SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Thur, Feb 2, 2006

User-Centered Design Example Course Registration (Tele-bears re-design) SIMS 213, Spring 2003 Group Manager: Amy Todenhagen Documentation Manager: Kimberley Chambers Software Manager: Nadine Fiebrich Design Manager: Zhanna Shamis User Testing Manager: Anna TeplitskayaAmy TodenhagenKimberley ChambersNadine FiebrichZhanna ShamisAnna Teplitskaya

User-centered Design Example Problem Statement

User-centered Design Example Participants

User-Centered Design Example Needs Assessment Procedure: –Answer the needs assessment questions –Make a table showing user types tasks (guesses about) relative frequencies of tasks –Decide which of the new tasks users may perform using the new interface. Make note of which ideas you decided to drop based on your interviews.

Slide adapted from James Landay Needs Assessment Questions Who is going to use the system? What tasks do they now perform? What tasks are desired? How are the tasks learned? Where are the tasks performed? What is the relationship between the user and the data?

Slide adapted from James Landay Needs assessment Questions What other tools does the user have? How do users communicate with each other? How often are the tasks performed? What are the (time) constraints on the task? What happens when things go wrong?

User-centered Design Example Needs assessment techniques: –Observation –Interviews –Study existing successful designs

User-Centered Design Example Interview –Prepare a list of questions about how people do their task now and what they would like to have be different. –Interview at least three people Try to identify people with different needs and preferences, with respect to their attitudes about using online ordering systems. – Ask them what, if anything, must be in the system in order for them to prefer it over the current system Refer to needs assessment questions shown above. – Go look at existing interfaces for the goal and see how they handle the necessary tasks.

User-centered Design Example Interview Participants: –Graduate: 1 st Year Masters –Graduate: PhD –Undergrad: Freshman1 –Undergrad: Freshman2 –Undergrad: Junior Transfer –Undergrad: Senior Transfer –Undergrad: Senior

User-centered Design Example Interview Questions & Summary Results

User-centered Design Example Interview Questions & Summary Results

User-centered Design Example

Interview Questions & Summary Results

User-centered Design Example

Interview Questions & Summary Results

Personas (from Cooper) “Hypothetical Archetypes” –Archetype: (American Heritage) An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype An ideal example of a type; quintessence A precise description of a user and what they want to accomplish –Imaginary, but precise –Specific, but stereotyped Real people have non-representative quirks

Reasons for Personas? Image from

Cooper on Scenarios Daily Use –Fast to learn –Shortcuts and customization after more use Necessary Use –Infrequent but required –Nothing fancy needed Edge Cases –Ignore or save for version 2 Example: image cropping application –It works so intuitively, it feels like magic

Cooper’s Perpetual Intermediaries BeginnersIntermediatesExperts Programmers design for experts

Perpetual Intermediaries BeginnersIntermediatesExperts Marketers design for beginners

Perpetual Intermediaries BeginnersIntermediatesExperts People spend most of their time as intermediates

Perpetual Intermediaries BeginnersIntermediatesExperts Paradoxical Curves

Course Scheduler Example Explanation and Justification –Target user base: UCB Students –Developed from 8 interviews personal experience as students –Discovered differences in approaches to tasks and needs Some students shop around and interact intensively with the course scheduling system Others consider only a narrow range of courses and/or have strict requirements to fill –Diversity in student body Age, educational status, computer experience –Must work for all students since it is a must-use application

Course Scheduler Example

Sample Scenario –Alicia is new to the registration process Its Monday morning and Alicia has just spent the weekend partying and getting to know more of her dorm-mates. Alicia has her first Tele-Bears session this morning and although she already has three good classes in mind, she needs to find 1 more, but she'll have to figure out her GE requirements first. Alicia logs onto the system. First, she signs up for Nutritional Science 10 because apparently heaps of cute water-polo guys take this class. Alicia is thinking about majoring in French Literature and so she signs up for English 1A which she must take before taking anymore English classes. Alicia then signs up for her third class, Biology 1A because she might want to major in this too. Then Alicia browses for her last class by searching all the GE classes, and decides to sign up for American Studies 10. Unfortunately this class must be really popular because its already full! So, Alicia decides to go on the waitlist for it just in case. She then adds another GE class that looked quite interesting called Film 24. This class is a Freshman Seminar on Film so Alicia hopes that she'll get to watch some cool movies! Someone is yelling Alicia's name down the hall, so she logs off.

Course Scheduler Example Sample Scenario –Mike needs to make a minor schedule change – Mike is already well into his second week of this semester. As usual, Mike had no problem signing up for his classes as he had planned them ahead of time out in Excel. Unfortunately he needs to switch sections for his Dynamics and Control of Chemical Processes class. Mike is loving the lecture and enjoying the laboratory for the class, but the T.A who is teaching his discussion section is clearly inexperienced. Mike quickly logs onto Tele-Bears and changes to the discussion section on Fridays at 9am. Although Mike is certain that this small change to his schedule doesn't conflict with his job, he reviews his schedule and, satisfied that this is fine, prints out his new schedule and logs off Tele-Bears.

Doing Your Needs Assessment How to do it well? Interviews vs. Surveys Advice on Survey Writing: –List of links: –Qualities of a good question: –Developing a questionnaire

Doing Your Needs Assessment Interviewing links: –Conducting an interview: