HCI121 VI The Process of Interaction Design (FRAMER)

• What is Interaction Design?

  • It is a process:

  — a goal-directed problem-solving activity informed by intended use, target domain,

  materials, cost, and feasibility

  — a creative activity

  — a decision-making activity to balance trade-offs
• What is Interaction Design?

  • It is a representation:

  — a plan for development

  — a set of alternatives and successive elaborations
• Four Basic Activities

  There are four basic activities in Interaction Design:

  1.Identifying needs and establishing requirements

  2. Developing alternative designs

  3. Building interactive versions of the designs

  4. Evaluating designs
• Three Key Characteristics

  Three key characteristics permeate these four activities:

  1. Focus on users early in the design and evaluation of the artefact

  2. Identify, document and agree specific usability and user experience goals

  3. Iteration is inevitable. Designers never get it right first time
• Some practical issues

  • Who are the users?

  • What are the users’ “needs”?

  • Where do alternatives come from?

  • How do you choose among alternatives?
• Who are the users/stakeholders?

  • Not as obvious as you think:

  — those who interact directly with the product

  — those who manage direct users

  — those who receive output from the product

  — those who make the purchasing decision

  — those who use competitor’s products
• Who are the users/stakeholders?

  • Three categories of user (Eason, 1987):

  — primary: frequent hands-on

  — secondary: occasional or via someone else

  — tertiary: affected by its introduction, or will influence its purchase
• What are the users’ capabilities?

  Humans vary in many dimensions:

  — size of hands may affect the size and positioning of input buttons

  — motor abilities may affect the suitability of certain input and output devices

  — height if designing a physical kiosk

  — strength - a child’s toy requires little strength to operate, but greater strength to

  change batteries

  — disabilities (e.g., sight, hearing, dexterity)
• Where do alternatives come from?

  • Humans stick to what they know works

  • But considering alternatives is important to ‘break out of the box’

  • Designers are trained to consider alternatives, software people generally are not

  • How do you generate alternatives?

  — ‘Flair and creativity’: research and synthesis

  — Seek inspiration: look at similar products or look at very different products
• Ideo TechBox

  • Library, database, website - all-in-one
  • Contains physical gizmos for inspiration
• How do you choose among alternatives?

  • Evaluation with users or with peers, e.g., prototypes

  • Technical feasibility: some not possible

  • Quality thresholds: Usability goals lead to usability criteria set early on and check regularly

  — safety: how safe?

  — utility: which functions are superfluous?

  — effectiveness: appropriate support? task coverage, information available

  — efficiency: performance measurements
• Lifecycle Models

  • Show how activities are related to each other

  • Lifecycle models are:

  — management tools

  — simplified versions of reality

  • Many lifecycle models exist, for example:

  — from software engineering: waterfall, spiral, JAD/RAD, Microsoft

  — from HCI: Star, usability engineering
• Lifecycle Models

  • A Simple Interaction Design Model
  • Traditional "Waterfall Model" Lifecycle
  • Spiral model (Barry Boehm)
• Google Design Sprint


  A structured approach to design that supports rapid ideation and testing of potential solutions to a design challenge
• Google Design Sprint

  1. Setting the stage

  2. Unpack

  3. Sketch competing solutions

  4. Decide on the best

  5. Build a realistic prototype

  6. Test with target customers
• Google Design Sprint

  • Completed in 5 days
  • Goes from design challenge to tested solution
  • Doesn't produce a complete, detailed, ready-to-ship product
  • Rapid progress and certainty about direction
• Setting the stage


  Choose the right design challenge, gather the right team, and organize the time and space to run the sprint
• Sprint team

  • About 7 people including a decider, customer expert, technical expert, and anyone who will bring a disruptive perspective
• Unpack


  Make a map of the challenge and choose a target, that is, a part of the challenge that can be achieved in a week
• Sketch competing solutions


  Generate solutions with an emphasis on sketching and individual creativity rather than group brainstorming
• Decide on the best


  Critique the solutions generated, choose the one most likely to meet the sprint's challenge, and produce a storyboard
• Decider


  Needs to support the chosen design
• Build a realistic prototype


  Turn the storyboard into a realistic prototype, that is, something on which customers can provide feedback
• Test with target customers

  Get feedback from 5 customers and learn from their reactions
• Google Design Sprint


  A process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing ideas with customers