An overview of how human needs, limitations and expectations drive our perception of reality and interface.

1. Week Six
User-centric Design
Wayne MacPhail

2. Online Journalism
JOU-732
Wayne MacPhail
wmacphail@gmail.com
University of Western Ontario

3. Overview
• The Why of Bad Design
• The Realities of Being Human
• Know Thy User
• How to Know Thy User

4. Bad Design
The hated remote The hated Meridian
phone system
• Complex
• Arcane
• No cues
• Inhuman(e)

5. Good Design
• Elegant
• Easy
• Adored

6. Why the Difference?
LOVE HATE

7. Why Design Fails
• No communication
• Geeks like buttons
• Mechanists vs. Humanists
• No understanding of human factors

8. When Design Works
• Listening well
• One button
• Human focus
• Accessible elegance

9. The Realities of
Being Human

10. Count the Passes

11. Realities of being human
Our experience
of the real world
is filtered through
our imagination,
our senses,
expectations,
limitations and
memories.

12. We can be absolutely
blind to data
we don’t expect.

13. Being Human
• Our short-term
memory is fragile,
limited and easily
taxed.
• Our long-term
memory
compresses events
and is unreliable.

14. Realities
• Limited
bandwidth -
especially
when busy or
focussed
• We are easily
distracted

15. We often
believe people
experience the world
the same way we do.

16. Human Nature
We understand
symbols,
conventions,
narratives, patterns
and scripts.

17. Being Human
We don’t always
have the full function
of our senses, brains
or limbs.

18. Human experience
We don’t all share the same pool of
human experience and cultures

19. Social Relations
We easily form social relationships,
especially under stress.

20. We Satisfice

21. We need feedback.

22. You must understand these realities
to design effective interfaces for
other
human beings.

24. User Interface Design
• Users?
Variety of birds.
• Their goal?
Getting food.
• Their interface?
The perches.
• The design?
In progress.

25. User Interface Design
Prototype
Simple iterative design
Interface supports the users and
their goals

26. Rule #1
“Know thy users for they
are not you.”

27. Who is the user?
• Who are they?
• What do they need?
• What do they want?
• What are their expectations?
• What are their limitations?

28. Rule #2
“If you want to know
your users, you have
to spend time with
them.”

29. Maybe they’re not
like you at all
• Younger
• Older
• Busy
• Color blind
• A “Newbie”
• A senior citizen
• Impaired

30. Sites for Sore Eyes

31. Probably, they don’t care
• About your cool design
• About your graphics
• About your buttons or code
• Your Flash program
….unless it helps them find
what they want to find.

32. Rule #3
“Your user is on a mission,
and it isn’t to learn how
great you are at building a
fancy web page.”

33. User Hell Site

34. Learning From
Your Users

35. Fact Finding Methods
• Competitive Analysis
• User Needs Assessment
• Surveys
• Interviews

36. Competitive Analysis
• Research other sites for your niche
• Research other sites for niches like your
niche
• List features, note language, pay attention to
graphic design
• Don’t take them as the gold standard

37. User Needs Analysis
• Start open-ended and wide
• Probe for emotions, language
• Discover needs, goals
• Probe for limitations, environment
• Don’t limit choices

38. Surveys
• You want to find out who they are and what
they want.
• Keep the list under 10 questions
• Between 5 and 10 minutes to complete
• Use yes/no questions and open ended

39. Interviews
• Choose people to represent your user
groups.
• Decide what you want to learn.
• Write up a protocol and question list.
• Ask questions in a neutral manner. Take good
notes.

40. Contexual Interviews
• Go to where the users work or play.
• Watch them closely.
• Combine this with a regular interview for
more information.

41. Wayne MacPhail
wmacphail@gmail.com
wmacphail