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