An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action.

There are two different definitions. James J. Gibson defined affordances as all “action possibilities” latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities.

According to Donald Norman’s definition of Affordance, it makes the concept dependent not only on the physical capabilities of the actor, but also their goals, plans, values, beliefs and past experience.

Recently, affordance is used to refer an easily discoverable system or property of an object action in the HCI industry, to afford is used as “to suggest” or “to invite”.

A false affordance is an apparent affordance that does not have any real function.

The term is used in a variety of fields: perceptual psychology, cognitive psychology, environmental psychology, industrial design, human–computer interaction (HCI), interaction design and artificial intelligence.

A website with a good affordance is seen as user-friendly and successful.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Fitt’s Law

Fitts’ Law is an empirical model explaining speed-accuracy tradeoff characteristics of human muscle movement. In the Fitts’ Law description of pointing, the parameters of interest are:

a. The time to move to the target
b. The movement distance from the starting position to the target center
c. Target width

Fitts’s law has been applied to tasks in graphical user interfaces (human-computer interaction and ergonomics) where the user must position a mouse cursor over an on-screen target, such as a button or other widget. Fitts’s law models both point-and-click and drag-and-drop actions. Here are some consequences styles of interaction designs for user-interface

• Reasonable size buttons and controls since it’s easier to target
• Edges and corners of the computer display is easier to start with due to infinite width of the cursor and the screen
• Pop-up menus are preferred to pull-down menus, since no travel makes it faster.
• Pie menu are preferred to linear menu due to smaller travel distance thus faster and a lower error

Fitts’s law remains one of the few hard, reliable human-computer interaction predictive models.

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from, Ivan King Fai Lo

Gestalt principles of visual perception

Gestalt psychology is to view phenomena as organized and structured wholes rather than the sum of their constituent parts. Thus, Gestalt psychology dissociates itself from the more ‘elementistic’/reductionistic/decompositional approaches to psychology like structuralism and it accentuates concepts like emergent properties, holism, and context. In German, Gestalt means “configuration or pattern”. Because vision lacks acuity and relative independence of eye position human vision is an image compressing system. Elements of the visual field are thus grouped automatically according to laws like Proximity, Similarity, Closure, Symmetry, Common fate and Continuity.

Peripheral vision is very inaccurate but also very fast. During the 1960s, technical development permitted the continuous registration of eye movement during reading in picture viewing and later in visual problem solving and when headset-cameras became available, also during driving.

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from, Ivan King Fai Lo

Information architecture (IA)

Information Architecture is a discipline and a set of methods that aim to identify and organize information in a purposeful and service-oriented way.

It is primarily associated with website design and it is directly related to the following professional disciplines: User interface design, content development, content management, usability engineering, interaction design, and user experience design. It is also indirectly related to database design, document design, and knowledge management.

Until the mid-1990s, with the rapid expansion of computer-based information via the web, did information access and apprehension become a widespread problem, causing the emergence of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web) had begun to help people in various professions bridge the various specialized aspects of database design, document design, web design, navigation design, interface design, and so on.

The goal of Information Architecture is to improve information access, relevancy, and usefulness to a given audience, as well as improve the publishing entity’s ability to maintain and develop the information over time.

Key sources: 2007, Designing Interactions

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Progressive Disclosure

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that put information and actions in sequence to reduce feelings of overwhelming and confusing users.  

Progressive disclosure is defined as a technique that “defers advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone”.

By disclosing information progressively, interaction designers reveal only the essentials and help users manage the complexity of feature-rich sites or applications. Progressive disclosure follows the typical notion of moving from “abstract to specific”; including the sequencing of user behaviors or interactions not necessarily level of information detail.

In its most formal definition, progressive disclosure means “to move complex and less frequently used options out of the main user interface and into secondary screens”. Progressive disclosure says: “Make more information available within reach, but don’t overwhelm the user with all the features and possibilities”

Key sources: 2009, Wikipedia

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Tangible Interaction

Tangible Interaction is a very interdisciplinary area cover a set of related research and design approaches which emerged in several disciplines. Broadly, Tangible Interaction encompasses user interfaces and interaction approaches that emphasize

• tangibility and materiality of the interface
• physical embodiment of data
• whole-body interaction
• the embedding of the interface and the users’ interaction in real spaces and contexts.

It spans a variety of perspectives, such as HCI and Interaction Design, but specializes on interfaces or systems that are in some way physically embodied – be it in physical artefacts or in environments. Furthermore it has connections with product/industrial design, arts and architecture. Finally, new developments in Ubiquitous Computing, Actuation, Sensors, Robotics and Mechanics contribute through enabling technologies to the field of Tangible Interaction.

