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Understanding the problem space

– What do you want to create?

– What are your assumptions?

Chapter 2 – Will it achieve what you hope it will?

UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUALIZING
INTERACTION DESIGN?
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Recap What is an assumption?

• HCI has moved beyond designing interfaces for desktop
machines • taking something for granted when it
• About extending and supporting all manner of human activities needs further investigation
in all manner of places
– e.g. people will want to watch TV while driving
• Facilitating user experiences through designing interactions:
• Make work effective, efficient and safer

• Improve and enhance learning and training

• Provide enjoyable and exciting entertainment

• Enhance communication and understanding

• Support new forms of creativity and expression

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What is a claim? Activity

• What are the assumptions and claims made
about 3D TV?
• stating something to be true when it is still
open to question

– e.g. a multimodal style of interaction for

controlling GPS — one that involves speaking
while driving — is safe

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A framework for analysing the

problem space Assumptions: realistic or wish-list?
• Are there problems with an existing product or
• People would not mind wearing the glasses that are
user experience? If so, what are they?
needed to see in 3D in their living rooms –
• Why do you think there are problems? reasonable

• How do you think your proposed design ideas • People would not mind paying a lot more for a new
might overcome these? 3D-enabled TV screen – not reasonable
• People would really enjoy the enhanced clarity and
• If you are designing for a new user experience
color detail provided by 3D – reasonable
how do you think your proposed design ideas
support, change, or extend current ways of doing • People will be happy carrying around their own
things? special glasses – reasonable only for a very select
bunch of users

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Benefits of conceptualising Conceptual model

• A conceptual model is:
• Orientation
– “…a high-level description of how a system is
– enables design teams to ask specific questions about organized and operates” (Johnson and Henderson,
how the conceptual model will be understood 2002, p26)
• Open-minded
– prevents design teams from becoming narrowly • Enables
focused early on
– “…designers to straighten out their thinking before
• Common ground they start laying out their widgets”
– allows design teams to establish a set of commonly (Johnson and Henderson, 2002, p28)
agreed terms

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From problem space to design space Components

• Having a good understanding of the • Metaphors and analogies
problem space can help inform the design – understand what a product is for and how to use it for
an activity
space
– e.g. what kind of interface, behavior, functionality to
• Concepts that people are exposed to
provide through the product
– task–domain objects, their attributes, and operations
(e.g. saving, revisiting, organizing)
• But before deciding upon these it is
important to develop a conceptual model • Relationship and mappings between these
concepts

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First steps in formulating a

Interface metaphors
conceptual model
• What will the users be doing when carrying out • Conceptualizing what we are doing, e.g.
their tasks? surfing the web
• How will the system support these?
• What kind of interface metaphor, if any, will be • A conceptual model instantiated at the
appropriate? interface, e.g. the desktop metaphor
• What kinds of interaction modes and styles to
use? • Visualizing an operation, e.g. an icon of a
- always keep in mind when making design decisions how shopping cart for placing items into
the user will understand the underlying conceptual model

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Conceptual models Material Metaphors

• Many kinds and ways of classifying them • The card is a very popular UI

• Why?: Has familiar form factor

• We describe them in terms of core • Material properties are added,

activities and objects giving appearance and
physical behavior, e.g. surface
of paper

• Also in terms of interface metaphors

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Activity Benefits of interface metaphors

• Describe the components of the • Makes learning new systems easier
conceptual model underlying most online
shopping websites, e.g. • Helps users understand the underlying
conceptual model
– Shopping cart
• Can be very innovative and enable the
– Proceeding to check-out
realm of computers and their applications
– 1-click to be made more accessible to a greater
– Gift wrapping diversity of users
– Cash till?

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Interface metaphors Problems with interface metaphors

• Interface designed to be similar to a physical entity but • Break conventional and cultural rules
also has own properties – e.g. recycle bin placed on desktop
– e.g. desktop metaphor, web portals • Can constrain designers in the way they conceptualize a
problem space
• Can be based on activity, object or a combination of both
• Conflict with design principles

• Exploit user’s familiar knowledge, helping them to • Forces users to only understand the system in terms of the
understand ‘the unfamiliar’ metaphor
• Designers can inadvertently use bad existing designs and
• Conjures up the essence of the unfamiliar activity, transfer the bad parts over
enabling users to leverage of this to understand more • Limits designers’ imagination in coming up with new
aspects of the unfamiliar functionality conceptual models

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Interaction types Which is easiest and why?

