SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Thurs, Jan 26, 2006

Today Finish Project Team Formation Finish Xerox Star video Start User Centered Design

Slide by James Landay Why User-Centered Design? System will fail if it: –does not do what the user needs –is not appropriate for the user Why don’t we just define a “good interface”? –There is a huge variety of users and tasks –Guidelines are usually too vague e.g. “Provide feedback”, “Be intuitive”

User-Centered Design Overview Needs assessment –Find out who users are what their goals are what tasks they need to perform –Task Analysis Characterize what steps users need to take Create scenarios of actual use Decide which users and tasks to support Design based on this Evaluation –Test interface by “walking through” tasks –Do this before implementation

Slide adapted from Ben Shneiderman Participatory Design A subset of user-centered design User actively participates in design of the system Pros: –potentially more accurate information about the tasks –more opportunity for users to influence the design decisions –buy-in from sense of participation –potential greater acceptance of final system

Slide adapted from Ben Shneiderman Participatory Design Cons (potential): –more costly –lengthier implementation period –antagonism from those whose suggestion are not incorporated –force designers to compromise design –exacerbate personality conflicts between designers and users –highlight organizational politics

Example: Student Course Enrollment: How to Help Students Achieve their Goals? enroll in sims 213 learn to build useful systems become successful IT manager achieve lifetime of success

Help Users Achieve Goals Example: Course Enrollment Software –What matters from the programmers’ point of view? –What matters from users’ point of view? –What about the course administrators?

Next Week Readings: – Cooper (Inmates, Chs. 9-11) – Holtzblatt (in reader) – Newman & Landay Topics: – Tuesday: Personas (Guest Lecture by Allison Bloodworth) – Thursday: resume user-centered design