Usability Goals and Design

Principles

Usability Goals
User Experience Goals
Generic Design Principles
 Usability Goals
• Designers produce primary usability objectives
throughout the process of requirements gathering
• Should the system promote efficiency over
creativity, both, or any other objective?
• These primary objectives are referred to as usability
goals and user experience goals
• A usability goal addresses the issue of meeting a
specific usability criteria
• A user experience goal is concerned with the
quality of the user’s experience with the system

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 Usability Goals
• Usability goals need to be specified for optimizing
user interactions

• Some usability goals include:

– Effectiveness
– Efficiency
– Safety
– Utility
– Learnability
– Memorability

• Parts of a system may have different goals:

– Accounting routines (efficient, safe)
– Scheduling routine (memorable)

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 Usability Goals
1. Effectiveness
– Most general goal
– Concerned with whether the system is
doing what it generally says it will do

– Question: is the system doing what it is

supposed to do?
• e.g. word processors

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 Usability Goals
2. Efficiency
– Effective, ok; but efficient?
– Consider saving user’s time in performing task
– Systems that require the least number of steps
are usually considered as being efficient

– Question: is the user saving any time/being

productive with the system?
– Criteria: time to complete a task; # of
operations to complete a task
• e.g. automated cashiers at grocery stores
• e.g. winnipeg police dept.

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 Aurora

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 Aurora

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 Aurora

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 Usability Goals
3. Safety
– prevent making serious/unrecoverable errors
– provide means of recovering from errors
• undo options, confirmation dialogs

– Question: does it prevent users from

making/recovering from serious errors? does it
jeopardize the well-being of the user or others?
– Criteria: number of errors/time to recover from
error
• e.g. air traffic control system
• e.g. ATM

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 Usability Goals
4. Utility
– sufficient functionality to accommodate range
of users tasks

– Question: does it provide sufficient functionality

for users to carry out tasks as naturally as
possible?
– Criteria: availability of core tasks
• e.g. accounting packages

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 Usability Goals
5. Learnability
– important if system will be adopted by the user
– need to identify how much time users are willing
to spend to learn the system

– Question: can primary (core) and secondary

tasks be learned quickly and easily?
– Criteria: time to learn a task, errors made in
learning a task
• e.g. smartphone?
• e.g. cinema ticket dispenser?

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 Usability Goals
6. Memorability
– concerned with how easy to remember once
learned
– important goal to include if systems will be used
infrequently
– Should the designer include meaningful icons,
menu items, etc…

– Question: will users remember all the steps used

for carrying out a task?
– Criteria: errors made in carrying out a task after
system is learned
• E.g. an interface to a digital camera

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 Activity
How long should it take to learn to use the following
products? How long does it actually take? How
memorable are they?

(a) Using a VCR to prerecord two programs

(b) Using an authoring tool to create a website

(c) Downloading and using torrents

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 Activity
a) Recording using a VCR would require a
degree in nuclear physics! It should be a
task that takes only a few minutes, but yet
so many configuration steps are required
that I know some users who have given up
trying. If its memorable, its because the user
really wants to use it. (to be fair though, it
usually can be learned after trying hard a
few times)

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 Activity
b) It should not take more than several
minutes to learn a web authoring tool. In
fact these days, most packages will
allow one to publish content in web
format, making the task less daunting.
Some more complex operations will take
longer, but in general web authoring
tools seem to have come a long way. (I
still like notepad for the basic things!)

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 Activity
c) Torrents. What do you say?

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 User Experience Goals
• One goal could be to build systems that
are more than usable

• They should enhance the user’s

experience

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 User Experience Goals
• A set of user experience goals include:
- Satisfying: productive
- Motivating: did not feel like giving up
- Enjoyable: no frustrations were encountered
- Aesthetically pleasing: subjective
- Fun: excited about using it again
- Supportive of creativity: drawing tools
- Entertaining: games
- Rewarding: sense of productivity
- Helpful: clueless but still made it through
- Emotionally fulfilling: evokes emotions/online
chatting
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 User Experience vs. Usability
• Usability goals could take primary importance but
not always

• User experience goals are not easily measured

• In some cases less-usable systems increase the user

experience, indirect relationship (nintendo foot
pads for racing vs. hand pads/joysticks)

• Have to balance the tradeoffs between user

experience and usability goals, i.e. be selective

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 does not scale well
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 http://now.sprint.com/nownetwork/

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 Class discussion

What are the key usability and user

experience goals of these systems:

a) a cinema ticket dispenser

b) an Internet application that allows the
general public to access their medical
records via TV
c) a car-based GPS

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 Activity
• The following are criteria for the usability goals of a
cinema ticket dispenser:
– Learnability: can a user of the cinema’s automated ticket
dispenser learn to use the system for the first time in less than 2-3
minutes?

