Theories and Practice of Interactive Media

10 November 2003

Kathy E. Gill

Agenda Book reports due Interactivity, Community and “Play” Celeste Combs – interactivity and online

communities Effective interfaces

Community: Introduction What does the word mean to you? What characterizes “effective”

communities?

Community defined (1/2)

1.a. A group of people living in the same locality and under the same government. b. The district or locality in which such a group lives.

2. A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.

3.a. Similarity or identify: a community of interests. b. Sharing, participation and fellowship.

Community defined (2/2)

4. Society as a whole; the public. 5. Ecology. a. A group of plants and

animals living and interacting with one another in a specific region under relatively similar environmental conditions. b. The region occupied by a group of interacting organisms.

From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Third

Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992.

Community defined (3/3) “A comprehensive description of the

needs of a population that is defined, or defines itself, as a community, and the resources that exist within that community, carried out with the active involvement of the community itself, for the purpose of developing an action plan or other means of improving the quality of life in the community”.  (Hawtin, 1994, p5).

Characteristics (1/3)

Historically tied to the idea of place. Other characteristics associated with

community include a "sense of belonging“ a body of shared values a system of social organization interdependency

Characteristics (2/3)

Neutral ground – people are approachable; give-and-take is expected

No class structure - an opportunity to interact apart from social class, rank and roles that divide rather than connect people

Conversation is the main activity and is valued in its own right

Accessible and accommodating Comprised of  “regulars” who set a tone of

conviviality and provide an infectious style of interaction

Characteristics (3/3)

A low profile place A playful mood, where joy and acceptance reign A home-away-from-home where people are

regenerated, restored and experience “the freedom to be”

Provides the habit of association, necessary for the organization of society

Helps people keep in tune with the social world around them

Attributes of a Great Good Place - Ray Oldenburg, http://www.seniornet.org/php/default.php?PageID=6251

Why study community? Cooley (1983) : all normal humans have

a natural affinity for community Communication is the structural process

that makes or breaks community Both words stem from same Latin root

word, communis, which means common

Virtual community “… social aggregations that emerge

from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”

Rheingold, 1993

Good or bad? New communication technologies can

both draw people together into cohesive

communities of interest and isolate them as they retreat into tribalism

Communities need cooperation

Individuals must believe it is likely to meet again in the future

Individuals must be able to identify one another

Individuals need information about how someone has behaved in the past

From The Evolution of Cooperation

Facilitating technologies Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Usenet MOOs and MUDs Wikis Blogs

Online network benefits to organizations (1/3)

Creates an early warning system Attunes everyone in the network to

each other's needs – more people will know who knows what and will know it faster. Thus knowledge gets to those who can act on it expeditiously

Online network benefits to organizations (2/3)

Multiplies intellectual capital by the power of social capital, reducing social friction and encouraging social cohesion.

An ongoing, shared social space connects people and builds relationships across boundaries of geography or discipline

Online network benefits to organizations (3/3)

Provides an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that can be far more effective than memoranda

Attracts and retains the best employees by providing access to social capital that is only available within the organization.

How Online Social Networks Benefit Organizations, http://www.rheingold.com/Associates/onlinenetworks.html

Break

The Humane Interface “An interface is humane if it is

responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.” Raskin, The Humane Interface (6)

Requires knowledge of how humans and machines operate

Raskin’s Rules The user should set the pace of the

interaction Error avoidance, facilitated with

“undo/redo” Accessible to the naïve, efficient for the

expert

Errors are not mistakes! Mistakes are the result of conscious

deliberation Slips result from automatic behavior

Types: capture, description, data-driven, associative activation, loss-of-activation and mode errors

Error messages Polite Illuminating Treat the user with respect

Design for error Minimize occurrence by understanding

the causes of errors Make detection and recovery easier Change the attitude toward error from

“stupid user” to “stupid design”

A challenge: When you design an error-tolerant

system, people come to rely on that system (it had best be reliable!) Anti-lock brakes (ABS) Blade guard on circular saw

To increase errors, add a little:

Social pressure Time pressure Economic pressure

Resultant design philosophy:

Put knowledge in the world (iow,make options visible)

Remember the three questions: Where am I, where can I go, where have

I been? Design for errors

How to evaluate a design? Heuristic evaluations,

http://stats.bls.gov/ore/htm_papers/st960160.htm

Evaluating Designs “Discount” methods don’t require users Heuristic evaluation is the most informal

method and involves having usability specialists judge whether each element follows established usability principles (the "heuristics").

