MSE UCD Unit1 WS1718

WS 2017/18
Dr. Verena Seibert-Giller
User Centered Design

Unit 1
Content of this course
1rst Class Session
– Psychological Basics – perception and mental models
– UX and Usability criteria
– UCD process overview
1st Remote Session

2nd Class Session
– Analysis types (Task, Context…) Home assignment
– Prototyping / Design
2nd Remote Session

3rd Class Session
– Evaluation Home assignment
3rd Remote Session

4th Class Session
– Standards & Norms Home assignment
2
This UCD course is a MASTER course
That‘s why I will provide you with
▪ a lot of practical insights, examples, exercises and little

theory
▪ Quite a lot of psychology
▪ and some „recipes“ , abc stepwise procedures
So that you can understand relevant issues and learn to

apply them in different settings!
© 2014 Seibert-Giller
3
TODAY
▪ Experience your brain – mental models etc
▪ What is usability? User friendliness ?

▪ What are the benefits?
▪ What is User Centred Design (UCD)?
▪ Exercises, examples, practical issues …
4
TODAY

▪ Who are the stakeholders?
5
I will now show you a foto – very briefly
6
UCD is about …
7
www.stadtindianerin.com
What did you see?
8
9
www.stadtindianerin.com
Your brain has to use well known concepts in order to
construct the picture „correctly“ in your brain!
10
A submarine drives/floats in dark,
mountainous, foreign areas of the
sea.
The submariner (captain) is inside

an cannot directly use his own
human sensory equipment to
navigate.
11
Everything the captain (you) need to know about:
• Where you are
• Where, how, at what speed etc. you are moving
• What your surrounding water, plants, animals, structures are like
• If your submarine is functioning properly
• Whether your submarine needs special technical attendance
• Etc.
comes from technical systems which somebody else
built in order to fulfill the special purpose of the
submarine
• Tourist tours, military reasons, supply/logistics etc…
12
As long as these systems
• work properly and flawless
• deliver the data the captain needs for decisions for his
current tasks
• deliver the data in the appropriate presentation,
organisation and level of detail
• do not deliver the data the captain does not need at a
that moment
• have a sense of what the captain might want to know
even if he does not ask for it
• adapts to new contextual issues
• AND the submarine remains with in its intended use
scenario
everything will probably be fine.
13
Our brain sits inside/in the dark of our heads and in order
to control the body (and everything along) it is
depending on the inputs it gets from the sensory system.
14
The captain in the boat receives only
data / information that was decided to be
relevant during the development of the ship.
Filtering, organisation and (most)

interpretations have been hardwired in the
development – it is highly specialized!
The brain in our head receives all the

sensory inputs that evolution has brought up
to be helpful/relevant to our survival,
reproduction and socializing.
First filtering takes place in the sensory

system (frequencies for seeing, hearing; skin
feelings etc.).
But the amount of sensory inputs is still

by far to big! Reduction to 0,1% of the
input is required!!
15
Street food festival
16
http://www.hdrinc.com/portfolio/agile-workplace
17
verbraucherfenster.hessen.de
18
Reducing the amount of sensory data
▪ Cannot be done consciously – by far too much

– Autists, savants have problems with these reductions!
© 2016 Seibert-Giller Autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire on his third day of drawing the New
York skyline from memory 19
▪ Reduction of the enormous amounts of sensory inputs is

done by the brain - without us noticing it!
▪ The brain “takes” all the data, that the sensory system delivers
and filters, reorganizes and INTERPRETS it without us noticing
this!
▪ And THEN we become AWARE of the inputs from the outer

world - only 0,1% of the original sensory inputs remain to be our
reality!
20
▪ How does our brain decide what to let through to the
consciousness?
▪ Priority 1: Remember our main purpose: survival,