– Memorability: if a user of the ticket dispenser has not used the

dispenser in 2 months, will he/she be able to user it properly
again?

– Efficiency: will the user of the ticket dispenser be able to select,

purchase and get a ticket in less than a couple of minutes?

– Note: when you select a criteria for a particular goal, it has to be

measurable and allow one to compare specific answers.

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 Exercise
Think about two appliances at your home.

1) What would be the most important usability and

user experience goals for these devices?

2) Translate the core goals outlined above into two

or three criteria (specific and measurable)

3) Do you feel the designers of these appliances

satisfied the goals you outlined above?

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 Exercise
• Provide 2-3 examples of applications in
which several user experience goals were
‘sacrificed’ for the benefit of the overall
usability.

• And vice versa, think of a couple of

applications in which the usability goals
may have not been met for the purpose
of enriching the user’s experience.
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 Exercise
• An example of the first: telephony billing system
which is not fun and enjoyable but yet more
efficient than driving the car to the local hydro
company, finding a spot to park, waiting in line and
paying the bills.

• An example of the second: a drawing utility used by

artists, which can support creativity (user
experience goal) but will not provide the same level
of efficiency or even as effective as done manually.

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 Some light reading
The Design of Everyday Things
• (Don Norman)

The Soul of a New Machine

(Tracy Kidder)

The Mythical Man-Month

(Frederick Brooks)

Leonardo’s Laptop: Human Needs

and the New Computing
Technologies
(Ben Shneiderman)

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 Generic Design Principles
• Generic “rules of thumb” that describe features of
“usable” systems

• Guidelines of what to include and what not to

include when designing an interface

• Derived from practice, theory, and research

• Used later in heuristic evaluation and referred to

then as usability principles
- user involvement not required
- catches early on many design flaws

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 Design Principles (Layers)
Generic Design
Principles

Platform/Environment Industry Wide Corporate Wide

Specific Principles Guidelines Guidelines
(eg. Motif, Mac/Desktop, www) (eg. Health-Care) (eg. IBM)

Product Line User Base

Guidelines Requirements
(eg. Formware)

Product Specific
Guidelines

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 Generic Design Principles
• Visibility • Matching

• Feedback • Minimizing memory load

• Constraints • Diagnose/Recover errors

• Mapping • Control and freedom

• Consistency • Flexibility

• Affordance • Provide Help

• Simplicity
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 Design Principle #1 - Visibility
• For more detailed descriptions read Don Norman’s
“The Design of Everyday Things”

• Visibility
– Advocates the use of making core user functions clearly
apparent (toolbars vs. menus), hides secondary user
functions
– Visible properties guides users into what to do next
– Structure enhances visibility

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 Design Principle #1 - Visibility

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Structure can enhance visibility

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http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/24/windows-8-start-button-free-download/

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 Design Principle #2 -
Constraints
• Constraints
– restricts the kinds of user actions that can
– take place for any given mode of interaction
– provides people with a range of usage
possibilities

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 Design Principle #2 -
Constraints

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 Design Principle #3 -
Feedback
• Feedback
– continuously inform the user about the system’s state
– how it is interpreting the user’s input
– user should at all times be aware of what is going on

What’s it
> Doit Time for
doing? > Doit
This will take coffee.
5 minutes...

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Design Principle #3 - Feedback

What mode
am I in now?

What did I
select? How is the
system
interpreting
my actions?

There is a direct relationship between the amount of feedback and the

user’s Gulf of Evaluation

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 Design Principle #3 -
Feedback
Should be as specific as possible, based on user’s input

Best within the context of the action

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 Design Principle #3 -
Feedback
Multiple files being copied,
but feedback is file by file.

