TriUPA recently welcomed David Malouf, professor of interaction design at SCAD, for a full-day workshop on sketching for interaction design.
TriUPA member Leslie Carter was kind enough to provide some notes, ideas, and links to resources from the workshop. Thanks, Leslie! (You can also download a Microsoft Word copy of the notes: Notes from Sketching Seminar with Dave Malouf – June 2009).
Todd Wilkens (from Adaptive Path) presented a full-day workshop on design research for TriUPA on Friday 2/20/09.
Todd introduced Adaptive Path’s design research process, emphasizing the importance of qualitative, contextual research. He argued for focusing on people’s behaviors, motivations, and meanings (as opposed to a more traditional user research focus on tasks, goals, and preferences).
Here are some ideas I took home from the workshop…
Approach and framing
Research methods
Suggested resources
Please add your thoughts, questions, and resources in the comments!
Cheers,
–Abe
VP, Professional Development Programs // TriUPA
TriUPA recently organized a viewing of the Rosenfeld Media webinar, “What Every Designer Should Know About Interface Engineering.” Thanks to Brian Russell of Carrboro Creative Co-Working for hosting this event!
TriUPA member Scott Boggs of RTI has kindly provided a recap of the webinar. Thanks, Scott!
The talk was basically conveying a developer’s perspective to designers (e.g. visual designers). He generally did not consider designers as the folks doing the front-end (HTML/CSS) code; but rather, the ones creating the static visual design/layout and perhaps some interaction design.
| Developers | Designers |
| Code: DHTML, XML, JavaScript, PHP/JSP/ASP, HTML, CSS, Frameworks (i.e. STRUTS, JQuery), etc… | Visual Designs, i.e. Photoshop, maybe Flash, Illustrator, Fireworks, etc… He generally thought of (and critiqued) static designs coming from designers. |
| Implementation Focus | Inspiration Focus |
| Generally Logical | Generally Creative |
1. The Site is Dynamic
Photoshop is static and thus can limit thinking, web sites and applications are not. Prototype early and often. Consider the dynamic nature of the site as an opportunity and challenge, not as a problem.
2. Technology is Critical
Designers must understand the “magic” that brings design to life, and difficulties such as:
Thus, opt for markup based designs; move away from graphics-intensive design. Plan for “spriting”—more efficient use of images. [ Here’s an article on spriting. ]
Designers should know how stuff gets used: he suggests using Firebug (FF add-on) to explore elements.
Know what is challenging, i.e.:
Tips
Plan for quick, early iterations and test the prototypes.
Ultimately, “the most important thing is to get things done”; i.e. don’t be a CSS (or other kind of) preacher.
3. Components are Key
Components and template mean reusable modules, templates, layouts, etc… Developers tend to think in terms of reuse; designers tend to want variety. Components generally refer to reusable chunks of code, templates to a reusable visual designs (and also the HTML/CSS code to display it).
4. Partnership is Imperative
“The magic happens with collaboration.” “Communicate and iterate.”
Communicate:
Iterate (Prototype):
5. Yes, We Can.
Given ongoing advances in technology, interface engineers have the power to say “Yes” more than ever.
Expect to see more rich media and video integrated into web sites/apps.
In the HFI webinar “The Science of Persuasive Design,” presenters Kath Straub and Spencer Gerrol highlighted social psychology studies behind persuasive design and many examples of its application. Here’s a recap of the talk from TriUPA member Scott Boggs, Web Designer at RTI International.
The webinar was hosted by: Hesketh.com, who also kindly provided drinks and donuts.
A study asked people to choose who they’d like to date from 3 photos: Tom, Jerry, and a photo of Jerry modified to make him less attractive (users did not know this was a modified picture). Most picked Jerry.
Same study, but when photos were: Tom, an “ugly” version of Tom, and Jerry—people mostly picked Tom
Take Away: People unconsciously respond to the relation of options presented; the regular Tom or Jerry appeared more appealing when juxtaposed to a similar, but less attractive, choice.