reproduction and socializing
– Our brain focuses on everything that motivates or endangers
these
– That’s why “sex sells” and “fear is a bad motivator”
▪ Priority 2: in modern life see next slides
21
Sensory – biological – experience – culture – values – interests – psychology - expectation
22
Example of filters: buying a car
▪ You are thinking of either buying car type A or type B.
▪ Suddenly it appears to you as if by far more A’s and B’s
are on the road than before!?
▪ Your “brain knows” that these cars types are currently
important to you and supports you by showing them to
you!
▪ After you have bought car A you will carry on seeing many
A’s, but the B’s will decrease.
23
Example of filters
And the same principle is true for almost anything:
- Babies
- Bicycles It happens
- Countries and we
- Plants
- People can’t turn
- Music that off!
- Etc. etc. etc.
24
One option to influence what we
become aware of: Focusing our attention
▪ When we concentrate on something we target our

cognitive / perceptional resources – make the most out of
the 0,1%!
▪ But then we miss out much of the context and other things
happening - but they are still there…!! (e.g. traffic)
▪ We are not capable of real multi tasking!
– We switch attention within milliseconds and it feels like
multitasking
– Imagine our world is a dark stage - we have only 1 spotlight
25
This is what you need!
If you design
a system
If you go for this… you end up with this!
26
Focusing our attention
▪ Do you want to focus your users attention on your system?

▪ No, not quite…
▪ Better: you want the user to concentrate on his task

without even “noticing” that he is handling a system
– When get money from the ATM you don’t pay much attention
to the system but to the amount, the division of banknotes …
– Like a tennis player who doesn’t think about his racket
27
Focusing our attention
You want the user to concentrate on his task
>>> therefore you need to know his tasks
– and not only the systems functionalities
– Including the “things” his brain will be looking for: domain
words, graphics…
– Including the “things” that might mislead his brain!
You want to know what the contexts will be like, with which
the users brain has to deal – share the 0,1% !
– That will make it much easier to design an UX the user can
concentrate on!
28
Starbucks.com
29
Conclusio
99,9% of the ”seemingly objective” reality (physical reality)
around us is neglected and the remaining 0,1% have been
individually interpreted by our brains before we become
aware of these!
99,9% of our perception is coming from inside ourselves!
So nobody will ever share the same reality with someone

else!
What does this mean for our handling of / dealing with
any kind of system?
30
Time counts…
We decide within less than a second whether we like a
website / app or not!
Our brain applies our knowledge/experience (internals!) to
check:
▪ whether it will probably be easy to find your way around
– structure, known concepts, wording..
▪ whether the visual design is appropriate for the content we
want
– Colors, no visual noise, culture…
31
Time counts…
If our brain is positive about the site:
we are at ease, open minded and task oriented
If our brain is NOT positive about the site:

amygdala (a brain region connected to fear) is
(slightly) activated
our brain is stressed, narrow minded, flight
oriented and therefore less successful in tasks
32
▪ I will now – only for a short glimps - show you a website
33
34
What is your impression of the site?
What content/function/company/organization might it be for?
Where is the mainmenu?
35
Another one
36
37
And one more
38
39
Beware of the influence of content and banner!
40
▪ I will now show you a picture of a man for 2 sec.
▪ Afterwards you shall (very briefly) sketch what you saw
41
http://mrkoachman.com/best-beard-styles-for-bald-men
42
Now sketch
43
http://mrkoachman.com/best-beard-styles-for-bald-men
44
Your brain concentrates on seemingly important aspects
(glasses, beard …)
and it does not interpret the missing upper part of the head as
important enough to „tell you“ – to make it concious to you
If I had asked you to sketch his hairstyle you would have

noticed > focused attention
45
There is no visual cue that there is content beneath –
no reason for your brain to target your attention towards the bottom end
46
Not only visual perception is an interpretation of „reality“
Auditory:
48
Ordering a cake on the phone….
49
www.cakewrecks.com
50
The BRAIN of the person on the phone taking the order
focused the attention on the auditory perception and the
concepts of “words” in order to get that right
but it neglected the content interpretation!
And then the person baking the cake was stupid enough not
to rethink it….
51
52
Do you think you can rely on people
to think and act
as you expect to be
„logical“ and appropriate?
NO THEY DON‘T
53
What does this tell us about the development of any
kind of software, app, product or system??
We have to learn how users WILL

approach our system
perceive our system
and „try to“ interact with it
BEFORE we develop it!
54
And that is what
USER CENTERED DESIGN
is all about!
Developing systems that will support the users in

whatever he wants to do/achieve in reality and
supported by the respective system!
55
Or expressing it differently:
Developing systems for brains that are