• Instructing
– issuing commands and selecting options
• Conversing
– interacting with a system as if having a conversation
• Manipulating
– interacting with objects in a virtual or physical space by
manipulating them
• Exploring
– moving through a virtual environment or a physical space

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1. Instructing 2. Conversing
• Where users instruct a system and tell it what to • Underlying model of having a conversation with
do another human
– e.g. tell the time, print a file, save a file
• Very common conceptual model, underlying a • Range from simple voice recognition menu-driven
diversity of devices and systems systems to more complex ‘natural language’ dialogs
– e.g. word processors, VCRs, vending machines
• Main benefit is that instructing supports quick and • Examples include timetables, search engines,
efficient interaction advice-giving systems, help systems
– good for repetitive kinds of actions performed on
multiple objects
• Also virtual agents, toys and pet robots designed to
converse with you

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Would you talk with Anna? 3. Manipulating

• Involves dragging, selecting, opening, closing and
zooming actions on virtual objects

• Exploit’s users’ knowledge of how they move and

manipulate in the physical world

• Can involve actions using physical controllers (e.g.

Wii) or air gestures (e.g. Kinect) to control the
movements of an on screen avatar
• Tagged physical objects (e.g. balls) that are
manipulated in a physical world result in
physical/digital events (e.g. animation)
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Pros and cons of conversational Direct Manipulation

model
• Shneiderman (1983) coined the term DM, came
• Allows users, especially novices and technophobes, from his fascination with computer games at the
to interact with the system in a way that is familiar time

– makes them feel comfortable, at ease and less scared – Continuous representation of objects and actions of
interest
• Misunderstandings can arise when the system does
not know how to parse what the user says – Physical actions and button pressing instead of
issuing commands with complex syntax

– Rapid reversible actions with immediate feedback on

object of interest

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Why are DM interfaces so enjoyable? 4. Exploring

• Novices can learn the basic functionality quickly
• Involves users moving through virtual or physical
• Experienced users can work extremely rapidly to carry out a wide range of environments
tasks, even defining new functions

• Intermittent users can retain operational concepts over time

• Error messages rarely needed

• Physical environments with embedded sensor
• Users can immediately see if their actions are furthering their goals and if not technologies
do something else

• Users experience less anxiety

• Users gain confidence and mastery and feel in control

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What are the disadvantages with

Which conceptual model is best?
DM?
• Some people take the metaphor of direct manipulation • Direct manipulation is good for ‘doing’ types of tasks,
too literally e.g. designing, drawing, flying, driving, sizing windows
• Not all tasks can be described by objects and not all • Issuing instructions is good for repetitive tasks, e.g.
actions can be done directly spell-checking, file management
• Some tasks are better achieved through delegating • Having a conversation is good for children, computer-
– e.g. spell checking phobic, disabled users and specialised applications (e.g.
phone services)
• Can become screen space ‘gobblers’
• Hybrid conceptual models are often employed, where
• Moving a mouse around the screen can be slower than different ways of carrying out the same actions is
pressing function keys to do same actions supported at the interface - but can take longer to learn

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Conceptual models: interaction and

Which interaction type to choose?
interface
• Interaction type: • Need to determine requirements and user needs
– what the user is doing when interacting with a system,
• Take budget and other constraints into account
e.g. instructing, talking, browsing or other

• Also will depend on suitability of technology for

• Interface type: activity being supported

– the kind of interface used to support the mode, e.g. • This is covered in course when designing
speech, menu-based, gesture conceptual models

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Many kinds of interface types

available including… Paradigm
• Inspiration for a conceptual model
• Command
• Speech • General approach adopted by a
• Data-entry
community for carrying out research
• Form fill-in
• Query – shared assumptions, concepts, values, and
• Graphical practices
• Web
• Pen – e.g. desktop, ubiquitous computing, in the wild
• Augmented reality
• Gesture
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Examples of new paradigms Theory

• Ubiquitous computing (mother of them all) • Explanation of a phenomenon
• Pervasive computing – e.g. information processing that explains how
• Wearable computing the mind, or some aspect of it, is assumed to
work
• Tangible bits, augmented reality
• Can help identify factors
• Attentive environments
– e.g. cognitive, social, and affective, relevant to
• Transparent computing the design and evaluation of interactive
– and many more…. products

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Visions Models
• A driving force that frames research and development
• A simplification of an HCI phenomenon
• Invites people to imagine what life will be like in 10, 15
or 20 years time – intended to make it easier for designers to
– e.g. Apple’s 1987 Knowledge Navigator predict and evaluate alternative designs
– Smart Cities, Smart Health
– abstracted from a theory coming from a
• Provide concrete scenarios of how society can use the contributing discipline, e.g. psychology, e.g.
next generation of imagined technologies
keystroke model
• Also raise many questions concerning privacy and
trust

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Framework Summary
• Developing a conceptual model involves good understanding
• Set of interrelated concepts and/or specific of the problem space, specifying what it is you are doing, why,
questions for ‘what to look for’ and how it will support users

• Many in interaction design • A conceptual model is a high-level description of a product in

terms of what users can do with it and the concepts they need
– e.g. Norman’s conceptual models, Benford’s to understand how to interact with it
trajectories
• Interaction types (e.g. conversing, instructing) provide a way
• Provide advice on how to design of thinking about how best to support user’s activities

– e.g. steps, questions, concepts, challenges, • Paradigms, visions, theories, models, and frameworks provide
principles, tactics and dimensions different ways of framing and informing design and research

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