No indication of the files

being installed but still
gives %

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Design Principle #3 - Feedback
• Response time
– how users perceive delays
• 0.1 second max: perceived as ‘instantaneous’
• 1 second max: user’s flow of thought stays
uninterrupted, but delay noticed
• 10 seconds: limit for keeping user’s attention focused on
the dialog
• > 10 seconds: user will want to perform other tasks while
waiting, i.e. get a cup of coffee

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Design Principle #3 - Feedback
• Dealing with long delays
Cursors
• for short transactions

– Percent done dialogs

• for longer transactions
– how much left
– estimated time
– what it is doing…

– Random Contacting host (10-60 seconds)

• for unknown times

cancel

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 Design Principle #4 -
• Mapping
Mapping
– relate controls to the intuitive understanding of
–how they should be used,
• e.g: mapping of down and up arrows on a scroll bar to the
•movement of a document on a screen
– the natural relationship between two things
arbitrary paired full mapping

back front back front back front front back

right left left right

24 possibilities, requires: 2 possibilities per side

-visible labels, memory =4 total possibilities

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 Design Principle #5 -
Consistency
• Consistency
– Consistent results
• same words, commands, actions will always have the same
effect in equivalent situations  leads to predictability
– Consistent language and graphics
• same information/controls in same location on all screens /
dialog boxes
• forms follow boiler plate

Ok Cancel Cancel Ok Ok Done Never Mind Accept Dismiss

Cancel

– Consistent input
• consistent syntax across complete system
• “Ctrl+C”/“Ctrl+V” for Copy/Paste in Windows

CONNECT MODEM
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 Design Principle #5 -
Consistency

These are labels with a raised

appearance.

Is it any surprise that people

try and click on them?

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 Design Principle #5 -
Consistency

Should these be radio buttons? (try it in powerpoint XP)

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 When can inconsistent design
help?

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 Design Principle #6 -
Affordance
• Affordance
– the perceived and actual fundamental
properties of the object that determine
how it could possibly be used
– gives appropriate clues about using
certain features of the interface
• i.e. a button “affords” pushing

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 Design Principle #6 -
Affordance
– appearance indicates how the object
should be used
• chair for sitting
• table for placing things on
• knobs for turning
• slots for inserting things into
• buttons for pushing

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 Design Principle #6 -
Affordance
– complex things may need explaining, but
simple things should not

– real affordances apply to physical objects

(i.e. grasping), but interfaces exhibit
perceived affordances

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 Perceived affordances – relying on metaphors
Sliders for
sliding
Dials for
turning
Buttons for
pressing (?)

Is this a
button?

A button is for pressing,

but what does it do?
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 Some non-obvious visual affordance
A button is for Visual affordances
Is this a pressing, but for window controls
graphic or a what does it do? are missing!
control?

Text is for editing, but it doesn’t

do it.
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 Example of a bad affordance
Handles are for lifting, but these are for scrolling

from AudioRack 32, a multimedia application

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 Design Principle #7 - Simplicity
• Common tasks should be easy to perform

• Provide only the necessary, “less is more”

• Don’t give users extra problems to solve

• Information should appear in a natural order

– related information is graphically clustered
– order of accessing information matches user’s expectation

• Remove or hide irrelevant or rarely needed

information
– competes with important information on screen
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 Design Principle #8 - Matching
• Match between system and real world
– speak the user’s language

My program gave
That’s
me the message No, no… Rsdrd
restricted But surely
Rstrd Info. you can tell Info stands for
informatio
What does it “Restricted
n me!!!
mean? Information”

Hmm… but It means the

program is too Ok, I’ll take a
what does it coffee
mean??? busy to let you
log on

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 Design Principle #8 - Matching
• Terminology based on users’ language for task
– e.g. withdrawing money from a bank machine

• Use meaningful mnemonics, icons, and abbreviations

– e.g. File/Save
• Ctrl + S (abbreviation)
• Alt FS (mnemonic for menu action)
• Save folder (tooltip icon)

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 Design Principle #8 - Matching

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Design Principle #9 - Minimizing memory load
• Computers are good at remembering things,
people aren’t!