Product Design increasingly concerns complex computational behavior and designers need to rethink how to make IT-related appliances legible and usable. Some design researchers have come to investigate how form and digital behavior can be more closely coupled and how users could interact in richer ways with digital

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from, Ivan King Fai Lo

Breakdowns

At the heart of learning theory lies the concept of breakdowns. When something goes wrong (a breakdown) we are given an opportunity to learn as the breakdown reminds us of the discrepancy between our actions or expectations and the world. Therefore, a breakdown causes a shift of focus.

When an object such as your internet connection is ready-to-hand, it is used to fulfill an objective to find a conscious reflection. Only in the event of a breakdown, the internet connection becomes “present-at-hand”, i.e. you consciously reflect on it instead of focusing on finding articles.

Breakdowns can be used constructively in the design process and are not negative situations to be avoided. The breakdown uncovers an aspect of the design task and is a source of learning.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Cognitive artifacts

Cognitive artifacts are man-made things that seem to aid or enhance our cognitive abilities, and some examples are calendars, to-do lists, computers, or simply tying a string around your finger as a reminder.

Unlike Cognitive Science, the field of HCI has a long tradition of studying the cognitive relationship between the activities of individuals, artifacts (usually computers and computer programs) and tasks. Despite the fact that HCI’s research interest in activities, tasks, and artifacts in relation to cognition represents an improvement from studying individual cognition unaided by external devices. More generally put, by investigating cognitive artifacts one may integrate artifacts into the existing theory of human cognition.

The fact that the transformation results in some of the task being done ahead of the actual task execution has an important impact on performance as the cognitive demands of the task can be distributed across time and even people.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Training Wheels Interface

A training wheels interface is a program that disables or hides advanced features so novices can learn the system faster in a protected environment where experimentation is safe and encouraged. The user may then enter the advanced mode when he/she feels ready to be exposed to the full functionality/complexity of the system.

The goal was to save users from the frustration and confusion caused by the errors they make in the early stages of learning. That way the user would have the ideal environment for building a coherent mental model of the system, resulting in better performance and learn ability of the advanced functions after the initial ‘training wheels phase’.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

UIMS (User Interface Management System)

A UIMS can be seen as software architecture in which the implementation of an application’s user interface is clearly separated from that of the application’s underlying functionality. A large number of software architectures are based on the assumption that the functionality and the user interface of a software application are two separate concerns that can be dealt with in isolation. The purpose is to increase the ease of maintainability and adaptability of the software. Also, by abstracting the code generating the user interface from the rest of the application’s logic or semantics, customization of the interface is better supported.

In systems with a high degree of interaction and semantic feedback the boundary between application and user interface is difficult or impossible to maintain. In direct manipulation interfaces, the user interface displays the ‘intestines’ or the very semantics of the application, with which the user interacts in a direct and immediate way. It thus becomes very problematic to decide if these intestines should be handled by the User Interface or in the application itself.

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Heuristics

Heuristics, a form of cognitive strategy, have been studied in disciplines such as cognitive psychology, social psychology and social cognition. Heuristics are rules of thumb for reasoning, a simplification, or educated guess that reduces or limits the search for solutions in domains that are difficult and poorly understood. Unlike formal structures like algorithms, heuristics do not guarantee optimal, or even feasible, solutions and are often used with no theoretical guarantee.

Visibility of system status is an example of usability. The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

The advantages of heuristic evaluation are that it is cheap, it hardly requires any planning, and it can be used early in the design process. The disadvantage is that there is a focus on problems rather than solutions.

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Human error

Human errors can be analyzed and distinguished between mistakes and slips. Mistakes are errors in choosing an objective or specifying a method of achieving it whereas slips are errors in carrying out an intended method for reaching an objective. According to Norman, “The division occurs at the level of the intention: A Person establishes an intention to act. If the intention is not appropriate, this is a mistake. If the action is not what was intended, this is a slip.”

For example, a mistake would be to buy a Microsoft Excel licence because you want to store data that should be made accesible to web clients through SQL-queries, as Microsoft Excel is not designed for that purpose. In other words, you choose a wrong method for achieving your objective. However, if you installed a Postgresql Server for the same reason but in your haste forgot to give the programme privileges to go through your firewall, that would be a slip. You chose the right method of achieving your objective, but you made an error in carrying out the method.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Forcing Functions

A forcing function is an aspect of a design that prevents the user from taking an action without consciously considering information relevant to that action. It forces conscious attention upon something and thus deliberately disrupts the efficient or automatised performance of a task.

