Interaction design, user experience and usability

Draft

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Introduction: useful, usable and desirable

(User) interaction design, user experience (design) and usability (testing) as well as other disciplines such as human computer interaction or ergonomics all are concerned by the same problem: Creating useful, usable and pleasant artifacts, such as websites, computer programs or physical objects.

It is in our opinion very difficult to clearly separate various fields related to software and web design. It seems that over time various paradigms dominated in either academia or in practice or in both. Earlier work started inhuman-computer interaction and the related field of human factors (or ergonomics). Technical aspects were rather discussed under the label of user interface design. In the mid-nineties to the mid-2000, usability and user interaction design were the umbrella terms and sometimes still are (e.g. see usability.gov). Nowadays (after 2010) user experience seems to dominate. Depending on what field a person is working in and or what role s/he play in a design process, main interest and focus may be different, but all the major issues remain the same in a design process.

Whether a person calls him/herself a interaction designer, a user interaction designer, a user experience designer, a interface designer, a usability specialist, a HCI researcher, etc. may be an indicator of his/her specialization, but also express some opinion about design priorities and his/her "cultural" affinity. In particular, we believe that there often is a quite strong animosity between visual interface designers and usability specialists ....

List of subfields (including infamous abbreviations)

• User interaction and user interface design (Interaction Design=IxD)
• User experience (UX) and user experience design (UxD)
• Ergonomics (also called "human factors") and Cognitive ergonomics
• Human-computer interaction (HCI)
• Usability and Web usability
• Information architecture (sometimes: IA)
• Design science

List of design and evaluation methods and techniques:

• Design and usability methods and techniques (this will be the main entry point for how-to subjects)
• Web prototyping software and Web wireframe
• User-centered design (UCD), overview page)

Links

Overviews

• What is Design? (Yes, all 10 definitions!), Frank Spillers, oct. 2007.
• List of human–computer interaction topics (Wikipedia)

Study programs

• Carnegie Mellon School of Design
• Master of Science in HCI with Ergonomics at University College London (UCL).

Videos

These videos might be useful to show in class, others are too long for that. I am not sure that I found the best ones, need more time - 15:38, 13 March 2011 (CET).

Confused by labels ?

• User Experience Design?, short speech from Dan Ritz, a UX designer.

Usability for web sites

• The 'Mom Test' for Website Usability Testing with Matt Bailey An interview. (YouTube, 5min., starts around 1:50)

• How to Conduct a Simple User Test with Jakob Nielsen An interview. (You Tube, 7:13, ok, but bad sound)

• Demo Usability Test by Steve Krug A 25 min video by Steve Krug (author of Rocket Science made easy). Fairly good simulation of a short and cheap usability test.

Usability for mobile devices

• Apple iPad apps need more consistency, says usability guru. 27 May 2010. Includes a 3min Jakob Nielsen video.

User experience design

• User Experience Process by Daniel Wilcomb, user experience director (10min. on Vimeo)

• User experience design in the google area. NavigationArts' Director of Information Architecture, Kelley McDonald, discusses how to engage site visitors through effective site structure and relevant content. (Just talk, but good).

• User Experience Design for Non-Designers (Part 1) (YouTube, 9:50 min.)

• Sketching and Experience Design Bill Buxton talk at Standford University, 2007 (Parc, MS Research), 90 minutes.

User interaction design

• Designing interactions, a companion site for the book, includes lots of interesting interview segments, e.g.
  • Bill Verplank (YouTube), Web page
  • Bill Atkinson (played an important role in Apple's UI design).

• Don Norman: The Design of Future Things 2007 90 minute lecture by Don Norman

• Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy. Also on TED (Emotional design)

Sketching, wireframing, blueprints

• User-Experience Session 2: Information Architecture: Get Your Blue Prints in Order, Video tutorial by BusinessOnline. (50 min. Vimeo).

• Conceptual Design in 2 Minutes Nokia design

Essential interaction design, user experience and usability bibliography

This is a common bibliography for all related articles.

• Badre, Al (2002) Shaping Web usability—interaction design in context, Addison Wesley Professional, ISBN 0201729938.
  • book preview by Jean Scholtz, Interactions Magazine, Volume 9 Issue 3, May 2002
  • Safari online version

• Brooke, John, 1996. SUS: A "quick and dirty" usability scale. In P. W. Jordan, B. Thomas, B. A. Weerdmeester, & I. L. McClelland (Eds.), Usability evaluation in industry (pp. 189–194). London: Taylor & Francis. DOC format

• Cooper, Alan (2004). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity. Sams - Pearson Education. ISBN 0672326140.

• Dreyfuss Henry (2003). Designing for People. New York: Allworth Press. ISBN 9781581153125

• * Dumas, JS, and Redish, Janice, A. (1999) Practical Guide to Usability Testing, Intellect Books.

• Garret, Jesse James (2002), The Elements of USer Experience, User-Centered Design for the Web, New Riders Publishing. The book homepage, includes a free central diagram plus free chapter two.

• Hackos, JoAnn T. and Janice C. Redish (1998). User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. John Wiley. ISBN 0471178314

• Horton, Sarah (2002). Access by Design, New Riders, ISBN 0-321-31140-X.

• Horton, Sarah (2005). Acces by Design online at Universal Usability: A universal design approach to web usability.

• Krug, Steve (2006), Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, New Riders, ISBN 9780321344755

• Krug, Steve (2009), Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems, New Riders, ISBN 0321657292.

• Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton (2009), Web Style Guide, Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, 3rd Edition, Yale University Press. ISBN 0300137370. (see also the free version)

• Lynch, Patrick J. and Sarah Horton (2009), Web Style Guide Online (Free).

• Moggridge Bill (2007). Designing Interactions. The MIT Press. ISBN 0262134748.

• Rubin, Jeffrey (1994) Handbook of Usability Testing (1st edition). John Wiley and Sons, New York, NY

• Rubin, Jeffrey and Dana Chisnell (2008). Handbook of usability testing (2nd edition): how to plan, design, and conduct effective tests, Wiley, ISBN 9780470185483

• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (2004,+), The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, free e-book available at usability.gov

• Unger Russ; Carolyn Chandler (2009). A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making, New Riders, ISBN 0321607376

See also:

• 20 User Experience Books you should own (2009)
• uxbooks
• Nick’s Top User Experience Books (2009)