• Promote recognition over recall

– menus, icons, choice dialog boxes vs command lines, field
formats
– relies on visibility of objects to the user (but less is more!)

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Design Principle #9 - Minimizing memory load

How long would it take an average user to read this? Is this within
our capacity for short-term memory? Might chunking the information help any?

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Design Principle #10 – Diagnose/Recover errors

• Errors are inevitable, users will make them!

• Errors we make
– Mistakes:
• arise from conscious deliberations that lead to an error
instead of the correct solution

– Slips:
• unconscious behavior that gets misdirected en route to
satisfying a goal, e.g. drive to store, end up in the office

• shows up frequently in skilled behavior

– usually due to inattention

• often arises from similarities of actions

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 Types of slips
• Capture error
– frequently done activity takes charge instead of one intended
• occurs when common and rarer actions have same initial
sequence
– change clothes for dinner and find oneself in bed
– confirm saving of a file when you don’t want to delete it

I can’t
believe I
pressed
Yes...

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 Types of slips
• Description error
– intended action has much in common with others that are
possible
• usually occurs when right and wrong objects physically near
each other
– pour milk into bowl instead of glass
– go jogging, come home, throw sweaty shirt in toilet instead of
laundry basket
– move file to trash instead of to folder

• Loss of activation
– forgetting what the goal is while undergoing the sequence
of actions
• start going to room and forget why you are going there
• navigating menus/dialogs and can’t remember what you are
looking for
• but continue action to remember (or go back to beginning)!
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 Types of slips
• Mode errors
– people do actions in one mode thinking they are in
another
• refer to file that’s in a different directory
• look for commands / menu options that are not relevant

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 Designing for slips
• General rules
– Prevent slips before they occur
– Detect and correct slips when they do occur
– User correction through feedback and undo

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 Designing for slips
• Examples
– mode errors
• have as few modes as possible (preferably none)
• make modes highly visible, eg. edit/view modes
– capture errors
• on top of confirmations, make actions undoable
• allows reconsideration of action by user
– e.g. Mac trash can be opened and “deleted” file taken back
out
– loss of activation
• if system knows goal, make it explicit
• if not, allow person to see path taken
– description errors
• in icon-based interfaces, make sure icons are not too similar
• check for reasonable input, etc.
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 Generic system responses for errors
• Gag
– deals with errors by preventing the user from continuing
• eg cannot get past login screen until correct password entered

• Warn
– warn people that an unusual situation is occurring
– when overused, becomes an irritant
• e.g.: audible bell, alert box

• Self-correct
– system guesses legal action and does it instead
– but leads to a problem of trust
• spelling corrector
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 Generic system responses for errors
• Do nothing
– illegal action just doesn’t do anything
– user must infer what happened
• enter letter into a numeric-only field (key clicks ignored)
• put a file icon on top of another file icon (returns it to original
position)

• Lets talk about it

– system initiates dialog with user to come up with solution to the
problem
• compile error brings up offending line in source code

• Teach me
– system asks user what the action was supposed to have meant
– action then becomes a legal one
• Learning systems
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 Be helpful with error messages

A problematic message to a nuclear power plant operator

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 Sample error messages
No other choices provided!

“This action will not save the game”

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 Sample error messages

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 Guidelines for error messages
• Shneiderman’s guidelines for error messages
include:
– Have a positive tone: avoid using terms like FATAL, INVALID,
BAD
– Be specific and address the problem in the user’s terms:
avoid obscure internal codes
– Put users in control: tell them what they should do to
recover and continue
– Use a consistent interface and comprehensible format
– Audio warnings should not be embarrassing
– Provide context-sensitive help, F1

• Centralize error handling:

– If all error messages are centralized, they can be easily sent
to users/testers for their evaluation
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 Activity
• Re-write the following common error messages using a
friendlier language. The message should explain the cause
and suggest a method for fixing the problem. For each
message imagine a context in which the problem will occur:

– SYNTAX ERROR
– INVALID FILE NAME
– INVALIDE DATA
– DRIVE ERROR: ABORT, RETRY OR FAIL?

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 Activity
• There is a problem with the way you have written
the command. Check for typos.

• You cannot use ‘/’ or ‘?’ in a file name. Please

choose another file name.

