Interactivity 1 User Centred Design A Very Brief Introduction
Oct 23, 2015
Interactivity 1
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User Centred DesignA Very Brief Introduction
Putting people in the centre of the design
process and understanding their needs
and behaviours will help the designer
better understand the person who will be
ultimately using their design artefact -
“the user”.
As graphic design changes in response to
cultural and technological conditions,
user-centreded design provides the
potential for greater participation of
graphic designers in expanding domains
of interactive design and interdisciplinary
teams.
The birth of the user comes from human-
computer interaction (HCI), engineering
and psychology and usability studies most
closely associated with interface design
and interactivity.
As the world is becoming more and more
suffused with interactive technologies,
how can designers support an
increasingly diverse range of activities?
What this amounts to is a multitude of
choices and decisions for an ever
increasing range of possibilities. So how
can designers optimize and support the
user’s activities in effective and enjoyable
ways?
Computers can be used to send
messages, gather information, write
essays, draw, plan, calculate, play games
through speech, touch, handheld devices.
Interfaces are designed with menus,
commands, forms, gestures, icons,
scrollbars, card swipes. There are
responsive environments, mobile devices,
wearables and networked homes.
A designer could make a guess and rely on intuition - and then hope for the best.
Or the designer could be more principled
through a deeper investigation to more
thoroughly understand the user - hence
UCD.
❖ taking into account what people’s needs, wants, limitations, obstacles, goals, motivations
❖ consider what might help people with the way things are done or could be done
❖ listening to what people want and get them involved in the design process
❖ using refined methods and techniques to capture and analyse the design process
This involves:
Interactivity 1
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PACT AnalysisA Framework for User Experience Design
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
PACT AnalysisWho are the users?
What are they doing?
Where are they doing it?
How will do it?
People
Activities
Context
Technology
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
Who are you designing for?
People have varying characteristics
Physical differences
❖ Size - height and weight
❖ Senses - vision, hearing
❖ Disability - accessibility
Psychological differences
❖ Spatial ability - wayfinding
❖ Language - cultural interpretation
❖ Attention - memory, stress, tiredness
❖ Mental Model - association, memorability
Usage differences
❖ Novice or Expert- technical knowledge
❖ Homogeneous or Heterogeneous
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
What are the people doing?
Frequency
❖ Regular - daily, yearly
Cooperation
❖ Alone or with others
Complexity
❖ Well defined or vague
Why are they doing it?
Safety Critical
❖ Prevent injury/harm, errors
Nature of Content ❖ Amount of info, form
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
Where are the activities occurring?
Physical
❖ Environment - weather, noise, location
Social
❖ Supportive, private, public
Organizational
❖ institutional, workplace
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
What are people using or will use?
Medium
❖ Mouse, touch, gesture, scan, speech
Output ❖ Display, audio, tactile
Communication ❖ networks, one-to-one, many
Designed to to support people’s requirements
Input
❖ Hardware, software
Content ❖ accurate, relevant, understandable
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
Scoping a problem with the PACT
Goal is to harmonize the PACT elements
❖ Useful to understand current state and identify opportunities
❖ Scope as many Ps, As Cs and Ts as possible
❖ Observe and talk to people
People
Activities Contexts
Technologies
Think about the user community
How is this community defined ?
❖ Stakeholders
People
❖ Physical, social, functional
Contexts
❖ Some obvious others not
Activities
❖ Current and proposed
Technologies