Interactivity 1
User Centred Design
A Very Brief Introduction
Putting people in the centre of the design process and understanding their needs and behaviours will help the designer better understand the person who will be ultimately using their design artefact the user. ! The birth of the user comes from humancomputer interaction (HCI), engineering and psychology and usability studies most closely associated with interface design and interactivity. As graphic design changes in response to cultural and technological conditions, user-centreded design provides the potential for greater participation of graphic designers in expanding domains of interactive design and interdisciplinary teams.
As the world is becoming more and more suffused with interactive technologies, how can designers support an increasingly diverse range of activities? ! Computers can be used to send messages, gather information, write essays, draw, plan, calculate, play games through speech, touch, handheld devices. Interfaces are designed with menus, commands, forms, gestures, icons, scrollbars, card swipes. There are responsive environments, mobile devices, wearables and networked homes. What this amounts to is a multitude of choices and decisions for an ever increasing range of possibilities. So how can designers optimize and support the users activities in effective and enjoyable ways?
A designer could make a guess and rely ! on intuition - and then hope for the best. Or the designer could be more principled through a deeper investigation to more thoroughly understand the user - hence UCD. This involves:
!
taking into account what peoples needs, wants, limitations, obstacles, goals, motivations consider what might help people with the way things are done or could be done listening to what people want and get them involved in the design process using refined methods and techniques to capture and analyse the design process
Interactivity 1
PACT Analysis
A Framework for User Experience Design!
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
PACT Analysis
People Activities Context Technology
Who are the users? What are they doing? Where are they doing it? How will do it?
Who are you designing for?
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
People have varying characteristics Physical differences
!
Size - height and weight Senses - vision, hearing Disability - accessibility
Psychological differences
!
Spatial ability - wayfinding Language - cultural interpretation Attention - memory, stress, tiredness Mental Model - association, memorability
Usage differences
!
Novice or Expert- technical knowledge Homogeneous or Heterogeneous
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
What are the people doing? Why are they doing it? Frequency
!
Regular - daily, yearly
Cooperation
!
Alone or with others
Complexity
!
Well defined or vague
Safety Critical
!
Prevent injury/harm, errors
Nature of Content
!
Amount of info, form
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
Where are the activities occurring? Physical
!
Environment - weather, noise, location
Social
!
Supportive, private, public
Organizational
!
institutional, workplace
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
What are people using or will use? Designed to to support peoples requirements Medium
!
Hardware, software
Input
!
Mouse, touch, gesture, scan, speech
Output
!
Display, audio, tactile
Communication
!
networks, one-to-one, many accurate, relevant, understandable
Content
!
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
Scoping a problem with the PACT Goal is to harmonize the PACT elements
!
Useful to understand current state and
identify opportunities
!
Scope as many Ps, As Cs and Ts as possible Observe and talk to people
People Activities Contexts! Technologies
Think about the user community How is this community defined ? People
!
Stakeholders Physical, social, functional Some obvious others not Current and proposed
Contexts
!
Activities
!
Technologies
!
