1. Design and Agency

2. Designers, Users, and Users as Designers
Traditional models of software design often keep users separate from design
Requires designer to anticipate users without much input from users
Ignores that technology and its use co-evolve
Alternatives that mitigate these issues
Participatory design
Iterative design that looks at actual practice rather than purely controlled experiments

3. Traditional ‘waterfall’ lifecycle

4. A simple interaction design model
Exemplifies a user-centered design approach

5. The Star lifecycle model
Suggested by Hartson and Hix (1989)
Important features:
Evaluation at the center of activities
No particular ordering of activities; development may start in any one
Derived from empirical studies of interface designers

6. The Star Model (Hartson and Hix, 1989)
UCD is a very general philosphy that instantiates itself in the context of a design project. Within HCI there have been many attempts to come up with actual life cycles where users are central. Examples include Rubinstein and Hersch successive iteration of 5 stages, info collecion, design, implementation, evaluation and deploment. The one here is taken fromHartson and Hix
model came about by analysing how design takes place in practice
evaluation is central: results of each ativity are evaluated before going onto next one
both bottom-up and top -down required in waves
software designers are familiar with this in their work and call it ‘yo-yoing’
it is important to do both structure and detail at the same time
in practice this is what is done - but the end result suggests otherwise corporate requirments dictate a top=down approach which is wha gets recorded
ch 5 of Developing User Interfaces (An Overview of Systems Analysis and Design) p- nice step-by-step methodology for doing user-centred design

7. Characteristics of approaches
Usability testing
Field studies
Analytical
Users
do task
natural
not involved
Location
controlled
anywhere
When
prototype
early
Data
quantitative
qualitative
problems
Feed back
measures & errors
descriptions
Type
applied
naturalistic
expert

8. Who are the stakeholders?
Check-out operators
• Suppliers
• Local shop owners
Customers
Managers and owners

9. More Points on Design “We don’t predict the future, we design it.”
Technological determinism?
Users will attempt to solve problems
Design systems to be adoptable and adaptable
Structured vs. unstructured representations
What is CAD good for? What ends up as notes?
The value of plans
Facilitating coordination, without constraining it (e.g. early workflow systems)

10. Interface Agents Modern versions of ELIZA
Animated agents presenting emotions and collaboration
Visions often seem to require deep knowledge of us and the world
Interesting result:
Students playing Doom exhibited more stress during difficulty configuring software than playing the game

11. Affective (Emotional) Design
HCI has traditionally been about designing efficient and effective systems
Now more about how to design interactive systems that make people respond in certain ways
e.g. to be happy, to be trusting, to learn, to be motivated
Color, icons, sounds, graphical elements and animations are used to make the ‘look and feel’ of an interface appealing
Conveys an emotional state
In turn this can affect the usability of an interface
People are prepared to put up with certain aspects of an interface (e.g. slow download rate) if the end result is appealing and aesthetic

12. Example: Friendly interfaces
Microsoft pioneered friendly interfaces for technophobes - ‘At home with Bob’ software
3D metaphors based on familiar places (e.g. living rooms)
Agents in the guise of pets (e.g. bunny, dog) were included to talk to the user
Make users feel more at ease and comfortable

13. Slight Detour: Anthropomorphism
Attributing human-like qualities to inanimate objects (e.g. cars, computers)
Well known phenomenon in advertising
Dancing butter, drinks, breakfast cereals
Much exploited in human-computer interaction
Make user experience more enjoyable, more motivating, make people feel at ease, reduce anxiety

14. Evidence to support anthropomorphism
Reeves and Naas (1996) found that computers that flatter and praise users in education software programs -> positive impact on them
“Your question makes an important and useful distinction. Great job!”
Students were more willing to continue with exercises with this kind of feedback

15. Criticism of anthropomorphism
Deceptive, make people feel anxious, inferior or stupid
People tend not to like screen characters that wave their fingers at the user & say:
Now Chris, that’s not right. You can do better than that.Try again.”
Many prefer the more impersonal:
“Incorrect. Try again.”
Studies have shown that personalized feedback is considered to be less honest and makes users feel less responsible for their actions (e.g. Quintanar, 1982)

16. Disadvantages of Interface Agents
Lead people into false sense of belief, enticing them to confide personal secrets with chatterbots (e.g. Alice)
Annoying and frustrating
e.g. Clippy
Not trustworthy
virtual shop assistants?

17. Responses and Actions Visceral Behavioral Reflection
Unconscious, almost hard-wired response
Behavioral
Result of unconscious, learned knowledge
Reflection
Conscious reaction

18. Recognizing User States
User state is part of the situation
Busy or not
Happy, sad, frustrated, etc.
Lots of research into techniques
Often built as a classifier
Image/Activity/Other -> Features
Features -> Classifier -> Result
Result -> Reasoning about action

19. Intelligent Interaction?
Two questions should be considered when developing intelligent interfaces
What type(s) of intelligence is meant?
Humans display vastly different skills considered intelligent
What type(s) of interaction is meant?
Interaction can vary from improvisational communication to scripted data gathering
Humanlike or other?

20. Compare these Visions Apple’s “Knowledge Navigator”
Sun’s “Starfire: A Vision of Future Computing”

21. Support for Human Activity
The view of cooperative problem solving
How do we configure the interaction?
How do we determine who does what?

22. Final Notes on Suchman Plans vs. situated actions
Communication/interaction as action
Difficulty (impossibility?) of enumerating knowledge affecting action or being communicated
Interactive help systems and lessons for training/education
Others?