Designing Interactive Systems

--A fusion of skills

PACT Framework
-People, Activities, Contexts,
Technologies

We are Interactive Systems Designers…

What is our goal?

to design interactive systems that are
enjoyable to use, that do useful things and
that enhance the lives of the people that use
them.
We want our interactive systems to be
accessible, usable and engaging.
How to Achieve this?
Using human-centred approach.

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 In the past…

Unfortunately, the design of

computer systems and
products in the past has not
always had a good record
of considering the people
who use them…..

….Now
In the days of the Web, issues of usability
are critical to e-commerce.
Before the immediacy of e-commerce,
usability problems were only discovered
after purchase.
On the Web, customers look at usability
first!
People are becoming more critical about
the design of products and systems

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 Mark Weiser:

“Machines that fit the human environment

will make using a computer as refreshing as
taking a walk in the woods.”

What are Interactive systems?

They are components, devices, products and

software systems concerned with processing
information.
They deal with the transmission, display, storage or
transformation of information that people can
perceive and that respond to people’s actions
That includes such things as phones, web sites and
washing machine controllers

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 So what is interactive systems
design about?
Design – What is design and how to do it?
Technologies – the interactive systems, products,
devices and components themselves
People - who will use it, who will be affected by it?
Activities and contexts - what will people have to
do in what circumstances?

What is design?
‘It’s where you stand with a foot in two
worlds – the world of technology and the
world of people and human purposes – and
you try to bring the two together.’

Mitch Kapor in Winograd (1996), p. 1

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 People and technologies….
People are Machines are
The machine- Vague Precise
centred view

Disorganized Orderly
Distractible Undistractible
Emotional Unemotional
Illogical Logical

…. are different!
People are Machines are

The people- Creative Dumb

centred view

Compliant Rigid
Attentive to Insensitive to
change change
Resourceful Unimaginative
Able to make Constrained to
flexible decisions make consistent
based on context decisions

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 The User Interface
All those parts of the system we come into
contact with…
Physically we might interact with a device by
pressing buttons or moving levers and the
interactive device might respond by providing
feedback through the pressure of the button or
lever.
Perceptually the device displays things on a
screen, or makes noises which we can see and
hear.
Conceptually we interact with a device by trying
to work out what it does and what we should be
doing. The device provides messages and other
displays which are designed to help us do this.

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What are the user interfaces here?

Figure 1.6 Various user interfaces.

Sources: Horstmann Controls Ltd; Hewlett-Packard Ltd.

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 Various user interfaces: remote control; microwave; palmtop; and
Xbox controller
Source: (a) Fujitsu; (b) © D. Hurst/Alamy Images; (c) Gareth Boden/Pearson Education Ltd. (d) Microsoft Limited

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Tabs, pads and boards

Source: (tl) Justin Sullivan/Getty images; (bl) Comstock/Alamy Images; (r) Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

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 The user interface
Input
 some methods are needed to enter commands (tell the
system what we want it to do)
 We also need to be able to navigate through the
commands and the content of the system
 We need to enter data or other content into the system
Output
 So the system can tell us what is happening - provide
feedback
 So the system can display the content to us.

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Designing interactive systems

…. is more than just designing the user
interface …. is more than designing the input,
output and content
It is about designing the whole human-
computer interaction
It is about designing the human-human
interaction that is often enabled through
devices
It is about designing whole environments of
interlinked devices and objects

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 Being Human-Centred
We take a human-centred approach to
designing interactive systems. That means…
 thinking about what people want to do rather than
just what the technology can do
 designing new ways to connect people with people
 involving people in the design process
 designing for diversity

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 Where are we heading?..

What will the future be?....

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The Skills of the Interactive Systems Designer

Knowing about people

 Sociology, anthropology, psychology, culture
Knowing about technologies
 Software, communications, materials, databases, etc.
Knowing about activities and contexts
 Communities of practice, information systems,
organizations, knowledge management
Knowing about design
 Fashion, interior, information design, architecture,
product design

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 Disciplines contributing to interactive systems design

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Why being human-centred is important?

Safety
Effectiveness
Ethics

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 Challenge

Imagine that you are put in charge of a design team that is

to work on a project investigating the possibility of a new
set of Web services for a large supermarket. These services
will allow connection from any fixed or mobile device from
any location, allowing food items to be ordered and
delivered. The client even wants to investigate the idea of a
‘smart refrigerator’ that could automatically order items
when it ran out.
What range of skills might you need and which subject
areas would you expect to draw upon?

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