Example: Magazine subscription:
When offered 2 choices:
Most chose the Web subscription.
But when offered 3 choices:
Most chose the Print + Web subscription.
Example: Restaurant Wine sales
“If others are doing it, it must be good.”
Example: People in shoe store who want to try on what other customers are trying.
Example: Acting troops in urban setting who en masse look at the sky or duck at the same time; regular people all around will also look up or duck.
Example: Towels in Hotel. To encourage customers to re-use towels, hotels first used signs saying “Help Save the Earth”—but it was not effective (persuasive). Changing it to something like “Other customers are re-using their towels” greatly increased re-use. Further modifying message to something like “previous customers in this room re-used their towels” had an even greater effect—it became even more personal, and thus more persuasive.
Example: Airline website had better purchase ratios when they added a graphic “Top 10 Destination” to certain flights. Even greater success occurred when they added a pop up testimonials from an average customer to the flight listing.
Scarcity has the benefit of Social Proof (others are doing it), plus added pressure.
The same airline website, above, had a further increase in view/purchase ratios when they added the number of seats left to the flight listings. “2 seats left” implies that others are doing it and also creates pressure about availability.
Example: Beef in Argentina
Predictions that bad weather in Argentina would limit beef production led to 2X the usual amount of orders. Announcing that these beef sales would be handled by an exclusive supplier, led to 6X the regular orders.
Example: When shoe salesman person says “I’m not sure if we have that in stock”, customers wanted the items more.
Take Away: the implication of scarcity increasing customers’ anxiety and their likelihood to purchase.
How you present information can make one change their attitude or perception.
Example: 2 presentations of Tooth Flossing scale (desired outcome = call your dentist)
Someone who flosses 2x/week ends up on the low end of the 1st scale (framed as weekly), they are more likely to call dentist. But on the 2nd scale (framed as monthly) they are at the top—and thus less likely to call dentist.
Take Away: how you lay out the scale options creates the anchors and thus changes perceptions.
“Momentum”
Example: Car wash punch card requiring 8 car washes to get a free one—2 different designs
“Processing Fluency – Rhyme”
Rhyming statements are judged to be more accurate and trustworthy
Example: “Caution and measure will win you treasure.” was perceived as more trusted than “Caution and measure will win you riches.” And likewise for other phrases.
Example: Readsmart typography
Studies showed that in printed text, increasing the white space between clauses, phrases, and sentences and also making phrases end on the same line of text (i.e. not wrap) led to increased ease of reading, better comprehension, and faster reading.
Studies of this type treatment in non-profit donation appeal forms show increased rates of response and also increased amounts of donation.
Take Away: designed the visual display of type to mimic our spoken language makes it more effective. This could help web content to be faster and easier to read. (get your $amp; or <span style=”white-space: nowrap”></span> code ready!)
“Opt In or Opt Out?”
Example: Organ Donation
“The Number of Choices Influences Outcomes”
Too many choices leads to increase likelihood of opting out, not buying, not choosing, etc…
Example: Jam sample displays in super market showing 6 jams or 24 jams. The stands with 6 jams had fewer people approach but far more ended up buying the jam. The stands with 24 jams had more people test the jams (bigger display = more noticed?) but significantly fewer people bought any jam.
Example: Kayak.com offers filters in the left column to narrow parameters and reduce listings. People are far more likely to purchase from a list of 4 results than from a list of 500.
Example: When consulting with patients who had tried multiple treatments for hip problems to no avail, doctors who understood the remaining choices to be, 1., ibuprofen, or, 2., Hip replacement surgery were more likely to recommend ibuprofen. However, doctors who understood the remaining choices to be 1. ibuprofen, 2., another medication which demanded some understanding, or ,3., hip replacement surgery were more likely to recommend surgery.
Take Away: too many choices confused customers/users/doctors. They are more likely to act/purchase/etc… when presented fewer choices.