Heuristic Evaluations Developed by Jakob Nielsen Helps find usability problems in the user

interface Small set (3-5) of evaluators examine the UI

Independently check for compliance with usability principles (“heuristics”)

Different evaluators will find different problems Perform on working UI or on sketches

10 Classic Heuristics

1. Visibility of system status

2. Match between system and the real world

3. User control and freedom

4. Consistency and standards

5. Error prevention

10 Classic Heuristics, cont’d

6. Recognition rather than recall

7. Flexibility and efficiency of use

8. Aesthetic and minimalist design

9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors

10. Help and documentation

Example Problem Statement Typographical mix of upper/lower case,

bold, italic and fonts Violates “Consistency and standards” (H4) Slows users down Probably wouldn’t be found by user testing Fix: pick a single format for entire interface

Severity Ratings Used to allocate resources to fix problems Proxy for need for more usability efforts Combination of

frequency impact persistence (one time or repeating)

Should be done independently by all evaluators, then aggregated/averaged

Severity Rating Scale

0 - not a usability problem

1 - cosmetic problem

2 - minor usability problem

3 - major usability problem; important to fix

4 - usability catastrophe; imperative to fix

Severity Ratings Example • [H-4 Consistency] [Severity 3]

• The interface used the command "Save" on the first screen when saving the user's file, but used the command "Write File" on the second screen. Users may be confused by different terminology for the same function.

Debriefing Conduct with evaluators, observers,

and development team members Discuss general characteristics of UI Suggest potential improvements to

address major usability problems Development team rates how hard

things are to fix Make it a brainstorming session

Results of HE Single evaluator achieves poor results

Only finds 35% of usability problems Five evaluators find about 75% of usability

problems (Nielsen) Why not more evaluators? 10? 20?

Adding evaluators is expensive Adding evaluators doesn’t increase the number of

unique problems found

Results of HE Note: Controversial - one instance

problems found benefits / cost

Summary of HE Heuristic evaluation is a “discount” method Procedure

Evaluators go through the UI twice Check to see if it complies with heuristics Note where it doesn’t and note why

Follow-up Combine the findings from 3 to 5 evaluators Have evaluators independently rate severity Discuss problems with design team

Ideally, alternate with user testing

Other forms of expert evaluation

Cognitive walkthrough uses a more explicitly detailed procedure to simulate a user's problem-solving process at each step through the dialogue, checking if the simulated user's goals and memory content can be assumed to lead to the next correct action.

Other forms … Feature inspection lists sequences of

features used to accomplish typical tasks, checks for long sequences, cumbersome steps, steps that would not be natural for users to try, and steps that require extensive knowledge/experience in order to assess a proposed feature set.

Other forms … Consistency inspection has designers

who represent multiple other projects inspect an interface to see whether it does things in the same way as their own designs.

Standards inspection has an expert on an interface standard inspect the interface for compliance.

Other forms … Formal usability inspection combines

individual and group inspections in a six-step procedure with strictly defined roles to with elements of both heuristic evaluation and a simplified form of cognitive walkthroughs.

Testing with users Get users to carry out typical tasks without

assistance Observe what they do, ask for clarification Get designers and stakeholders to observe

(remotely) Video the test to produce clips for

management Takes from 0.5 to 5 person days effort

Evaluation in a Usability Lab

Our problem

The web provides a unique opportunity for inexperienced information providers to create a whole new generation of difficult to use systems!

Resources http://www.cyberwriter.com/TFM/2001/0

1-10.html http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/h

euristic_list.html