“feed” by their users internals and
have to fight with the context of use
to be within the 0,1% of the sensory data that reach
and keep the awareness of the user !
56
What is the problem with this
57
What is the problem with this
If somebody never uses a

dishwasher he/she will
probably never have
experienced remaining water in
this area! 58
Why are so many systems still difficult to use?
Because the users „have to“ act as the

developers / designer expect them to act.
But developers / designers have a completly

different mental model of the future system!
Consider the 0,1% input
59
Mental models
implementation model representation model mental model
▪ A mental model is the representation of a system in a

persons mind
▪ We all have thousands of mental models in our minds
▪ If a user’s mental model is not presented in a system (user
interface) he is not likely to succeed in it’s usage!
60
Mental models
Mouse IBM Hotline
61
62
Mental models
▪ What happens if
– you are in London
– you walk into a restaurant
– you see a free table on the other side of the room
– you walk to the table …………
▪ You apply your mental model of how a visit to a restaurant

works
▪ What happens to a British person, who visits an Austrian
restaurant?
63
64
Mental models
▪ Our mental models develop in the course of time
– Individually depending on experience, interests,
culture, social environment …
– Our mental models also influence our perception (think
of the 0,1%)
▪ E.g. depending on were you grew up
– USA Mailbox, sink, Christmas traditions, …
– Food in china, eating dogs and snails…
▪ E.g. on what profession we have
– Mechanic sees a car differently from an office employee
65
Mental models
▪ User Centered Design is very much about exploring
the users mental models and representing them in the
respective system.
From general tasks to minor UI elements
66
Mental models
Underlying mental model: sorted list
Underlying mental model: timeline

“next”
There is no right or wrong!

Solution: DropDown Listbox, visually providing choices
67
Playing with mental models
68
Cultural differences with mental models
69
6 8
70
71
Explain a concept to people (users)
▪ How can you explain a complex system ?
▪ You always refer to known structures, elements…(mental
models!)
– Analogies (“works like”, “Imagine a xxx”)
– Purpose and function “What can I do (gain/achieve) with it?
– User group
– Looks (size, colour, material….)
– Feeling (temperature, material, texture…)
– Sound
– Size and weight
72
What does this have to do with UX ?
▪ You have to “Use” users mental models for your system
– E.g. colouring an object on a screen
– You will probably use Icons (and text)
73
74
Tarifrechner auf post.at
Die LÄNGE ist nicht

eindeutig definiert >>>
Das Bild wir proportioal
größer
75
How do I adress / activate a mental model?
I will show you words – please read them aloud
76
Hammer
77
Picture
78
Hanging
79
What is a
Nail ?
80
How do I evoke or adress a mental model: Prim
• Your brain consists of a network of nerve cells (neurons)
• Their negative electric charging constitutes the depth of the
cognitive storage (activity and recall) of respective content
• Neighbouring neurons are decreasingly activated (negativeley
charged) whenever a neuron is activated (> priming)
• The more negative the charging of a neuron (neural area): the
quicker and easier is the recall of respective content
© 2012 Seibert-Giller 81
How do I evoke or address a mental model
By providing “guiding” cues (content such as pictures,
words, sounds, smells, haptic feelings, etc.) which are
semantically close to the mental model that I want your
brain to “use”!
Priming takes place anyhow: if you do not use it, it can

happen in a way that is contra dictionary to what you
want!
82
83
84
Which handbag is most appropriate for a visit to the opera?
Post.at you perceived the same as an envelope
85
Mental model directed perception
▪ Users probably have a mental model about how a

system works
– from an old (or other) IT system
– from the real world (remember the sewing machine)
▪ They apply this mental model
▪ If this mental model doesn’t fit, the user fails in his
task – but might never understand why!
86
Why are so many systems still difficult to use?
▪ because the users have not been included in the