Example of Number of Choices combined with Framing Concept:
People were asked to either:
And then asked “How much do you love your significant other?” People who were asked to give only 3 reasons felt that they love their sig. other more than people who had to give 10 reasons. Probably, it was harder to give 10 reasons so they perceived that they didn’t love their sig. other as much. It’s similar to the flossing scale above.
“Reciprocity vs. Reward”
Customers develop greater trust for companies/sites who offer them something before they complete some task (i.e. register on the site, give personal information, make a purchase) than for companies/sites who offer them the same thing as a reward after completing the task.
Example: Website had more success in getting users personal information when they offered the related white paper free to any user and then asked for info. They were less successful when they offered the white paper as a reward for giving the personal information. The later strategy resulted in more people giving information (i.e. to get the reward) but half the amount of information was given.
Persuasion techniques can amplify motivations and/or remove blocks and barriers.
For more information, you can visit the presenters’ website: http://humanfactors.com/petdesign/
Overview
Matthew Cornell (see his site, http://www.matthewcornell.org/, for lots of ideas and tips on personal productivity) presented “Reboot Your Work: Modern Methods for Productivity, Sanity, and Control” on Monday, January 12th.
This was the first full-day workshop in TriUPA’s 2009 professional training series. Nearly 30 TriUPAians from around the Triangle attended. Special thanks to TriUPA’s generous sponsors, who made this workshop (and all of TriUPA’s events!) possible:
You can help support our workshops, virtual seminars, World Usability Day celebration, and other events: join TriUPA today!
Key take-aways
Here are some of the key points that I took away from the workshop. Please add your own comments, notes, and questions!
Matt emphasized the importance of systematically processing all new inputs (whether email, voicemail, paper, a conversation, etc.) using a consistent workflow [see Matt’s flowchart]. Regular, thorough processing prevents inputs from piling up, which can cause anxiety and stress. Ideally, it’s best to set up minimum number of collection points, then train yourself and others (colleagues, family, etc.) to use them consistently.
Calendars are often overloaded with many types of information. Matt argued it’s better to keep calendars as clean as possible, containing only appointments/meetings, as well as reminders of upcoming deadlines, and date-specific actions (such as, “Pick up a cake for Fred’s birthday party sometime on Friday”). By keeping our calendars clean and current, we can work with confidence: checking our calendars for “must do today” meetings and actions, then reviewing and working from a defined list of actions.
Strong parallels between personal productivity and user-centered design emerged during the workshop. We can treat the challenge of personal productivity as a design problem at the personal level. Consider thinking of yourself as the end user, and imagine how to design a workflow system to support your needs, tasks, and information flows. Matt provided a set of heuristics and guidelines that can inform this personal design process. A related problem is that we’ve never been taught how to manage ourselves, so need training in “Workflow 101.” By combining better design of our personal systems with education and training, we can achieve huge gains in effectiveness, efficiency, and reduced stress. (And as we learned in the workshop, the CDC estimates that 80% of health problems in the US are stress-related!)
Matt recommends people consider planning each day the night before, so as to have a structure in place before diving into a work environment that’s often filled with distractions and interruptions. Since multitasking and constant interruptions dramatically reduce our ability to concentrate and do complex intellectual work, it’s essential to build defenses that can protect our focus and attention.
Overall, the workshop helped me “reboot my work” by reflecting on how I manage my inputs, calendar, projects, actions, and review processes. I know from experience that personal systems become stale over time, and it’s critical to regularly re-assess and improve them. Thanks to Matt for helping me, and others, begin that crucial work.
Resources mentioned:
Upcoming workshop: Design Research!
Todd Wilkens (design researcher at Adaptive Path) will visit TriUPA on February 20th! Register for his workshop now at: http://triupa.org/DesignResearch
TriUPA “Effective Prototyping” workshop from Abe Crystal on Vimeo.