Using a forcing function is self evidently useful in safety-critical work processes. It is however also useful in situations where the behaviour of the user is skilled, as in performing routine or well-known tasks. Execution of this type of tasks is often partly or wholly automatized, requiring few or no attentional resources and it can thus be necessary to “wake the user up” by deliberately disrupting the performance of the task. E.g. the operation of selecting, pressing delete, and confirming the deletion is simply so automatic that the user forgets to stop. If this file were an important system file, a mechanism for ‘waking up’ the user is needed as it would not be enough to simply display the same warning dialog that was displayed before deletion of the normal files. 

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Situational Feedback

Making thoughts, ideas and plans explicit by writing them down or by developing an artifact, we create situations which talk back to us. For example, architects use the backtalk of their work extensively. When sketching, unexpected patterns emerge, which are incorporated and maybe elaborated on in the drawing. Thus, the act of sketching is not only the conscious act of sketching the intended subject, but an interplay between the sketcher, the materials and possibly other situational constraints.

Situational backtalk is an important part of creative processes. Design is a “reflective conversation with the materials of the situation”. This suggests that externalized representations such as computer programs, oil paintings, and other artifacts are not simple projections of the designer’s intention. Instead they are products of the designer’s intentions, the materials and situational constraints.

Key sources: 2007, The Design of Future things

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

Personas

A persona is a description of a user archetype that can serve as a guide in the design process. A persona is synthesized from a series of interviews and work observations to create a simulated representation of certain target user population with its characteristics. Education, goals, skills, attitudes, job description and personal details such as name, education, marital status, and favorite sport are summarized for the characters.  

Acquiring the mindset of his persona, the designer can gain the insight of the personas and also their situation;”put himself into others” shoes without consult real users. The enactment can also help designers to understand how well the design complies with some of the expected users, their goals, and their enacted situational constraints.

Using personas is never a substitution for consultation with the real users but it is a quick-and-dirty way of user testing or brain-storming without the presence of users in order to solve current design problem.

Personas are also known as ‘user archetypes’, ‘target customer characterizations’, and ‘user profiles’.

Key sources: 2007, Designing for interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices

Contribution from: Ivan King Fai Lo

1. 1.    Scope

Describe the functionality that is included within the project.

Design a hand held electronic gadget

1. 2.    Completion Criteria

A fully functional handheld electronic gadget

1. 3.    Risk Assessment

There is a risk the device will not be fully applicable.

1. 4.    Constraints

It is an individual project. Time frame is limited in 28 weeks. There’s no technical support in university.  

1. 5.    Dependency Linkages

The function of the gadget depends heavily on engineering and interface design.

1. 6.    Impacts

Organizational change management, retraining, increases/decreases in operating budgets are example impacts.

1. 7.    Measures of Project Success

Customer satisfaction is measured from user testing and analysis.

1. 8.    Assumptions

Support and attention will be provided by the RMIT industrial design department; resources will be available to adequately staff the project in the workshop and computer lab.

D.  Project Estimates

1.  Estimated Schedule

Attached in the next page

2.  Estimated Cost

Keywords: Usability, cognitive psychology, interaction design, Gestalt principles of visual perception, Aesthetics, Heuristics

Abstract of the proposal

This paper presents the perspective that aesthetics can and should be a central focus of interaction design. As a starting point for a perspective of aesthetics, aesthetic design is defined as sensor-emotional values and intellectual reflected from art, culture and nature and to explore the new ways of seeing and perceiving the world. The study of aesthetics comes from a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste. This perspective of aesthetics is presented in terms of design values, methods, and reasoning. I believe the appreciation for aesthetics can extend to interface’s presentation layer. The paper proposes the understanding of the material effects of particular interaction design and several principles to guide an aesthetic Interaction design. This paper illustrates design critique for interactive artefacts of how to create a more engaging design, not only visually but also in task flow, interaction and behaviour. Finally, a conclusion of incorporating aesthetics into the research and practice of interaction design is described.

Introduction

Twenty years ago, when personal computers were first becoming popular, they were mostly used as either professional tools or games machines for teenagers. Now the situation has changed radically. Now everybody – kids, parents, grandparents – use them every day, at work, at school, at home, everywhere with the hand held mobile phones can access the internet in order to access endless and enormous amount of information and enhance global communication. Appropriateness is needed depending on users.

