Interaction Design
Fundamentals of Interaction Design
Many months ago I sucked up my trepidation and signed up for the Type Boot Camp sponsored by the team at Sprowt. I was happily blown away with the quality of the workshop, the instructors, and the materials. That day Sprowt gained a huge fan.
Fast forward several months, and a few UX book club meetings / lunches with the Sprowt team later, and… voila – they asked me to help out with their upcoming Fundamentals of Interaction Design Workshop Series!
I believe Sprowt’s mission to help designers make the transition from the university to a professional career is good one… and one which I’m honored to support. This workshop series is going to be a great one – I hope you can join us!
Boise UX Book Club – February
Join the Boise UX Book Club in February for lunch and good UX discussion!
When:
Thursday, February 2nd
11:30am – 1:00 pm
Where:
Papa Joe’s on 1301 S. Capitol Blvd.
The Book:
Seductive Interaction Design by Stephen Anderson
Even if you don’t read the book, come to the meeting to talk about what makes a compelling and engaging web experience. This discussion is perfect for UX professionals, web designers/developers, content strategists, or anyone interested in consuming italian food with other really smart people.
Look at a few of the awesome people that have already told me they will be there: @Lenalou, @jhessing, @ryanlascano, @stevenorell, @kerryca, @erendrake , @tichelle and of course, I’ll be there too (@garyjanderson).
See our discussion on Twitter via the #BoiseUX hashtag, or follow @BoiseUX for future updates!
I’m really excited for this month’s book club meeting; Stephen Anderson’s work has never disappointed me!
See you there…
Good, Evil, and the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Interaction
Weekends are great. They provide me with the opportunity to end my slumber with a period of “restful alertness” where I can lie still in my bed and just think about things. It is during this time that I oftentimes ponder unusual concepts or have thoughtful breakthroughs.
This morning I started thinking about good and evil. First, I asked the question: “what is evil?” After some mental handwringing, I ultimately settled on this definition: “an action which creates harm.” As you would guess, the next question then became, “so what is good?” My thought: “an action which creates benefit.”
Scenarios began to play out in my mind and I began to categorize them… evil, good, evil, evil, good, good.
And then pause…
The classical ethical scenario: A mom steals from a store to give food to her starving children. Hmm… evil and good.
My pondering continued – how is an action ultimately characterized if it both harms and helps?
A matter of scale.
Wait. Simple cost-benefit analysis.
Flashes back to Economics 101 and a hauntingly memorable statement from the professor: ”If the cost outweighs the benefits, DO IT!”
The connection to the world of user experience was immediate.
All actions that a user takes are predicated on the outcome of a simple cost-benefit evaluation.
If the perceived benefits of doing this will outweigh the perceived costs, I should do it. As users, we are always making conscious (and many more subconscious) decisions about what we should do next. As such, I’m reminded that when designing interactions, this singular question, this focused lens, is a good one to use to evaluate the experience an interaction will yield.
Luckily, there are so many levers that can be pulled to adjust an interaction and make the outcome a positive one for the user:
- Reduce the costs: Simplify the interaction or speed it up. This can be accomplished by improving the design (more intuitive), reducing steps, increasing processing speed, etc.
- Increase the benefits: Improve the outcome (or even just the perception of the outcome) and make sure your user understands this payoff exists.
- Make the interaction engaging: Far from smoke-and-mirrors, simple improvements to the aesthetics and enjoyability (fun) of the interaction itself helps the user obtain benefit prior to the ultimate payoff.
After I rolled out of bed, I immediately Googled up “Benefits Costs Interactions,” and of course, found that (as expected) I didn’t just have an interaction design breakthrough – this is a well-documented concept. In fact, it is a concept that I know I’ve studied before which just had the misfortune of becoming buried in the mental clutter.
Regardless, I did applaud my brain (yes, I treat it as a third-person muse) for reminding me of such a simple concept and the importance it has when we design interactions.
UI15 Notes
The learning at User Interface 15 was intoxicating. While nothing can take the place of “being there,” I thought you might enjoy looking at my very raw notes from a few of the sessions at the conference.
These notes have been heavily influenced by the visual design thinking concepts presented by Dan Roam and Dave Gray. Additionally, if you want even better examples of how information from the User Interface Conference can be displayed visually, turn no farther than the excellent work of Jason Robb – his sketch notes from UI15 (and UI14) are impressive.