• This field will only accept numeric data. Try again,

checking that only numbers are used.

• There is a problem with reading your disk. Try

inserting it again.

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 Design Principle #11 - Control
and freedom
• Provide clearly marked exits How do
I get
out of
this?

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 Design Principle #11 - Control
and freedom
• Users don’t like to feel trapped by the computer!
– should offer an easy way out of as many situations as possible

• Strategies:
– Cancel button (for dialogs waiting for user input)
– Universal Undo (can get back to previous state)
– Interrupt (especially for lengthy operations)
Core
– Quit (for leaving the program at any time) Dump

– Defaults (for restoring a property sheet)

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 Design Principle #12 - Flexibility
• Shortcuts: Experienced users should be able to
perform frequently used operations quickly

• Strategies:
– keyboard and mouse accelerators
• abbreviations
• command completion
• menu shortcuts
• function keys
• double clicking vs menu selection
– navigation jumps
• e.g., going to window/location directly, and avoiding
intermediate nodes
– type-ahead (entering input before the system is ready for it)
– history systems
• WWW: ~60% of pages are revisits
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 Design Principle #12 - Flexibility
Keyboard
accelerators for
menus

Customizable
toolbars and
palettes for
frequent actions

Split menu, with

recently used
fonts on top

Double-click
raises toolbar
dialog box

Double-click
raises object-
specific menu

Scrolling controls
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increments
 Design Principle #13 – Provide
Help
• Help is not a replacement for bad design!

• Simple systems:
– walk up and use; minimal instructions

• Most other systems:

– feature rich
– some users will want to become “experts” rather than
“casual” users
– intermediate users need reminding, plus a learning path

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 Types of help
• Tutorial and/or getting started manuals
– short guides that people are likely to read when first
obtaining their systems
• encourages exploration and getting to know the system
• tries to get conceptual material across and essential syntax

– on-line “tours”, exercises, and demos

• demonstrates very basic principles through working examples

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 Types of help
• Reference manuals
– used mostly for detailed lookup by experts
• rarely introduces concepts
• thematically arranged

– on-line hypertext
• search / find
• table of contents
• index
• cross-index

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 Types of help
• Reminders
– short reference cards
• expert user who just wants to check facts
• novice who wants to get overview of system’s capabilities

– keyboard templates (wordperfect)

• shortcuts/syntactic meanings of keys; recognition vs.
recall; capabilities

– tooltips (hints)
• text over graphical items indicates their meaning or
purpose

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 Types of help
• Context-sensitive help
– system provides help on the interface component the
user is currently working with
• Macintosh “balloon help”
• Microsoft “What’s this?” help
– brief help explaining whatever the user is pointing at on the
screen

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 Types of help
• Wizards
– walks user through typical tasks
– but dangerous if user gets stuck

• Tips
– migration path to learning system features
– also context-specific tips on being more efficient
– must be “smart”, otherwise boring and tedious

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 From Principles to Goals
Usability Principle Usability Goal(s)
Visibility Efficiency
Feedback Memorability
Constraints Efficiency, safety
Mapping Effectiveness, efficiency, learnability, memorability
Consistency Learnability, efficiency, memorability
Affordance Learnability
Simplicity Memorability, efficiency, learnability, good utility
Matching Efficiency
Minimizing memory load Memorability, learnability, efficiency
Diagnose/Recover errors Safety
Control and freedom Safety, memorability
Flexibility Efficiency, memorability
Provide Help Safety, efficiency, learnability
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 Exercise
• How would the design principles covered apply to
websites? and to PDAs? are they significantly
different?

• Construct your own set of design guidelines for a

product you will be developing (such as the
project).

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 What did we cover
• Purpose for setting usability and user experience goals

• Types of usability and user experience goals

• Balance between choice of usability and user experience

goals

• Design principles  usability principles in evaluation

• A set of 13 principles

• Adhering to the principles promotes designers’ usability goals

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 Self-Review
• How to select usability goals for a product?

• Should you compromise a usability goal for a user-experience

goal?

• When should design principles be compromised?

• When does a UI designer apply design principles?

• Why is the design principle of consistency superfluous?

• Look at the assignment at the end of Chapter 1

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