We are situating at the consumer stage of technology that people are less interested in the technology in itself than in what it can do for them. They don’t want to spend much time learning how to use it and hate being patronized. This current stage in the use of computer and telecommunications technology is used by a wide range of no experts who purely just wasn’t to use it to pursue everyday lives.

This experience convinced me that designers have an important role to play in creating information technologies. In the same way that industrial designers have shaped our everyday life through objects that they design for our offices and for our homes, interaction design is shaping our life with interactive technologies – computers, telecommunications, mobile phones, and so on. So that we need to design computer technology differently to make it a graceful part of everyday life. I believe a beautiful and intriguing computer technology should consist both emotive and functional qualities.

It describes the challenges designers face in making this powerful technology fit easily into people’s everyday lives, rather than forcing their lives to fit the dictates of technology, that is to design from usability to sociability.

Problem

Interaction Design (ID) is the discipline of defining the behaviour of products and systems that a user can interact with. Its application is outside the electronic gadget and technology. It focuses on the behaviour of an artefact or system in response to its users. This is where affordance required, ‘action possibilities within the context. The system relied on self-education, thus it encourages self-discovery.

The presentation layer from the interaction and behavioural layer is inseparable. A failure of a menu’s presentation leads to a great difficulty for users to engage the system and its behaviour. Interaction design is a primarily a business endeavour and has a few attempts at practice of combing aesthetics and critique. There is a lack of the tangible aspects that can be used to formalize a creative process or a critique of aesthetics.

Methods

This is a great opportunity to introduce ‘arts’ to deliver aesthetics through a handheld size electronic gadget. The performance of dance is a good example of showing how the body interact and communicate with audience. The aesthetics of dance integrates many elements through the choreography. Visuals —line, form, position, space, colour, etc.; music (audios) —tempo, melody, rhythm, tone, key, etc.; costume— aspects as period, style, and colour contribute heavily to the aesthetics of a performance; movement—synchronization with the music, fluidity, dancer interaction, etc.; lighting—colour, intensity, focus, movement, spacing, etc. Flow—what happens before and after a given moment; context—what other elements exist within the system and in its environment; responsiveness—when users act on the system, how it lets them know that something is happening, and whether it is what they wanted. All of the above suggests an evocation of senses, emotions and intellects.

Gestalt principles of visual perception

Aspects of line, colour, weight, type, volume, space, etc. Contextualized and holistic design solutions are definitely needed with using grouping elements of the visual field are according to laws like Proximity, Similarity, Closure, Symmetry, Common fate and Continuity within both business and consumer environments in order to develop a clear and communicative information architecture system to improve the usability and to deliver a pleasant interaction experience.  

Progressive disclosure

As technologies are often overly complex for their intended target audience, I aim to minimize the learning curve to increase accuracy and efficiency of a task without diminishing usefulness. The objective is to reduce frustration and increase user productivity and satisfaction. (progressive disclosure)

Design Research

I attempt to improve the usability and experience of the product, by first researching through design research and understanding certain users’ needs and then designing to meet and exceed them. (Figuring out who needs to use it, and how those people would like to use it.)

Only by involving users who will use a product or system on a regular basis will designers be able to properly tailor and maximize usability. Involving real users, designers gain the ability to better understand user goals and experiences. There are also positive side effects which include enhanced system capability awareness and user ownership.

Throughout the process of interaction design, designers must be aware of key aspects in their designs that influence emotional responses in target users. The need for products to convey positive emotions and avoid negative ones is critical to product success. These aspects include positive, negative, motivational, learning, creative, social and persuasive influences.

Affordance

A computer-based system is designed not just how it looks like but how it behaves that is the quality of how we and it interact. A machine can respond like a human e.g. iPod dial, the combination of sound and feel is telling what the user doing. The qualities of interaction must be appropriate to the context.

Cognitive psychology

Certain basic principles of cognitive psychology provide grounding for interaction design. These include mental models, mapping, interface metaphors, and affordances.

Others

• A well-designed system has reassuring feedback, so that we know what we’ve done when we‘ve done it.
• Navigability, another essential element with things that are primarily on screen to let you know your orientation and where to go and how to get back.
• Consistency, a certain command in one part of the system should have the same effect in another part.

Reference

1. Bill, M. 2006, Design interactions, the MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts

2. Dan, S. 2006, Designing for Interaction: creating smart applications and clever devices, New Riders, London

3. Norman. D, 2007, The design of future things, basic books, London