development processes!
▪ because other people tried to imagine what the real
users might need or want – with a differing mental
model!
▪ You can NEVER know what your users think, expect,

apply, feel or want unless you ask, watch and include
them!
87
TODAY

88
What is usability?
User friendliness ?
89
What is usability? - Standards & Norms
▪ ISO Norm 9241 - 110
The extent to which a product can be used by specified

users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness,
efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use.
90
What makes a system usable?
▪ Jacob Nielsen’s Usability criteria
– Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic
tasks the first time they encounter the design?
– Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly
can they perform tasks?
– Memorability: When users return to the design after a period
of not using it, how easily can they re establish proficiency?
– Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are
these errors, and how easily can they recover from the
errors?
– Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
91
What is most important?
Learnability
Efficiency
Memorability
Errors
Satisfaction
Plant Control System
Online Bookstore
92
What is most important?
Learnability
Efficiency
Memorability
Errors
Satisfaction
Navigation system
Burglar alarm
Who is using it?

93
What is usability? - Users
▪ Usability depends on who is using it!
▪ Only if the targeted user group finds it easy to use it can be
called usable!
– Developer, designers do not count!
▪ The user groups can be rather homogeneous or almost
“anybody”.
E.g. air traffic controllers <-> car navigation system users
▪ If a system is available for everybody that does not mean that
everybody is the targeted user !
Here you have to seek the business strategy, the marketing
plan!
94
TODAY

95
What are the benefits of a usable system ?
96
What are the benefits ? 1/2
What are the benefits of a truly usable system?
– Efficient work
▪ time spent on task
– Less errors
▪ time spent on recovery actions in user interface
▪ Time and costs of severe errors (critical for safety
systems)
– Decreases training costs
97
What are the benefits ? 2/2
What are the benefits of a truly usable system?
– Decreased necessities for help systems,
documentations
– High user satisfaction, motivation
▪ Employee benefit
▪ Higher conversion rates (web/ user > buyer)
– Higher system sales likeliness
98
How can these benefits be measured?
▪ Defining the eligible metrics
– Time, clicks, errors…
– Completed tasks
– Cancelled, interrupted tasks
– Sign ups
– Requested support
▪ Measuring with real users before / after redesign
▪ Measuring to check predefined benchmarks
▪ Apply, calculate and analyze valid statistics
99
TODAY

