Analysing Everyday Interaction

Inspired by Don Norman's classic book, 'The Design of Everyday Things', I started to collect my own examples of bad designs to analyse according to interaction design principles. Here are just a few.

Poole, Alex. Alex Poole (2004). Articles>Usability>Interaction Design>User Experience

An Audience With Alan Cooper: Defining Interaction Design

What was intended to be an Interview immediately became an audience with the master. It became difficult to slide in the questions as Cooper began to tear up the rulebook for the technology industry and throw it out. He discusses why Interaction Design is about complete systems architecture and he hits on what's wrong with relational databases; what's wrong with file systems; why Interaction Design is a lot more than Interface Design; and why he really doesn't like Usability much either.

Cooper, Alan. UIdesign (2001). Design>Information Design>Interaction Design>Usability

Bad Human Factors Designs

A scrapbook of illustrated examples of things that are hard to use because they do not follow human factors principles.

Darnell, Michael J. baddesigns.com. Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Career Resources

Folks on the Interaction Design Discussionion mailing list posted some tips and Web sites helpful in conducting a job search.

IxDA Resource Library (2005). Careers>Usability>Mailing Lists>Interaction Design

Critic to Creator: Recognizing Good Design

All too often, people in our field focus so much on pointing out the egregious interaction design mistakes that make it to market, we forget to pay attention to the good design that exists. Not only does it make our profession look bad if we are always complaining, but it also makes us less effective.

Calde, Steve. Cooper Interaction Design (2003). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Depth vs Breadth in the Arrangement of Web Links

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of depth and breadth of web site structure on the user response time.

Mtei, Lianaeli and Panayiotis Zaphiris. SHORE (1997). Design>Web Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Do Links Need Underlines?

During our recent Virtual Seminar on home page design, several people asked about whether it makes a difference if links are underlined or not. It's a good question and one we get frequently.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>Interaction Design

The Effects of Perceptual Grouping on Text Entry Performance

One of the primary challenges confronting designers of mobile computing devices is the issue of efficient text entry. One potential solution is to group multiple letters onto single keys, similar to the T9 keyboard currently used on telephones. Two experiments examined the effects of perceptual grouping on soft keyboard transcription rates. Results from Experiment 1 showed significantly slower transcription rates for QWERTY keyboards with grouped keys. Results from Experiment 2 showed various levels of perceptual interference due to the different Gestalt grouping effects. These results indicate that perceptual grouping can negatively affect text entry performance, and placing multiple letters onto single keys reduces the speed at which users can transcribe words.

Hamblin, Christopher J., Michael Bohan and Alex Chaparro. Usability News (2004). Design>Usability>Human Computer Interaction>PDA

The Elements of Interaction Design

Other design disciplines use raw materials. Communication designers use basic visual elements such as the line. Industrial designers work with simple 3D shapes such as the cube, the sphere, and the cylinder. For interaction designers, who create products and services that can be digital (software) or analog (a karaoke machine) or both (a mobile phone), the design elements are more conceptual. And yet they offer a powerful set of components for interaction designers to bring to bear on their projects.

Saffer, Dan. UXmatters (2006). Design>Usability>Interaction Design

The End of Web Design

Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways: visual design; terminology and labeling; interaction design and workflow; and information architecture. These changes are driven by four different trends that all lead to the same conclusion.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Interaction Design

Evangelize with Usability: Using Invalid Users to Sell User Centered Design to a large organization

In larger technology companies it can often be difficult to develop an understanding of the advantages of doing good product design early. As Alan Cooper told us, 'The word 'design' is toxic in the world of business'. More so with Interaction Design and User Centered Design processes which require to be done early, close to the beginning of a project while the product is being defined and the requirements written. It is not unusual to find a number of very skeptical people around, who question, the time, budget and effort which must go into these activities. So how do you overcome this skepticism? How do you sell Interaction Design to a skeptical audience? The answer is to use Usability Testing as your early option for evangelizing your new principles and approach. By carefully selecting a set of 'invalid' test participants, you can sow the seeds for future success. This strategy is not without it's risks and it could easily backfire if your design is not good. This short paper seeks to advise you how to select the candidate evangelists and how to manage the risks of showing them the product early, so that you get the desired result - an influential band of company evangelists to your User Centered Design cause. People who will go forth and spread the word that your efforts, the budget and the time are not only necessary but essential for the future success of the business.

UIdesign (2000). Design>Usability>User Centered Design>Interaction Design

Featuritis (or Creeping Featurism)

Featuritis or creeping featurism is the tendency for the number of features in a product (usually software product) to rise with each release of the product. What may have been a cohesive and consistent design in the early versions may end up as a patchwork of added features. And with extra features comes extra complexity.

Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org. Articles>Usability>Interaction Design>Project Management

Human Error and the Design of Computer Systems

People err. That is a fact of life. People are not precision machinery designed for accuracy. In fact, we humans are a different kind of device entirely. Creativity, adaptability, and flexibility are our strengths. Continual alertness and precision in action or memory are our weaknesses. We are amazingly error tolerant, even when physically damaged. We are extremely flexible, robust, and creative, superb at finding explanations and meanings from partial and noisy evidence. The same properties that lead to such robustness and creativity also produce errors. The natural tendency to interpret partial information -- although often our prime virtue -- can cause operators to misinterpret system behavior in such a plausible way that the misinterpretation can be difficult to discover.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (1999). Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

The Human Interface

The phrase 'human error' is taken to mean 'operator error', but more often than not the disaster is inherent in the design or installation of the human interface. Bad interfaces are slow or error prone to use. Bad interfaces cost money and cost lives.

Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>User Centered Design

Interaction Modeling: User State-Trace Analysis

Interaction modeling is a good way to identify and locate usability issues with the use of a tool. Several methods exist. Modeling techniques are prescriptive in that they aim to capture what users will likely do, and not descriptive of what users actually did.

Queen, Matt. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Interaction Design

Learning from the Success of Computer Games

I have long been struck by the power of the computer game to mesmerize, to hold the attention of otherwise restless children for hours and even days. I have watched otherwise unruly children focus, study, collaborate, and problem-solve. They read hint books, save checkpoints, the better to be able to try 'what-if' scenarios. They consult, the create. They solve. They do all the activities we wish them to do in pursuit of an education: What a shame that what is being learned is so trivial, so worthless. Now imagine a time when we transform education. When we can craft educational problems as cleverly as the game creators create theirs, allowing students to delve into the complexity of topics as deeply and as thoroughly as they delve into the games. Excite them to dive into the task, voluntarily working hard to learn the skills necessary to succeed. Only this time, the skills learned will be the ones necessary to be successful, well-educated citizens of society: mathematics, history, writing, science, art, and so on.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (2000). Design>Usability>Interaction Design>Games

Of Mice and iPods, or The Death of the Designer

Computing technologies are becoming so familiar it can feel as if they have always been here. It is strange to think that the mouse, for instance, was invented by Doug Englebart in the seventies. He must encounter a degree of incredulity when he mentions this to people. “You invented the mouse? Really? How nice. Did you also invent the pen?”

Blythe, Mark. uiGarden (2008). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Centered Design>Usability

One Hundred and One Spots, or How Do Users Read Menus?  

Proceedings of a paper about how readers interact with designed documents.

Aaltonen, Antti, Aulikki Hyrskykari and Kari-Jouko Raeihae. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (1998). Articles>Document Design>Interaction Design>Usability

The Post Disciplinary Revolution: Industrial Design and Human Factors—Heal Yourselves

The fault lies with the separation of powers. There are four legs to product development. Four equal legs are required for good product design, all sitting on the foundation of the business case.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (2000). Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Prototyping Techniques for Interactive Design  

Almost all design methodologies call for a prototyping stage, but it can be difficult to decide where to put scarce time and resources for the most impact on the final project. To make a decision, it is important to understand the different types of prototypes and their strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, the larger and more complex a project, the more complete each prototype must be, but even with small projects the right prototype can help ensure that you and your clients have a chance to see and test the design before it is too late to make changes. If you do your work right, each step builds on the previous one, and there are no surprises at the end of the project.

Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Usability>Interaction Design

Scrolling and Scrollbars

Despite posing well-known risks, websites continue to feature poorly designed scrollbars. Among the ongoing problems that result are frustrated users, accessibility challenges, and missed content.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

So You Want to Be an Interaction Designer 2006

Five years ago, Robert Reimann wrote a seminal article for the Cooper Newsletter called 'So You Want To Be an Interaction Designer.' Like many people, I read the article and said, yep, that's what I want to be. I took Reimann's (good) advice and found both work and training as an interaction designer.

Saffer, Dan. uiGarden (2007). Careers>Usability>Interaction Design>User Centered Design

Tools and Trade-Offs: Making Wise Choices for User-Centered Design

How can we choose among customer data collection methods when limited staff and financial resources must be spread across the whole development cycle? This tutorial helps participants understand the tradeoffs, so they can make effective choices among methods at different points during product design and development. It focuses on early user-centered intervention to gain cost-effective, reusable end-user information.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L., Judee Humburg, Judith A. Ramey and Anne Seeley. ACM SIGCHI (1995). Design>User Centered Design>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Troubling Aspects of the Online Realm

Find out how the blogosphere is portrayed as stupid, how automatic reloading of web pages annoys users, how it's very difficult or impossible to scroll text entry boxes, why search engines need filters, why usability is not "dead" for web design, why delete must not automatically open the next email message, why "view profile" must not be omitted, and why all user actions need prominent "action succeeded" messages and "view action results" page links.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Cyberculture>Interaction Design>Usability

人性的界面

我们常常看到这样的新闻报道：飞机坠毁夺走了好几百人的生命，某次工业事故导致几百万英镑的损失，某新发现的系统医疗错误致使数千病患重返医院。几个月后，公布的调查结果如下：操作机器设备时的人为错误导致了这些事故。人们使用‘人为错误’一词来表达‘操作上的错误’，而经常的情况是，这些‘人为错误’ 根本就是机器设备的人机界面设计或安装上本身固有的问题。低劣的人机界面会导致使用效率降低或者容易发生错误，严重的则会造成财产和生命损失。

Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). (Chinese) Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>User Centered Design