1. Overview of Standards and Guidelines laura leventhal

2. Readings  protobook - chpt. 9

3. Human Factors Information that Influences a User Interaction Design and Evaluation  UI Guidelines  UI Standards  Commercial Platform Guidelines  Customized style guide

4. General User Interaction and Interface Guidelines  Publicly available wisdom or suggestions  Based on research and practice  Requires skill and training to apply

5. Smith & Mosier  Smith & Mosier guidelines are the most well-known –The S&M guidelines are oriented toward non-windowed, alphanumeric terminals –The S&M guidelines are available on macs or pc's in a digital form. –We will show overhead of checklist for design evaluation.

6. More Examples  Chapter 7 of Protobook  Visual Design Guidelines - End of Chpt 9  Top Ten Blunders

7. Commercial Platform Guidelines –Vendor, like Apple, defines the guidelines and makes them commercially available. –Applications can then advertise that they adhere to the ----- standard for UI. –More concrete and useful framework for design than general guidelines or government standards. –What do they define?

8. Examples  CUA  Many other platforms have guidelines as well.

9. Commercial Platform Guidelines - Plusses  General guidelines (e.g. Chpt 7) have good points but may not be specific enough for design. Commercial Platform Guidelines tend to much more specific.  Commercial Platform Guidelines are often based on research.  Commercial Platform Guidelines often have a commercial toolkit or development environment.  Transitions across hardware platforms should be seamless when the platforms conform to Commercial Platform Guidelines.  Commercial Platform Guidelines promote consistency and standardization across applications  Commercial Platform Guidelines promote “transfer of training” from one application to the next so long as the applications comply with Commercial Platform Guidelines.

10. Commercial Platform Guidelines - Minuses  Commercial Platform Guidelines alone do not insure interface usability. Commercial Style Guides often describe look and feel of parts but do not tell you how to assemble.  For example, Commercial Platform Guidelines may proscribe appearance of individual buttons but does not tell you where to put buttons or how to group.  Application may be faster, more efficient or have better task match if it is not compliant with the Commercial Platform Guidelines.  For example pie menus are very fast in a menu with few options but are outside of the Commercial Platform Guidelines for most commercial platforms.

11. External Standards  An External Standard is an Official document  Often published by a government agency  Publicly available  The purpose is to give requirements for a particular agency or official organization.  External Standards may be enforceable by control or law  External Standards are often characterized by general wording

12. Example Standards  ISO 9241 –17 parts covering the physical design of computers and terminals and design of UI to software  In US - HFES 200 –Similar to ISO 9241, under ANSI review

13. Example - Standards  MIL-STD-1472C. –Mostly vague and difficult to enforce.  "display contents shall be presented in a consistent, standardized way"  "flash coding used only to draw the user's attention to mission critical events..."

14. Project Guidelines  User Interface Development teams should always produce a customized set of Project Guidelines.  Project Guidelines should be evaluated and validated.  Project Guidelines are customized to the project or projects  Project Guidelines can be used to mediate decision- making and maintain a record of decisions.