Overview
Todd Warfel (see his site, http://toddwarfel.com/, for updates on prototyping, includes slides from previous presentations, and surveys on prototyping practices) presented “Effective Prototyping” on Monday, September 15th. This was TriUPA’s first full-day workshop. Nearly 60 TriUPAians from around the Triangle attended. Special thanks to TriUPA’s generous sponsors, who made this workshop (and all of TriUPA’s events!) possible:
Abe’s take
Here are some of my notes from the workshop. Please add your own comments, notes, and pictures on the TriUX blog!
Todd emphasized the value of prototyping as a “generative process” that supports collaboration. Prototyping (as opposed to documentation/specification) supports “being on the same page” and creating new design ideas.
He described MessageFirst’s design process, known as DRIVE (discovery and research, interaction and visualization, engineering). In this process, “every system we build starts with sketches.” MessageFirst emphasizes paper sketching and creates dozens or hundreds of paper skethches to explore ideas before moving into digital prototyping. Paper is “the least intimidating toolkit out there” and has the unique property that clients or stakeholders “can destroy it” (modify, annotate, etc.). This mutabiilty encourages the co-creation of design ideas.
Sketches are best shared in a “design studio” process, in which designers present sketches, accept critique (“don’t get attached to your designs”), and annotate/revise. In the workshop, we practiced this process by creating simple sketches and paper prototypes, then presenting them to the group for discussion and critique. Todd noted that this design studio process is underused in software design.
Overall, MessageFirst focuses on creating ideas and discussion quickly through generative sketching. As the team works through a 6-8 week design cycle, weekly update/review meetings keep clients in the loop. Ultimately, “production-ready” HTML/CSS/Javascript are provided to clients, and the designers then work with the clients IT team to help make sure the design is implemented as they had envisioned.
Todd presented six major types of prototypes…
1. communication
2. gauge flexibility
3. sell ideas internally
4. market to customers
5. work through a design
6. testing
… and eight guiding principles for prototyping:
1. “know your audience” (e.g., design, engineering, sales, CEO) and intent (what focus? what level of fidelity?)
2. “plan a little, prototype the rest” (and keep options open through rapid, low-fidelity media)
3. “set expectations” (perhaps the most important principle… use kickoff meetings to explain the design process and educate clients about what type of work they will see and how it’s used)
4. “you can sketch” (be bold in using sketching, don’t be fearful of aesthetic, and help clients understand your process, and the time and effort it involves)
5. “it’s a prototype, not the Mona Lisa” (find the right level of fidelity for your purposes)
6. “if you can’t make it, fake it” (e.g., simulate–rather than engineer–ajax transitions)
7. “prototype only what you need” (match to scenarios/usability test script, and be open to leaving out certain features/functions)
8. “reduce risk–prototype early and often” (analogous to agile methods)
Todd also walked through some benefits of prototyping with analog/paper tools (including post-it notes, index cards, transparencies, etc.). Paper prototyping can be extremely fast, isn’t constrained to pre-built UI widgets, and encourages modification/annotation of designs. Participants created paper prototypes of a social photo/video player, and presented them for discussion.
Key take-aways:
The workshop encouraged me to remember the importance of sketching and generative prototyping, and revitalize my design research process. I’ve heard Bill Buxton and others wax poetic about sketching, but looking back at my notebook shows weeks can pass with nary a paper sketch in sight. Todd’s points reminded me I can sketch a lot more often, and generate more ideas by doing so.
Similarly, the value of a “design studio”-style review process was apparent, and I agree that it’s underused in many cases. I also like the idea that design feedback should be framed to focus on “what’s positive/effective about this design?” first, and then “what could be improved or extended?”
I believe the admonition to “set expectations” and explain to clients the time and effort involved in generative prototyping is right on target, applicable to almost any situation where clients/stakeholders aren’t deeply familiar with UX methods.
Resources mentioned:
Upcoming workshop: Designing for Efficiency!
