CEN 3721 Midterm Review

CRUM/6 approaches to modeling the mind

Logic Rules Concepts Analogies Images Neural connections

Absorption

* Become absorbed in the task that has your locus of attention * Essential to productivity * Interface must work, whatever the user's state of absorption

Beginners Needs

* Good software shortens the passage from beginners to intermediates * Beginners need some instruction, but not much * Process has to be rapid and targeted

Implementation model

the representation of how a machine or program actually works

Information Age

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Gestalt

Focuses on the mind's perceptive processes. "A way a thing has been placed, or put together." "Form/Shape."

Locus of attention

a feature or object in the physical world or an idea about which you are intently and actively thinking

mental model

cognitive shorthand for explaining a device or program

How to design intermediate:

intermediates need access to tools. They don't need scope and purpose explained to them because they already know these things.

Experts Needs

* Prospective buyers often trust an expert's opinion * Experts have a disproportionate influence on less experienced users * Demand faster access to their regular working set of tools * Want shortcuts to everything * Appreciate new and powerful features, and do not see them as added complexity

Visual structure and design implications (presentation slides & Designing with the Mind in Mind textbook)

* When people are navigating through software or Web sites, they scan quickly for relevant information * The more structured and terse the presentation of information, the more quickly and easily people can scan and comprehend.

Cognitive unconscious

* information that you know, but are not accessing at the current moment (are not conscious of) * some control in making unconscious thoughts conscious

Cognitive conscious

* information that you are currently aware of and using (are conscious of) * Cannot deliberately make conscious thoughts unconscious

5 Design Principles

- Visibility: Are the functions/features working properly? - Feedback: Tells user what they just did (Confirming) - Constraints: Restricting the kinds of interactions - Consistency: Interface has similar operations for similar tasks - Affordance: Attributes of an object that allows people to know how to use it (Icons to click)

6 usability goals

-Effective to use -Efficient to use -Safe to use -Has good utility -Easy to learn -Easy to remember how to use

4 basic activities involved in interaction design

1. Identifying needs and establishing requirements for the user experiences 2. Developing alternative designs 3. Building interactive prototypes that can be communicated and assessed 4. Evaluating what is being throughout the process.

Gestalt theories/ 7 laws of organization and related design implications

1. proximity - objects tend to be grouped together according to their proximity 2. similarity - similar objects tend to be grouped together 3. continuity - our visual perception is biased to perceive continuous forms rather than disconnected segments 4. closure - automatically try to close open figures so that they are perceived as whole objects rather than separate pieces 5. symmetry - we tend to parse complex scenes in a way that reduces the complexity 6. figure/ground - our mind separates the visual field into the figure (the foreground) and ground (the background) 7. common fate - objects that move together are perceived as grouped or related

How to design Beginner:

Beginners rely heavily on menus to learn and execute commands * Menus tend to be thorough and verbose * Dialog boxes should be briefly explanatory, but brief and without technical jargon

How to design expert:

Experts might occasionally look for esoteric features, and they might make heavy use of a few of them. However, they will definitely demand faster access to their reg- ular working set of tools, which may be quite large. In other words, experts want shortcuts to everything.

Goals and Tasks (About Face textbook and presentation slides)

Goal: an expectation of an end condition Task: intermediate steps that help you reach a goal or set of goals.

Goal-directed design and conceptual models (About Face textbook and presentation slides)

If we design and construct products that allow the user to achieve their goals, the user will be satisfied, effective, and happy.

Perpetual Intermediate Needs

Need access to tools Want frequently used tools to be placed front and center in the interface Tooltip: the perfect perpetual intermediates idiom Don't need scope and purpose explained to them Know how to use reference materials Know that advanced features exist, even though they may not need them or know how to use them

Mechanical-Age

Normally try to use old representations in new environments *Sometimes mechanical-age representations should not be translated verbatim into the digital world

Short-term and Long-term memory and related design implications (presentation slides & Designing with the Mind in Mind textbook)

Short term: Combo of phenomena arising from perception and attention. Long term: No one knows what the capacity is/Plays a role through activation of recognition and recall. Design implications: User interfaces should help people remember essential information from one moment to the next.

User Goals and Tools, including associated concepts and design implications (presentation slides & Designing with the Mind in Mind textbook)

We focus on our goals and pay little attention to our tools. When people refocus their attention on their tools.

represented model

the behavioral face that a software product shows to the world