CS2003 Usability Engineering Human-Centred Design Dr Steve Love

Slide 2 Overview Definition of human-centred design Understand and specify the context of use Specify user and organisational requirements Produce design solutions and prototypes Undertake user based assessment Summary

Definition of human-centred design process provides requirements and recommendations for human-centred design principles and activities throughout the life cycle of computer-based interactive systems. It is intended to be used by those managing design processes, and is concerned with ways in which both hardware and software components of interactive systems can enhance human–system interaction. (ISO13407, 1999) Slide 3

Human-Centred Design Process Slide 4 (Figure taken from Usabilitynet.org)

Understand and specify context of use Relates to the physical, social, technical and organisational situations in which systems, applications will be used (Maguire, 2001b) Mobile applications are used in dynamic environments What is meant here by dynamic environments?

Specify user and organisational requirements Find out what the intended user group want from the system that is going to be developed Also have to consider organisational requirements too (e.g. Blackboard Learn) Have to consider user characteristics here too (e.g. age, experience of using similar applications) Emphasis is on identifying the needs of the key stakeholders who have an interest in the new product, application or service This information should come from a requirements gathering exercise

Exercise A mobile phone service provider wants to develop a new restaurant guide for London Your task: Identify the main stakeholders who should be considered in the design of this new service and how would obtain information on their requirements?

Key stakeholders include… Customers: they should be the primary beneficiaries of the new service Sales team: their interest in the new system is focused on how they could encourage sales of the service in-store Marketing team: their interest is on how to promote the new service

Produce design solutions Designer has to make sure that the system matches the requirements of the user Test design ideas by developing prototypes and evaluating these with real users Low fidelity High fidelity

Low fidelity techniques include… Sketching: a visual brainstorming session Card sorting: have functions written on cards, users decide structure Storyboarding: taken from the film industry. Provides snapshots of intended interaction sequences Advantages of LFPs include: Quick and easy to produce Good communication devices Addresses screen layout issues Disadvantages of LFPs include: Not always detailed in terms of specification and functionality Hard to test for usability

High fidelity techniques include… Emulators: simulate some of the functionality of the intended system Wizard of Oz: a “wizard” takes on the role of the computer in an interaction with a user Advantages of HFPs include: Partial functionality More reliable usability testing can be undertaken Disadvantages of HFPs include: Time consuming to create Sometimes management may think this is the finished product

Evaluation According to Preece et al. (2002) there are four main reasons why people should undertake usability evaluations: to understand how users use technology in the real world to compare different prototype designs to assess whether or not the product or application meets usability requirements to ensure that the product or application conforms to industry standards. Formative evaluation: Early in design process to ensure users needs are kept in design team’s thinking Summative evaluation: Once design is complete to ensure it meets user needs

Evaluation approaches Quick and dirty approach’: this is a quick and informal approach to getting feedback on initial design ideas. In this evaluation approach, the designer will talk to users about how they plan to design the product and application in order to ensure that they meet with users’ needs and expectations. Usability testing: this involves collecting information on users’ performance while they are carrying out specific tasks and assessing their attitude towards using a particular product: performance measures such as time taken to complete a task. questionnaires and interviews traditionally usability testing tasks take place under controlled conditions in a usability lab. Field studies: field studies take place in natural surroundings where the application is designed to be used, with the aim of understanding how the system impacts the user in their everyday context of use (e.g. mobile applications). There are various techniques that can be used to gather evaluation information: observations and ethnography. Predictive evaluation: in this evaluation approach, experts use their knowledge of users to predict what kinds of problems they may have with a given system or application. Techniques that they may employ here are: task analysis and heuristic evaluation.

Summary Human-centred design puts users needs at the centre of the design process There are 5 key stages in the HCD process: Plan the HCD process Specify the context of use Identify user and organisational requirements Produce design solutions Evaluate the designs If the evaluation does not meet user requirements further iterations will be needed Slide 14

Questions?

References ISO (1999) Human centred design processhttp:// tmISO [accessed 12th October 2010] tmISO Maguire, M.C. (2001a) Methods to support human- centered design. International Journal of Human- Computer Studies, 55(4), pp Preece,J. Rogers, Y., Benyon, D., Holland, S. and Shapr, H. (2002) Human-Computer Interaction. Addison Wesley Slide 16

Further Reading Bevan. N. (2009) Criteria for Selecting Methods in User-Centred Design. Proceedings of I-USED workshop ’09. Uppsala, Sweden, 2009 Love, S. (2005) Mobile Human-Computer Interaction. Chapter 5: Design Issues for mobile systems. Näkki, P. and Virtanan, T. (2007) Utilising social media tools in user-centred design. Proceeding of CHI 2007