Dave Gray – Gamestorming:
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Luke Wroblewski – Mobile First:
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Dan Rubin – Hands-on Prototyping with HTML/CSS:
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Jared Spool – Anatomy of a Design Decision:
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Enjoy!
Design Lessons from a Zombie Apocalypse
I can’t blame Halloween for the fact that I woke up thinking about zombies. Sure, if there is any day where it is completely legitimate to think about ghouls and ghosts, then today is the day. Unfortunately, I must confess that I think about zombies a whole lot more than just one day of the year. In fact, when I step back to really think about it, I realize that I think about and interact with zombie themes a whole heckuva lot: I play games with zombies, I read about zombies, I watch zombies in TV shows and movies, and for the coup de grace of nerdiness, I continually ask my spouse “what would our next move be here if a zombie apocalypse was happening right now?!?”
Luckily, before I finished packing my bag for some self-imposed R&R at the local sanitarium, I realized something very important – I’m not alone here.
Zombies and the concept of a zombie apocalypse are hot right now: They are everywhere in the media, our entertainment, and the collective American cultural psyche. In fact, I’ve heard some people complain this trope is so prevalent that they are personally suffering from “zombie fatigue.” Luckily, a reminder to these dissidents about the alternatives out there right now (sparkly vampires, tweenyone?) usually jostles them to their senses – there are worse fixations.
Regardless of your personal state of undead malaise, we are still left with a question: why do we keep talking about zombies?
This is where I slide into my arm-chair psychologist… er, consummate user experience researcher role – and start to dissect the question and develop some hypotheses.
Of course, this analysis circles back to the concept of experiences and how we can apply what we learn from these stories to everyday user experience design.
(And yes, I recognize that segway is as rotten as the corpse-laden topic itself. Hrrmph.)
Lesson 1: Good design features intuitive goal(s)
A central theme of a good zombie apocalypse story is always the same: the last remnants of human society attempt to survive in an apocalyptic world where everyone else is a zombie. It is “us vs. them.” It is a story with a pinpoint focus, a singular goal: survive.
When we interact with something – whether it is a website, an appliance, or a game, we approach that interaction with a goal or a set of goals.
Without speaking a word (or guttural roar), the fictional zombie apocalypse provides the reader/viewer/player with a singular goal that we get easily. In fact, we get it intuitively. The zombie apocalypse story doesn’t need to educate you about the goal – you just know it. Good interactions are oftentimes the same – you don’t need to be educated – you know it. You see a door handle, you pull it. You see a piece of delicious food, you eat it.
Good design understands the goals its users will have, and makes sure it is as intuitive as possible for users to successfully pursue those goals using the design.
Lesson 2: Users like control
If you Google “zombie apocalypse,” a popular theme appears: tips and tactics for surviving. Much of the excitement of the fictional zombie apocalypse scenario comes from the mental questioning process we go through when we observe the story’s protagonists. Questions such as “what would I do here?,” or “what should they do next?” are commonplace when you are participating in such a story.
The zombie apocalypse scenario provides us with a platform where we get to explore two things we really enjoy: the ability to control our destiny (decision making) and the opportunity to learn.
From a design perspective, an important concept is well known: “always keep your users in control.” For example, in a well-designed website, a user will know where they are at and understand (or be able to easily find) where they want to go next. Zombie fiction excites us by ever-so-slightly toying with the lever of control without wresting that control away from us. In zombie fiction, all the basics are still understood – unlike in sci-fi or fantasy, where the question may be “how does this work,” the question is more like “what do I do next?” Good zombie fiction doesn’t destroy the basic rules of the world (other than the leap of faith that zombies can exist), so the viewers maintain a semblance of control that is focused on future action.
Good design provides users with the opportunity to explore an environment that makes sense to them in a manner which they choose.
Lesson 3: Users like to learn
As mentioned in lesson 2 above, zombie fiction prompts us to ask “what do we do next?!?” This question is a prompt for exploration, of which exploration is fundamental to learning, and of which learning is a fundamental human need. We already talked about how the rules of the world haven’t changed in a zombie apocalypse. However, the change of context (we must survive!) forces us to look at how we must interact in new or different ways.
Survivors are challenged to develop a course of action (plan), execute that plan (act), assess the effectiveness of that plan (evaluate), and then repeat this process ad infinitum. The constant challenges our survivors face are intriguing, but it is how our survivors go about tackling these challenges that is so exciting; even more so when the alternative to successfully accomplishing the goal (survival) is death.
