COMPUTER

1
 DESIGN PROCESS

❖ Know your Users

As we’ve already said, the start of any interaction design exercise must be the
intended user or users. This is often stated as:
“know your users”
Because this sounds somewhat like a commandment it is sometimes even written
‘know thy user’
Who are they? This question becomes harder to answer if you are designing
generic software, such as a word processor, as there are many different users with
different purposes and characteristics. A similar problem arises with many websites
where the potential visitors are far from homogenous. It may be tempting to try to think
of a generic user with generic skills and generic goals; however, it is probably better,
either instead or in addition, to think of several specific users.
Probably not like you! When designing a system, it is easy to design it as if you
were the main user: you assume your own interests and abilities. So often you hear a
designer say ‘but it’s obvious what to do’. It may be obvious for her! This is not helped by
the fact that many software houses are primarily filled with male developers. Although
individuals differ a lot there is a tendency for women to have better empathetic skills.
Talk to them. It is hard to get yourself inside someone else’s head, so the best
thing is usually to ask them. This can take many forms: structured interviews about their
job or life, open-ended discussions, or bringing the potential users fully into the design
process.
People may also be able to tell you about how things really happen, not just how
the organization says they should happen. To encourage users to tell you this, you will
need to win their trust, since often the actual practices run counter to corporate policy.
Watch them. Although what people tell you is of the utmost importance, it is not
the whole story. When black-belt judo players are asked how they throw an opponent,
their explanations do not match what they actually do. Think about walking – how do your
legs and arms move? It is harder than you would think!
Use your imagination. Even if you would like to involve many users throughout
your design exercise this will not always be possible. It may be too costly, it may be hard
to get time with them (example, hospital consultant), it may be that there are just too

Wheingelito Pascua
many (example, the web). However, even if you cannot involve actual users you can at
least try to imagine their experiences.

Wheingelito Pascua
 RECOMMENDED READINGS
A. D. N. Edwards, editor, Extra-ordinary Human–Computer Interaction, Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
D. J. Mayhew, Principles and Guidelines in Software User Interface Design, Prentice Hall,
1992.
E. B. Goldstein, Sensation and Perception, 6th edition, Wadsworth, 2001.
J. A. McDermid, editor, The Software Engineer’s Reference Book, Butterworth–
Heinemann, 1992.
J. Preece, Y. Rogers and H. Sharp, Interaction Design: Beyond Human–Computer
Interaction, John Wiley, 2002.
M. Helander, editor, Handbook of Human–Computer Interaction, Part V: Tools for Design
and Evaluation, North-Holland, 1988.
P. Dourish, Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction, MIT Press,
2001.
R. W. Bailey, Human Performance Engineering: A Guide for System Designers, Prentice
Hall, 1982.

REFERENCES
A. Dix, Upside down As and algorithms – computational formalisms and theory. In J.
Carroll, editor, HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Toward an
Interdisciplinary Science, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.

D. Olsen, User Interface Management Systems: Models and Algorithms, Morgan

Kaufmann, 1992.

D. R. Olsen, Propositional production systems for dialog description. In J. C. Chew and J.

Whiteside, editors, Empowering People – CHI’90 Conference Proceedings, pp.
57–63, Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM Press, 1990.

E. Tufte, Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire, USA, 1990, and E. Tufte, The
Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire, USA, 1997.
Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1983.

Wheingelito Pascua
J. A. Brotherton. eClass – Building, observing, and understanding the impact of capture
and access in an educational domain. PhD thesis. College of Computing and GVU
Center, Georgia Institute of Technology. 2001. Available at:
http://www.jasonbrotherton.com/brothert/thesis/Thesis.pdf

J. Greenbaum and M. Kyng, Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems,

Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991.

J. T. Hackos and J. C. Redish, User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, John Wiley,
1998.

M. F. Story, J. L. Mueller and R. L. Mace, The Universal Design File: Designing for People
of All Ages and Abilities, The Center for Universal Design, NC State University,
USA, 1998. Available at:
www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/pubs/center/books/ud_file/toc3b14.htm (last
accessed March 2003).

M. M. Gardiner and B. Christie, editors, Applying Cognitive Psychology to User-Interface

Design, John Wiley, 1987. S. K. Card, T. P. Moran and A. Newell, The Psychology
of Human–Computer

S. Bovair, D. E. Kieras and P. G. Polson, The acquisition and performance of text-editing

skill: a cognitive complexity analysis, Human–Computer Interaction, Vol. 5, No. 1,
pp. 1–48, 1990.

The Web Accessibility Initiative: www.w3.org/WAI/The World Wide Web Consortium’s

own project to make the web universally accessible.

X. Faulkner, Usability Engineering, Macmillan, 2000.

Human–Computer Interaction. (1998). In D. Hobbs, & D. Moore. Pitman.
Keyboards. (n.d.). Retrieved July 6, 2018, from KeyTIme:
http://www.keytime.com/classes/keyboards/
Trivedi, S. (2009, July 27). Visual Illusions#1 : The Vanishing Head Illusion. Retrieved from
Onionesque Reality:
https://onionesquereality.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/visual-illusions1-the-
vanishing-head-illusion/
User Interfaces. (2016, August 6). Retrieved from Geographic Information Technology
Training Alliance:
http://www.gitta.info/DBSysConcept/en/html/DBLanguages_learningObject3.ht
ml

Wheingelito Pascua