Jolene Noyes
Journal on Textbook
May 25, 2008
Journal
Interaction Design
Beyond human-computer interaction
This paper outlines a journal of how the textbook affected, influenced and took me through these weeks of learning.
April 9, 2008
Journal Entry for Chapters 1, 2, 3
Well, I really like the book. It is well written and easy to read and understand. In Chapter One, discusses what interaction design is. It is the way of designing objects that takes into consideration not only the people who make it, but the people that use it. I feel that the eventual users are such an important factor. This is because I end up being the user in many designs.
Chapter 2 is Understand and Conceptualizing Interaction. It is essentially on figuring out the problem space or how to design a system. Where do you start? How do you continue? I noticed that the examples used (VisiCalc and Star) were precursors to Windows technology. I had not known there were these. One of the good points of this chapter was in one of the dilemmas they talked about the many different ways that you can now do things in computer programs. In other words, for copying, you can use the tool bar, you can use a right-click, or you can use a CTRL-C. I believe these are really good designs intended to let people (users) choose their own best way of doing something. My personal is the right-click and then to choose copy. However, in my email, this does not work, so I use CTRL-C. Anyways, I believe these options are very “desirable.”
The chapter also goes through types of interaction – Instructing, conversing, manipulating and exploring. Each of these types has an advantage. Instructing is telling users how to make things happen. Conversing is simply making computer and web design down to a conversational level. It can be very good for children and inexperienced users. I don’t particularly like conversational, say, search engines. But, then again, I am going to be and have been a librarian. This generation of software is not very useable for me. I have not had much experience with manipulation other than, I suppose, my manipulation of the keyboard and mouse. Exploring is a broad term. For me, this includes all web searching as well as actively trying out new programs. I do this a lot.
Chapter 3 starts to get a little out there for me. It is on Cognition and what that means to users and programmers. I understand (I am cognate!) that this means understanding and “…what goes on in our heads…” It goes more into cognitive subjects and “frameworks.” I got that this is the premise for designing. You have to know HOW people think in order to design items that will benefit them in some way.
The next few chapters look like a lot more to take in and understand.
April 10, 2008
I have never really been so aware of the motivations that go into designing Web programs or software. The “people” type things such as emotions.
April 12, 2008
Chapter 4 is more on design for the purposes of collaboration and communication. Like I said before, I was never aware that so much went into the design of web programs or software that is just centered around people. For communications, Chapter 4 discusses social mechanisms such as synchronous and asynchronous communications, communication via video phones, electronic meeting rooms, and whiteboards. For collaboration, there is discussion of schedules, rules, and awareness issues. It is becoming more and more prevalent to have people collaborating on work in an instant. Much like we are attempting to do in this class.
Chapter 5 deals with the emotional aspects of computer communication. Affective aspects. These can be such things as emoticons or typed simples for various expressions. There are also aspects of negative emotions. Such as what a program that does not work will give you. Waiting is another one. This is one that I have to deal with more often than I want to. My computer is 7 years old and just gets behind once in a while. It is very frustrating. Another section in Chapter 5 deals with anthropomorphism. What a mouthful for something as simple as human emotional feelings being put with non-human items. I do this all the time with my animals. Giving them what are human traits.
April 17, 2008
Chapter 6 is on interfaces and interactions. What this deals with are the kind of systems and how they interface. Such as command interface, which is what CP/M was all about. Using commands to “get through” to your computer. Then there is GUI which is what we are using now. The various forms that this takes are window design, menu design, and icon design. Also included in interfaces are virtual reality, visualization, pen, gesture and touchscreens, and speech motivated systems. There are also mobile interfaces and other types of cell phones, such as those using Braille. While I use the window design and menu design most of these other interfaces are far beyond me and I just don’t have time to learn or encompass them. There are interactive interfaces just as robots. These just seem beyond my comprehension right now, although I would welcome the time and opportunity to get into some of them.
