsite interviews (15) synthesis of data (card sorting) Build a persona

Recall the difference between usability and user experience. (K1)

•Usability is concerned with the "effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments" (ISO 9241-11) [1] •User experience is concerned with "all aspects of the user's experience when interacting with the product, service, environment or facility" (ISO 9241-210) [2].