Dr. Deborah Mayhew, editor of “Cost-justifying usability” (among many other books) will be hosted by TriUPA on October 22nd! Register for her workshop (“Designing for Efficiency” now at: http://triupa.org/DesigningEfficiency
IxDA was kind enough to video the entire Interactions ’08 conference, and post the conference sessions online. The keynotes by Alan Cooper and Bill Buxton are especially worth watching.
I attended CHI 2007 in San Jose. CHI is a large (2,500+ attendees) conference that focuses on academic HCI research, but also includes many panels and sessions on trends in user experience research and design. Here are some of my observations from CHI. —Abe
Bill Moggridge’s keynote talk emphasized the need for “intuitive design” to help navigate complexity and create designs that people enjoy. He quoted Eames: “the design is an expression of the purpose… it may if it is good enough be judged as art.”
He then laid out a framework of “design skills”:
He gave a usefully simplified example of how cultural context can influence design. In Japan, most professionals commute on trains, and the social norm requires maintaining a respectful quiet. As a result, Japanese commuters work quietly with mobile devices, using many small buttons and a complex UI. Americans, on the other hand, commute primarily by car. Fiddling with small buttons and screens and difficult and dangerous while driving, but we can “shout to our hearts’ content,” so voice input is a promising alternative.
BM also showed an entertaining video of a Japanese woman trying to purchase a soft drink with her i-Mode cell phone. This was a usability disaster, and illustrates how the design of many mainstream products is still basically broken. Many videos are included with the DVD accompanying his recent book, Designing Interactions.
A later panel, “Who Killed Design?” followed up on BM’s ideas of intuitive design. Bill Buxton described the crit [that’s a critique, as in MFA and similar design programs] as “a fundamental part of the design process,” but one that’s rarely written about or discussed. He argued the design community needs to reflect more carefully on the role of structured critique and feedback in the design process. The trend in design education, presented by educators Terry Winograd and Meg Armstrong, is for heterogeneous teams (e.g., business, engineering, and design) and incorporating reflection on design activities. A challenge for both students and practitioners is to distinguish “problem setting” from “problem solving” and learn when to apply each approach.
Buxton argued passionately that “there is a calculus [of design], it’s just not the same calculus we use in the sciences, and it must be respected.” The CFO’s opinion on design should not be considered equivalent to an experienced designer’s opinion, just as it wouldn’t be considered equivalent to an engineer’s opinion.
A panel on prototyping took up the challenge of “what’s wrong with prototyping in HCI research?” In a nutshell, current prototyping practices are weak—prototypes aren’t real (representative of the ultimate system or design idea being investigated), and evaluation using them isn’t real (participants, tasks, questions, and time periods are limited or unrealistic). Unfortunately, “getting more real isn’t realistic,” because creating more detailed prototypes and extensive evaluations is prohibitively expensive in many cases.
The panel focused on addressing this dilemma in HCI research, but design and UX practitioners likely confront similar problems. Two approaches seemed particularly promising. Jonathan Grudin emphasized the bias inherent in having the prototype creator (e.g. an interaction designer or information architect) evaluate the prototype. Even when another person (e.g., usability engineer) evaluates the prototype, she is likely to be a friend and collaborator. Grudin suggested an exchange approach: “you evaluate my prototype, I’ll evaluate yours.” Of course, this may be difficult in cases where confidentiality is an issue. But an IA working on an intranet might be able to evaluate a prototype for someone in another industry working on an ecommerce site, and vice versa. Ron Baecker suggested evaluating multiple prototypes at one time, to get a broader range of opinion and more useful suggestions from users. But Jared Spool countered that, in practice, “the same design team can’t create meaningfully different prototypes” and it would be too expensive to engage multiple teams in prototyping for the same project.
