Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
and Design
Prof. David Gadish
Chapter 12
Designing Interfaces and
Dialogues
Learning Objectives
ü Explain the process of designing interfaces and
dialogues and the deliverables for their creation.
ü Contrast and apply several methods for interacting with a
system.
ü List and describe various input devices and discuss
usability issues for each in relation to performing
different tasks.
ü Describe and apply the general guidelines for designing
interfaces and specific guidelines for layout design,
structuring data entry fields, providing feedback, and
system help.
Chapter 12 2
Learning Objectives (Cont.)
ü Design humancomputer dialogues and
understand how dialogue diagramming
can be used to design dialogues.
ü Design graphical user interfaces.
ü Discuss guidelines for the design of
interfaces and dialogues for Internet
based electronic commerce systems.
Chapter 12 3
Designing Interfaces and
Dialogues
n Userfocused activity.
n Prototyping methodology of iteratively:
¨ Collecting information.
¨ Constructing a prototype.
¨ Assessing usability.
¨ Making refinements.
n Answer the who, what, where, and how
questions.
Chapter 12 4
Designing Interfaces and
Dialogues (Cont.)
Chapter 12 5
Deliverables and Outcomes
n Creation of a design specification.
n A typical interface/dialogue design
specification is similar to form design, but
includes multiple forms and dialogue
sequence specifications.
Chapter 12 6
Deliverables and Outcomes (Cont.)
n The specification includes:
¨ Narrative overview.
¨ Sample design.
¨ Testing and usability assessment.
¨ Dialogue sequence.
n Dialogue sequence is the ways a user
can move from one display to another.
Chapter 12 7
Interaction Methods and Devices
n Interface: a method by which users
interact with an information system.
n All humancomputer interfaces must:
¨ have an interaction style; and
¨ use some hardware device(s) for supporting
this interaction.
Chapter 12 8
Methods of Interacting
n Command line
¨ Includes keyboard shortcuts and function keys.
n Menu
n Form
n Objectbased
n Natural language
Chapter 12 9
Command Language Interaction
n Command language interaction: a
humancomputer interaction method
whereby users enter explicit statements into
a system to invoke operations.
n Example from MS DOS:
¨ COPY C:PAPER.DOC A:PAPER.DOC
¨ This copies a file from C: drive to A: drive.
Chapter 12 10
Menu Interaction
n Menu interaction: a humancomputer
interaction method in which a list of system
options is provided and a specific command
is invoked by user selection of a menu
option.
n Popup menu: a menupositioning method
that places a menu near the current cursor
position.
Chapter 12 11
Menu Interaction (Cont.)
n Dropdown menu: a menupositioning
method that places the access point of the
menu near the top line of the display:
¨ When accessed, menus open by dropping
down onto the display.
¨ Visual editing tools help designers construct
menus.
Chapter 12 12
Menu Interaction (Cont.)
n Guidelines for Menu Design
¨ Wording: meaningful titles, clear command
verbs, mixed upper/lower case.
¨ Organization: consistent organizing principle.
¨ Length: all choices fit within screen length.
¨ Selection: consistent, clear and easy
selection methods.
¨ Highlighting: only for selected options or
unavailable options.
Chapter 12 13
Menu Interaction (Cont.)
Chapter 12 14
Form Interaction
n Form interaction: a highly intuitive
humancomputer interaction method
whereby data fields are formatted in a
manner similar to paperbased forms.
n Allows users to fill in the blanks when
working with a system.
Chapter 12 15
Form Interaction (Cont.)
Chapter 12 16
ObjectBased Interaction
n Objectbased interaction: a human
computer interaction method in which
symbols are used to represent commands
or functions.
n Icons: graphical pictures that represent
specific functions within a system.
¨ Use little screen space and are easily
understood by users.
Chapter 12 17
ObjectBased Interaction (Cont.)
Chapter 12 18
Natural Language Interaction
n Natural language interaction: a human
computer interaction method whereby
inputs to and outputs from a computer
based application are in a conventional
spoken language such as English.
n Based on research in artificial intelligence.
n Current implementations are tedious and
difficult to work with, not as viable as other
interaction methods.
Chapter 12 19
Usability Problems with Hardware
Devices
n Visual Blocking n Adequate Feedback
¨ touch screen, light pen ¨ keyboard, mouse, joystick,
n User Fatigue trackball, graphics tablet,
¨ touch screen, light pen
voice
n Movement Scaling n Speed
¨ keyboard
¨ keyboard, mouse, joystick,
trackball, graphics tablet, n Pointing Accuracy
voice ¨ joystick, touch screen, light
n Durability pen, voice
¨ trackball, touch screen
Chapter 12 20
Natural Language Interaction (Cont.)
n Usability problems with hardware devices:
n Visual Blocking
¨ touch screen, light pen.
n User Fatigue
¨ touch screen, light pen.
Chapter 12 21
Natural Language Interaction (Cont.)
n Movement Scaling
¨ keyboard, mouse, joystick, trackball, graphics
tablet, voice.
n Durability
¨ trackball, touch screen.
Chapter 12 22
Natural Language Interaction (Cont.)
n Adequate Feedback
¨ keyboard, mouse, joystick, trackball, graphics
tablet, voice.
n Speed
¨ Keyboard.
n Pointing Accuracy
¨ joystick, touch screen, light pen, voice.
Chapter 12 23
Natural Language Interaction (Cont.)
Chapter 12 24
Designing Interfaces
n Forms has several general areas common
to most forms:
¨ Header information.
¨ Sequence and timerelated information.
¨ Instruction or formatting information.
¨ Body or data details.
