Good Design I - David Zendle PDF

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Summary

Rewatched the complete lecture conducted by David Zendle and every single detailed he discussed is noted down on the document ensuring there is absolutely nothing that can come up that isn't on this document. These notes got me one 76/100 overall....

Description

Principles of Good Interaction Design I There are several principles for interaction design High level principles: overarching ideas how how interactive systems should be structured Some of the most useful are Normans 6 principles of Interaction Design

Normans Principles

Visibility Feedback Constraints Mapping Consistency Affordances

Visibility Refers to the idea that important things about systems should be visible to their users Three way things can be visible: Visibility of system status Should be obvious what state a system is in E.g. when users need to know if a system Has completed a task is ready for further interaction There are several examples for when an interactive system has to ‘do something’ before continuing with interactions E.g. Downloads Database retrievals Complex operations Bruce Toganazzini (aka Tog) created a solution for showing this kind of information to the user (see figure below) So the user is completely aware of the systems status

Visibility of order of operations Should be immediately visible and obvious to the user What order they should do things To accomplish their goal

Visibility of functionality Refers to how easily a user can find the functions that a system offers Users need to be able to find all the functions the system offers

Feedback Refers to how once the user has done something, they need to be told they have done it and what they have achieved E.g. Gmail clearly showing you when your email has been sent by: A pop-up telling you its been sent Visually showing the message as part of the conversation

Mechanical example: Mechanical keyboards Gives you instant tactile feedback when: a key is about to be pressed a key is pressed Used by gamers where key usage is very important Summary: Good interactive systems give us lots of feedback They continually tell us whether we have done tasks And what they have achieved

Constraints

If users can’t / shouldn’t do something, don’t let them do it E.g. amazon doesn’t allow the user to ‘like’ feedback once they’ve already liked it or not

Cultural Constraints The idea that we are constrained by our cultural backgrounds to make certain assumptions about certain things Assuming fig. 1 turns the device on, and that fig 2 scrolls the page up and down

Summary: Our cultures arbitrarily define what certain interface elements ‘do’ And how certain things should be structured Interactive designers must be aware of these cultural constraints

Therefore good interfaces constrain their users so that they can only do relevant and useful things Mappings There should be be a clear a relationship as possible between How something appears to the user How something is used by the user

E.g. Hobs, Fig 3 shows bad mapping, Fig 4 shows good mapping Fig 3 Doesn't show which switch operates which hob, not obvious to the user which switch does what Fig 4 uses natural mapping Takes advantage of natural properties of space to show what things do Norman argues this mapping is even better than standard good mapping

Consistency If different parts of a system have a similar function, they should be presented to the user in a similar way E.g. the control panel in a windows system Nearly all settings show the same features however some don’t often the same functions as others If you click on sound, or java, or configuration manager Tabs for different sub topics open It offers three buttons Ok Cancel Apply However if you click windows firewall A new window opens with none of these features This lack of consistency means its harder to navigate in the system, which is needed in a well designed system

Affordances Mostly applies to non-digital systems Systems should make their affordances clear An affordance being the actionable properties between the world and an actor Meaning if your system can do something, then the users should be able to figure that it can do said feature by the physical properties of the system E.g. a button You know by its shape, and its physical properties you can push it However since digital systems rarely have relevant physical properties, this principle is not of much use...