Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation

A Bad Day for an Object User can’t act and can’t think –Broken mapping –Can’t achieve goals –No feedback

How people interact with objects Have a goal Have ability to ACT Evaluate actions –Did ACT=>GOAL?

Let’s draw: Human Action Cycle GOAL WORLD Act Evaluate Text: p

Let’s go further GOAL WORLD Act Evaluate Intention Sequence of Actions Act!Perceive Interpret Evaluate

Let’s go further Goal WORLD Intention Sequence of Actions Act!Perceive Interpret Evaluate INTERFACE PERSON

Turning on a light bulb (the Action Cycle) GOAL WORLD Act Evaluate Intention Sequence of Actions Act!Perceive Interpret Evaluate

So what are the Gulfs Execution: have an intention but can’t act Evaluation: Can’t figure out whether the goal has been achieved

Gulfs GOAL WORLD Intention Sequence of Actions Perceive Interpret Evaluate Gulf of evaluation! Gulf of execution!

Questions Why is intention left in the diagram?

7 Gulf Based Design Questions 1. Do I know what it does? 2. Do I know what actions I can take? 3. Can I map each of my intentions to a movement? 4. Can I make those actions easily? 5. Do I know what state or mode its in? 6. Can I interpret that state? 7. Can I tell when my goal has been achieved?

Back to light bulbs Have you ever seen –A lamp that wasn’t obviously a light? –A lamp you didn’t know how to turn on or off or how many levels it had? –A lamp where you didn’t know how the switch worked? –The switch was hard to flip? –You couldn’t tell if it was on/off/or on and burned out?

Other examples?

When do you deliberately design a gulf of execution?

When do you not want a gulf of execution?

Mini Design Exercise With a partner or small group, design a better voting system. How will your system support the complete action cycle?