Interaction Design (ID) Process

ID is a process where the below steps take part in order to achieve a product or service that provides usability.

The four steps (see Figure 1) included for ID are first of all to establish the requirements needed in order to create the required service or product. Secondly, the designers must design some alternatives where designers must produce new creative ideas by researching and synthesising. Thirdly, is the prototyping which is actually about creating the new form of the product/service in order to get feedback for the potential users and for the designers to be able to fix/replace the features/functions. Finally, to evaluate the results of the product/service and start the whole process all over again (Rogers et al., 2011).

Figure 1: Interaction Design Process

References:

Rogers, Y., Preece, J. & Sharp, H., 2011. Interaction Design: Beyond Human - Computer Interaction. 3rd ed. s.l.:Wiley.

Metaphors Advantages and Disadvantages

Metaphors are used in different kind of interactive products in order to easily understand what a product is for and how to use it. 

There are the interface metaphors like the desktop used in computers to metaphor the meaning of having a virtual desktop which consists of other virtual metaphors illustrated in Figure 1 as the traditional desktop. 

Therefore it is used for visualising a process for example the Pinterest application which is actually a virtual board where someone can pin, like in real life, images and posts (Rogers et al 2011).

Figure 1: Metaphors

The advantages of using metaphors are:

• Firstly the opportunity of the individual to learn the systems and products easier. 
• Secondly it helps the users to comprehend the model applied. 
• Finally due to their innovation it expands the number of active users’ range (Rogers et al 2011).

The disadvantages are:

• Metaphors break the cultural protocols. 
• It implements conflict with the design principles and it can oblige designers on how to conceptualise a problem. 
• It averts the user to use computers without the use of metaphors. 
• It limits the imagination and it leads the designers to sometimes use bad existing designs into new products (Rogers et al 2011).

References:

Rogers, Y., Preece, J. & Sharp, H., 2011. Interaction Design: Beyond Human - Computer Interaction. 3rd ed. s.l.:Wiley.

 
 

What are the HCI Shneiderman's Principles?

All of the existing products and services are design based on the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Principles in order to be interactive and usable, in other words to be efficient, effective and obtain an enjoyable user experience (Rogers, et al., 2011). The main HCI Principles are five Visibility, Feedback, Constraints, Consistency, and Affordance although Shneiderman enhanced the rules in eight and Nielsen in ten principles. 

Shneiderman’s first rule is the “Strive for consistency”; it is about interfaces to have similar operations to be easier for the user and more familiar while using the application.

The second one is “Enable frequent users to use shortcuts”, which is related to the consistency of interfaces. In other words, to allow the user to be familiar with the shortcuts since they are similar to other existing interfaces’ shortcuts. 
 

Figure 1:  Consistency

Figure 2: Enable frequent users to use shortcuts

The third principle is “Offer informative feedback”; this has to do with the feedback main principle which is about the product/service inform the user that a task is on process and avoid any frustration. 

 

Therefore, “Design dialog to yield closure” is the fourth principle, related to feedback main principle, speaks for the actions must be categorised into three faces beginning, middle, and end in order to be easier and clearer to the user what steps must take into action. 

Figure 3:  Feedback

“Offer simple error handling principle” is the fifth rule which is relative to the constraints main principle, designing the product in such a way to reduce the possible actions that lead to frustrations. 

In addition to the constraints is the sixth rule “Permit easy reversal of actions”, lets the user to be able to undo actions to prevent serious errors and enable the user to feel free exploring unfamiliar functions. 

Figure 4: Constraints

The seventh principle “Support internal locus of control” is comprehended with the visibility and affordance since it gives the charge to the user by making clear and visible how the product operates and what step of actions must be done. 

Figure 5: Affordance

The final one “Reduce short-term memory load” represents the visibility rule of using simple images to be easier for the user to recognise with no need to recall; metaphors is a way of memory recognition since the icons are chosen refer to the words used in everyday life (Rogers, et al., 2011; Shneiderman, 2014).

Figure 6: Visibility

References:

Rogers, Y., Preece, J. & Sharp, H., 2011. Interaction Design: Beyond Human - Computer Interaction. 3rd ed. s.l.:Wiley.

Shneiderman, B., 2014. designprinciplesftw. [Online]
Available at: http://www.designprinciplesftw.com/collections/shneidermans-eight-golden-rules-of-interface-design
[Accessed 28 January 2014].