Chapter 7 is on data gathering processes. I have some experience with that as a person who belongs to a couple of survey groups on the internet. Basically, this chapter goes over the processes of interviews, observations, and questionnaires. There is a lot more to this than I have thought. I just answer these surveys on the internet, but I realize now how much thought goes into not only the types of questions but the methods that are used to design them.
The next chapter (8) discusses how to get something out of the previous chapter’s data gathering. You can get quantitative data – that is data that is in the form of numbers and can be manipulated with numbers. Secondly, you can receive qualitative data which is like opinions and feelings with no overt way to read it. Interestingly enough, I am taking a statistics class at this time and finding it very challenging and very interesting. Chapter 8 goes into how to present and summarize your findings.
Chapter 9 goes into the actual design process – how to take everything out of the previous chapters and put them into use. So you have all the user options, the feelings involved in design process, the surveys and questionnaires and how to put them all to work. Again, user involvement is talked about and the importance of and how to use them. It goes into the four basic forms of interaction design.
1) Identifying needs and requirements for the user experience.
2) Developing all kinds (alternative) designs to meet the above necessity.
3) Building interactive versions of these designs.
4) Evaluation – through the process and user reaction.
There appears to be a lot of “trying” things out in computer design. It is best if it is based on necessities and wants of the end results (users). But, I realize how unsuspecting I was of all this. I just get on my computer and things work (or don’t) but it never really occurred to me how much thought was being put into it. Of course, when things didn’t work, I did think of “not how much” thought had come into it!
May 12, 2008
Chapter 10 involves user cases which are step-by-step directions of how a user would get on the details and how would the computer or interface, answer the user. The hierarchical tasks that would be appointed to a general subject are represented here.
Conceptual design is acted out in Chapter 11. In other words, you take the task you are dealing with, and draft a design with things like the interfaces, the data, different scenarios, prototypes (without getting into a physical prototype), tools, and finally evaluation.
Onto Chapter 12, which outlines the various evaluation methods. Evaluation is an important step in the design of software so as to identify user abilities. This evaluation defers from the earlier type of evaluation which was one to ascertain the user desires and needs. This evaluation is used to determine what is required of a product that is in finishing stages. The three main approaches to this are usability testing, field studies, and analytical evaluation. Usability tests have the main characteristic of having a formal testing base, many times users are videotaped and logged in for their hours and finally, an evaluator is part of the process. Field studies are conducted in a more natural environment that makes for a further study of users operating in their normal scene. Finally, analytical evaluation is more of a guided heuristic tour of the product and subsequent evaluations.
May 23, 2008
Once you have outlined and completed your outline for evaluations, you have the contents of Chapter 13. This chapter deals with how to make these evaluations and how to format them. One of the main issues in this is the DECIDE method. This method covers the determination of goals, exploring the questions, choosing the evaluation approach and methods, identifying the practical issues, deciding how to cope with any ethical issues and finally, taking all the data and evaluating, analyzing, interpreting and presenting it.
Chapters 14 and 15 go more thoroughly into the cases of usability testing, field studies and analytical (heuristic) evaluations.
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May 24, 2008
My thoughts on the text were that it was well written and covered all the information for a beginner course. Some of the information was too well documented. In other words, there was room for repetition in a couple of the chapters and that got to be a bit cumbersome. On the whole, I probably would have enjoyed this class and the accompanying textbook.
There is so much associated with software and product development that I was not aware of. When I stop and think about it, I should have realized that all the evaluations and user studies would go into building of a computer product, but somehow it never really occurred to me. I, for one, just get on the computer, turn on my program and go. Never really thinking about how it was developed. So, I am glad for this knowledge. I will certainly think differently now. And, it is a good thing, although I am not a computer science major, nor have any desire to be, I am a computer user and need to be somewhat of an “expert” with relation to the patrons needs of a librarian. So, I feel that this textbook and the information in it were very helpful.
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