Chapter 12 25
Designing Interfaces (Cont.)
¨ Totals or data summary.
¨ Authorization or signatures.
¨ Comments.
n Use standard formats similar to paper
based forms and reports.
n Lefttoright, toptobottom navigation.
Chapter 12 26
Designing Interfaces (Cont.)
n Flexibility and consistency:
¨ Free movement between fields.
¨ No permanent data storage until the user
requests.
¨ Each key and command assigned to one
function.
Chapter 12 27
Structuring Data Entry
Entry Never require data that are already online or that
can be computed
Defaults Always provide default values when appropriate
Units Make clear the type of data units requested for
entry
Replacement Use character replacement when appropriate
Captioning Always place a caption adjacent to fields
Format Provide formatting examples
Justify Automatically justify data entries
Help Provide contextsensitive help when appropriate
Chapter 12 28
Controlling Data Input
n Objective: reduce data entry errors.
n Common sources data entry errors in a
field:
¨ Appending: adding additional characters
¨ Truncating: losing characters
¨ Transcripting: entering invalid data
¨ Transposing: reversing sequence of
characters
Chapter 12 29
Providing Feedback
n Three types of system feedback:
¨ Status information: keep user informed of
what’s going on, helpful when user has to wait
for response.
¨ Prompting cues: tell user when input is
needed, and how to provide the input.
¨ Error or warning messages: inform user that
something is wrong, either with data entry or
system operation.
Chapter 12 30
Providing Help
n Place yourself in user’s place when
designing help.
n Guidelines for designing usable help:
¨ Simplicity Help messages should be short
and to the point.
¨ Organize Information in help messages
should be easily absorbed by users
¨ Show It is useful to explicitly show users
how to perform an operation.
Chapter 12 31
Designing Dialogues
n Dialogues: the sequence of interaction
between a user and a system.
n Dialogue design involves:
¨ Designing a dialogue sequence.
¨ Building a prototype.
¨ Assessing usability.
Chapter 12 32
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
n Typical dialogue between user and
Customer Information System:
¨ Request to view individual customer
information.
¨ Specify the customer of interest.
¨ Select the yeartodate transaction summary
display.
Chapter 12 33
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
(Cont.)
¨ Review the customer information.
¨ Leave system.
n Dialogue diagramming: a formal method
for designing and representing human
computer dialogues using box and line
diagrams.
Chapter 12 34
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
(Cont.)
n Three sections of the box are used as:
¨ Top: contains a unique display reference
number used by other displays for referencing it.
¨ Middle: contains the name or description of the
display.
¨ Bottom: contains display reference numbers that
can be accessed from the current display.
Chapter 12 35
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
(Cont.)
Chapter 12 36
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
(Cont.)
n Dialogue diagrams depict the sequence,
conditional branching, and repetition of
dialogues.
Chapter 12 37
Designing the Dialogue Sequence
(Cont.)
Chapter 12 38
Building Prototypes and
Assessing Usability
n Optional activities.
n Building prototypes displays using a
graphical development environment.
¨ Microsoft’s Visual Studio .NET
¨ Borland’s Enterprise Studio
¨ Easytouse input and output (form, report, or
window) design utilities.
Chapter 12 39
Graphical Interface Design Issues
n Become an expert user of the GUI
environment.
¨ Understand how other applications have
been designed.
¨ Understand standards.
n Gain an understanding of the available
resources and how they can be used.
¨ Become familiar with standards for menus
and forms.
Chapter 12 40
Graphical Interface Design Issues
(Cont.)
Chapter 12 41
Electronic Commerce Application:
Designing Interfaces and Dialogues for
Pine Valley Furniture WebStore
n Central and critical design activity.
n Where customer interacts with the company.
¨ Care must be put it design!
n Prototyping design process is most
appropriate to design the human interface.
n Several general design guidelines have
emerged.
Chapter 12 42
General Guidelines
n Web’s single “clicktoact” method of
loading static hypertext documents (i.e.
most buttons on the Web do not provide
click feedback).
n Limited capabilities of most Web browsers
to support finely grained user interactivity.
Chapter 12 43
General Guidelines
n Limited agreedupon standards for
encoding Web content and control
mechanisms.
n Lack of maturity of Web scripting and
programming languages as well as
limitations in commonly used Web GUI
component libraries.
Chapter 12 44
Designing Interfaces and Dialogues
for Pine Valley Furniture
n Key feature PVF want for their WebStore
is:
¨ To incorporate into design was an interface
with “menudriven navigation with cookie
crumbs”.
Chapter 12 45
MenuDriven Navigation with
Cookie Crumbs
n Cookie crumbs: the technique of placing
“tabs” on a Web page that show a user
where he or she is on a site and where he
or she has been.
¨ Allow users to navigate to a point previously
visited and will assure they are not lost.
¨ Clearly show users where they have been
and how far they have gone from home.
Chapter 12 46
Summary
n In this chapter you learned how to:
ü Explain the process of designing interfaces and
dialogues and the deliverables for their creation.
ü Contrast and apply several methods for interacting with
a system.
ü List and describe various input devices and discuss
usability issues for each in relation to performing
different tasks.
ü Describe and apply the general guidelines for designing
interfaces and specific guidelines for layout design,
structuring data entry fields, providing feedback, and
system help.
Chapter 12 47
Summary (Cont.)
ü Design humancomputer dialogues and
understand how dialogue diagramming
can be used to design dialogues.
ü Design graphical user interfaces.
ü Discuss guidelines for the design of
interfaces and dialogues for Internet
based electronic commerce systems.
Chapter 12 48