Spool also emphasized the importance of failure, saying “it’s very important that we talk about failure.” He suggested morbidity and mortality conferences in medicine as a potential model for UX/HCI. The idea is to focus “not on success or failure, but what you’ve learned.” Grudin suggested the “overoptimistic” history of videoconferencing as a cautionary tale. Initial research on videoconferencing was very encouraging, with successful small-scale evaluations, but there was a lack of attention to serious problems that emerged with widespread use. He concluded that “HCI as a field needs more reflection and consolidation of what’s been learned.”
“Web 2.0” ideas have taken public, “consumer-facing” sites by storm—can they do the same for internal, enterprise software? Jonathan Grubb of RubyRed Labs asked us to “please never say the word ‘enterprise’ again.” Instead, he encouraged designers to “pretend you’re making consumer software for people who work in big companies.” He contrasted the power and rapid adoption of social tools, such as Facebook, versus administrative tools such as a university’s directory. The idea is to replace the traditional “top-down push” and centralized software with individual-led adoption. The very structure of traditional enterprise software inhibits rapid iteration, which is critical to effective design.
Grubb suggested designers try to “Give people something that will inspire envy in their coworkers.” He gave the example of “showing off” Basecamp in an organization that was using MS Project—coworkers literally envied Basecamp’s simplicity and visual appeal. He further argued that “niche consumer sites have been successful, so why not niche business applications?” A continually improving ecosystem of public tools, such as Yahoo Pipes, enable designers and web developers to quickly prototype new concepts.
Ron Wakkary presented “informances” as a way to bridge ethnography and design. His team worked with families as “everyday designers.” In the informances, students who conducted the ethnography went on to act out the role of a participant. He showed a video of an informance that highlighted how one participant in the study struggled to use cell phone voice recognition. The benefits of this approach include understanding embodied action (such as the physical movements involved in using a cell phone), and developing a shared understanding of the insights from fieldwork. Wakkary cautioned that, like participant observation, informance is a practiced skill, and not everyone is comfortable performing.
Johanna Brewer presented her experiences with workshops that combined fieldwork, group discussion, and design. The workshops were intended to explore the theme of “in-betweenness,” as expressed in activities such as public waiting (lines, etc.), and in transitional times/spaces (such as commuting). The workshops included “research speed-dating—2 minute introductions” to match participants, scavenger hunts and observation tasks in the city, and the presentation of interesting examples from the field. Participants then engaged in a design activity based on ideas from the field data, and finally reflected on the results and their conceptual significance.
The workshops led to interesting concepts to explore futher with research (e.g., the theme of ‘legitimacy’—the right to be waiting/lingering in a certain place at a certain time). In addition, provocative design concepts also emerged, such as “myst-air,” which would create clouds of water vapor, to mark one’s ‘territory’ in a public space. Brewer characterized the workshops as a cyclic process between practical engagement and conceptual discussion, creating a dialogue between theory and practice with a complex topic. This is an intriguing alternative to standard UCD and participatory design processes.
I attended DIS 2006 at Penn State University from June 25 – 28. DIS (Designing Interactive Systems) is a small (around 150 attendees) conference that complements CHI by focusing more closely on processes, techniques, and tools for design. DIS is held very other year; I also attended the 2004 conference, which was held in Cambridge, MA. On both occasions, DIS has proved to be a very interesting conference that challenges received ideas about how and why we design.
Some themes I noted in this year’s conference…
There is still a need for better methods for inspiring design and creating conceptual designs. Papers examined “inspiration card workshops” for involving users in design, effective storyboarding practices, and creating personas for children. Although methods like participatory design, storyboarding, and persona creation, are well-established, they also are still being refined and extended. This line of research reminded me that it’s important not to become complacent in the use of standard methods–we should continually question our methods, even as they serve as the basis for much of our work. For example, Alissa Antle’s work on personas identified two distinct approaches not ordinarily seen in persona definition: using a theoretical framework to guide persona creation (in her work, developmental psychology), and getting users to do user research (in her work, she had teenagers interview younger children). I believe both of these approaches could be fruitfully applied in a variety of domains.