100
What is User Centred Design (UCD)
▪ … is a product (user interface) development process in
which the user’s needs and his mental model are the
driving force at each stage of the development process.
▪ User’s need‘s include
– What does the user want to do with the product?
– What are the contextual problems that he wants to solve?
– How does the user want to do this?
– What are the capabilities and limitations of the users?
– Do they have sufficient domain knowledge?
– And many more, as we will see later in this course!
101
User Centered Design - UCD
102
What is UCD – Analysis Types 1/2
▪ User analysis
– It’s about being inquisitive,
nosy about future users
– substantiate the users, build
personas
▪ Tasks analysis
It’s about seeking the real every day
usage scenarios of the system and then
think about potential exceptional
situations
103
What is UCD – Analysis Types 2/2
▪ Contextual analysis
What will the surrounding be like,
when the users use your product?
(noisy factory, silent beach, crowded
train, single office, standing/sitting,
time pressure, many interruptions…)
▪ Competitive analysis
It‘s about learning from comparable
systems, avoid their mistakes, learn
from their best!
104
What is UCD - Analysis
▪ Numerous methods for each type of analysis are
available
▪ Select the appropriate method (mix of methods)
depending on :
– Who is the future user group?
– Are users available?
– Are there legal, organisational constraints? (e.g.
Unions)
– Timely and financial restrictions
– Planned system
– Available experts, personnel
105
What is UCD - Analysis
Example: Research project 1995
– With Nokia, IDEO and others
– Target: Local community‘s communicational behaviour, how can
this be enriched by modern technologies
– Mobile phones where at that time just entering our lives
▪ mainly business, still text based
– We analysed a local community (kids, parents, friends, school,
neighbours…) in Finland (near Helsinki)
– Discussions, interviews, creative workshops
– Field tests with technology in back bags
– Imagine: A mobile phone with photography functions came
up!! Including: picture exchange, editing, …
106
What is UCD – Design / Prototyping
▪ Don’t expect to get it right at the first attempt!
▪ Iterative process
▪ Iteratively evaluations of designs with users
▪ Develop scribbles and (later) prototypes that
matches your need at that point of the process
best
▪ often only a quick & dirty or paper&pen mock up
perfectly serves the purpose
▪ Software prototypes that only present the UI
▪ Limited functional parts of the software UI
(horizontal, vertical)
▪ ….
107
What is UCD – Evaluation / Validation
▪ Making sure you are doing things right on
behalf of the users and:
– to avoid necessary changes in the UI due to
minor usability
– to avoid missing functionalities, contents,
navigational elements
– to keep to budgets
– to keep up motivation in your team
– and because you learn a lot about users on every
project!
– and (once you accept users struggling with what
you thought is perfect!) it can be fun!
108
An evaluation will provide concrete data on the
respective user interface parts
– What is right and can remain as it is
– What is wrong, amiss and should be changed,
added
– How to change wrong/amiss parts
▪ Making sure you change things for the better
rather than for the worse
109
▪ Numerous methods are available to choose
from
▪ Depending on
– the questions you want to address (or problems
to solve)
– your timely or financial constraints
– available experts (domain, usability…)
– type of the system
– state of the user interface / system
– availability of users
110
Example: Evaluation / Validation 1/2
– Early Teleshopping / entertainment / social care system from
the Siemens group
– Target group: elderly people, living at home but not leaving
the house
– TV set top box, special visually designed screen, and remote
control (Sizes, colours…)
111
Example: Evaluation / Validation 2/2
– Recruiting in home for elderly people, unexpected problems
– Evaluation set up:
▪ Always 2 elderly people together (overhear their chatting)
▪ Duration per team and “Time on tasks” variation
extremely high
▪ Prior technology knowledge limited to TV and Radio
▪ Mental models difficult to capture
112
The End
QUESTIONS?
113

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WS 2017/18

Dr. Verena Seibert-Giller

User Centered Design

1st Remote Session

2nd Remote Session

3rd Remote Session

That‘s why I will provide you with

▪ a lot of practical insights, examples, exercises and little

So that you can understand relevant issues and learn to

▪ What is usability? User friendliness ?

▪ Exercises, examples, practical issues …

▪ What is usability? User friendliness ?

▪ Exercises, examples, practical issues …

The submariner (captain) is inside

Filtering, organisation and (most)

The brain in our head receives all the

First filtering takes place in the sensory

But the amount of sensory inputs is still

▪ Cannot be done consciously – by far too much

▪ Reduction of the enormous amounts of sensory inputs is

▪ And THEN we become AWARE of the inputs from the outer

▪ Priority 1: Remember our main purpose: survival,

▪ When we concentrate on something we target our

If you go for this… you end up with this!

▪ Do you want to focus your users attention on your system?

▪ Better: you want the user to concentrate on his task

So nobody will ever share the same reality with someone

If our brain is NOT positive about the site:

What content/function/company/organization might it be for?

Where is the mainmenu?

▪ Afterwards you shall (very briefly) sketch what you saw

If I had asked you to sketch his hairstyle you would have

We have to learn how users WILL

BEFORE we develop it!

Developing systems that will support the users in

Developing systems for brains that are

If somebody never uses a

Because the users „have to“ act as the

But developers / designers have a completly

Consider the 0,1% input

implementation model representation model mental model

▪ A mental model is the representation of a system in a

Mouse IBM Hotline

▪ You apply your mental model of how a visit to a restaurant

Underlying mental model: sorted list

Underlying mental model: timeline

There is no right or wrong!

Die LÄNGE ist nicht

I will show you words – please read them aloud

Priming takes place anyhow: if you do not use it, it can

Post.at you perceived the same as an envelope

▪ Users probably have a mental model about how a

▪ because the users have not been included in the

▪ You can NEVER know what your users think, expect,

▪ What is usability? User friendliness ?

▪ Exercises, examples, practical issues …

The extent to which a product can be used by specified

Who is using it?