Good design (especially game design) provides continual opportunities for exploration (i.e. learning) and the sense of accomplishment that comes from the learning process.
Lesson 4: We are social beings
A core theme found in the zombie apocalypse mythos is that of a small band of survivors who must stand together against the horde of zombies and the ravages of the new world they live in. Even better zombie fiction begins to explore what happens to these humans (and their interactions) when they are subjected to the pressures of this new world. The same itch that is scratched with reality TV is explored in this fiction. In fact, if you look at it mechanically, the zombie apocalypse is really just window-dressing for an elaborate play of human interaction.
This is the same for technology and design. Good design never forgets why it is there. Even better design acknowledges that it will play a role in the interactions of more than one human and their interactions with each other. Someone once noted (was it Clay Shirky?) that every technology will eventually be used in a social context. A zombie apocalypse gives us a window into how a design (the survivors’ plans for survival) play out in a social environment. Zombie stories are not exciting because of the zombies; they are exciting because of the people in these stories.
Good design not only takes into account its use by a singular person, but also the potential use by many people and/or its role in a larger sociological environment.
Just remember: bad design is just as scary as undead, flesh-eating zombies.
Happy Halloween!
p.s. – if you like mixing your user experience/usability discussion with zombies, you may also want to check out Craig Tomlin’s “Be a Usability Zombie” post.
Tabbed browsing acclimation
I recently completed some usability testing on an e-learning training module. This e-learning is launched in a browser and utilizes on-screen controls within the browser window to handle the navigation of the e-learning (forward, back, etc.). In our testing, users were able to use these controls to navigate through the e-learning successfully.
However, there was something noteworthy that occurred regarding browser tabs.
But first, some context. The client who commissioned this usability test had recently upgraded their corporate desktops from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7. The delay in doing so (IE7 was released in 2006!), was due largely to a variety of in-house applications that only worked correctly with IE6. Until those applications could be updated, the company was stuck on the less-current version of Internet Explorer.
You astute readers probably already guessed where this is headed. IE7 had a very important new interaction that was not in IE6: tabbed browsing. As such, interactions that in IE6 would cause new browser windows to pop up would now show up as new tabs in IE7.
In this study, several links (which were seen as clickable by users, thanks to good use of blue/underline link appearance conventions) were clicked by users.
Almost 20% of the participants tested did not see the new tabs that were created by clicking on these links.
This statistic is not so surprising once I mention another little detail: when the users clicked the links, a new browser tab did appear… but the focus remained on the tab that the user was currently on. Users that were more acclimated to the newer tabbed-browsing convention successfully “found” the new tab, because they (1) either assumed their interaction would create a new tab or (2) they were pre-disposed to check the tab locations to “see if there is a new tab/window..”
The 20% who did not see the tab mentioned that they thought that “the link must be broken.” In some cases, they executed multiple clicks of the links (launching multiple tabs) but still did not see the new tabs. These users went through the full e-learning missing whole pieces of content and a post-course feedback survey.
I had a few good professional reminders from this study:
1. Always remember the user’s background/experience/context. Although I personally am very acclimated to tabbed browsing, I cannot assume others are the same. Looking at the big picture in this case (i.e. learning that the transition from IE6 to IE7 was a recent one for the client) helped to further explain what may be going on here and helped to provide context for this discovery.
2. Outcomes should align with user’s expectations. Users expected something to happen when they clicked the links. Although something did happen, it was not visible to many of the users. These users quickly made the assumption that something was broken. One recommendation that was provided to the client was to ensure that the focus would move to the new tab when the link was clicked. Since we did not test with this option, it would be interesting to see if users would then know how to find their way back to the correct tab with the e-learning. Perhaps a more intensive solution is necessary?
3. Although you might be using IE8, Mozilla, Chrome, Opera, or Safari, there are a lot of other people that are still using IE6. NetMarketShare reported as of June 2010 that IE6 was still approximately 17% of the market share for all browsers surfing the web. The learning here: new technology/software/practices/etc. take a long time to permeate through an open marketplace if users are not forced into an upgrade path.
Conventions are important. Unfortunately, new “conventions” (a la tabbed browsing) take a lengthy time for acclimation before they truly become “conventions,” and even then may still be conditional for select audiences.