Extending work on ubiquitous computing, several research groups looked at augmented home and personal devices, such as flashlights, lamps, and tablecloths. Continuing interest in such devices has created the need for frameworks to guide design, leading to research on “pre-patterns” for digital home applications, and “themes” for interaction design (actually, Scott Klemmer’s work in this area is generally applicable, and his paper “How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design” is highly recommended).
At an even higher level of abstraction, one might ask, What is the outcome of design? How do we know when design is successful? A panel on “design quality” and Sol Greenspan’s keynote on “lasting principles for design” both addressed this issue, and of course delivered no clear answers, but did provoke some interesting questions:
And finally, as a nice counterpoint to the idea that we can or should always “design” an appropriate “experience” for users, consider Tuck Leong’s argument that randomness should be a resource for design.
–Abe
I attended CHI 2006 in Montreal from April 24 – 27. CHI is the major conference for HCI research (in the broadest sense, ranging from input and interaction techniques to field studies of complex work situations). It also attracts a large community of practitioners, particularly from the major software and hardware companies. Attendance was estimated at 2,400+, which is up significantly from the past few years, implying a relatively robust tech industry, along with growing interest in HCI and UX. Recruiting was notably robust. Microsoft had so many job postings they needed a 3-ring binder to hold them all. Google, Yahoo, eBay and SAP also had large recruiting presences.
Some thoughts from the sessions I attended:
The Route to the Sea for User Value
This panel, with managers from Oracle, Intuit, World Savings Bank, and Sony/Ericsson, addressed the perennial challenge of integrating effective UX work into product development processes. Jeremy Ashley (Oracle) argued strongly that “we [UX professionals] have to have influence”–we must work with and persuade complementary groups (such as documentation and performance engineering) of UX’s importance. More broadly, we must assume accountability for UX, “no matter what.” Blaming other groups for not accepting the UX perspective is self-defeating. Perhaps the best approach, said Janice Rohn (World Savings Bank), is to “start in the boardroom” by understanding executives’ goals.
The challenge is that while “nobody in the corporate world says usability isn’t important, they don’t understand what it entails.” The range and depth of work required to create great user experiences is still widely unappreciated. UX practitioners need to build relationships with engineering and product development executives to help bridge this gap. Ultimately, the goal is to make UX practices ubiquitous, so that “it’s not just UX saying it’s important to improve the navigation, it’s the business saying it’s important to improve the navigation.” Until we reach that product-development utopia, said Lisa Anderson (Intuit) it’s critical to “follow through on your passions.” Don’t give up on what you believe is right for users, despite the obstacles.
Human-Information Interaction
This panel addressed the provocative question of whether studying human information interaction (AKA behavior) should be separate from (but complementary to) HCI. Peter Pirolli and Stu Card made strong arguments for focusing on deeper theoretical issues such as what information structures best support people’s cognitive functions, and how to represent information in large “information landscapes.” Research needs to address these fundamental issues instead of just developing and testing new types of interfaces or interaction styles. (So, if anything, HCI should be a subset of HII).
Tagging
An example of HII research might be tagging and social bookmarking practices. A large panel featuring Josh Schacter of del.icio.us and George Furnas of Michigan debated the purposes and uses of tags. Definitions of “tag” included: “annotations,” “loose associations,” “rich ways of linking disparate objects” and “nicknames for groups of things.” While many interesting ideas were proposed (including the idea that tags are the harbinger of widespread growth of communities around metadata), I had the sense that our understanding of how tags are used is still limited. Discussion focused on recall (AKA refindability) and “distribution” (social sharing of tagged information). But answers are missing to the broad questions, What are tags used for? and Are tagging systems effective? So, developing a deep understanding of tagging practices and what underlying information problems these practices are addressing could be a significant contribution to “HII.” This contribution, in turn, would support the develop of new interfaces for the creation and use of tags.
Some recommended readings:
–Abe
Triangle User Experience 