Interaction design, user experience and usability

Introduction: useful, usable and desirable

Interaction design, user experience and usability

Web design links

Aesthetics and usability

Affinity diagram

Card sorting

Cognitive walkthrough

Contextual inquiry

Design and emotion

Design and usability methods and techniques

Design thinking

Field observation

Focus group

Font readability

Gamification

Google analytics

Google website optimizer

Guidelines-based review

Heuristic evaluation

Information architecture

Interaction design, user experience and usability

Journey map

Landing page optimization

Personas

Research-based web design and usability guidelines

Scenario of use

Scenario-based usability engineering

Semantic differential scale

Sketching user experience

Storyboarding

Task analysis

Universal Design for Instruction

Usability

Usability and user experience surveys

Usability testing

User experience and user experience design

User interaction and user interface design

User-centered design

Web accessibility

Web prototyping software

Web technology and web design tutorials

Web wireframe

(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.

This is a short overview page. See Design and usability methods and techniques for more information about various methods and techniques.

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 in human-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 popular umbrella terms and sometimes still are (e.g. see usability.gov). Nowadays (after 2010) user experience seems to dominate, since it also stresses innovation, satisfaction and usefulness.

Depending on what field a person is working in and or what role s/he plays in a design process, his/her main interests 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.

Anyhow, there is no clear consensus on how various "fields" fit together and what certain job titles mean. See for example the many discussion at IxDA, e.g. Interaction Designer vs User Experience Designer vs User Interface designer. As of 2011, a consensus seems to emerge that just Design or maybe User experience and user experience design is the umbrella of "all of it".

List of subfields (including infamous confusing abbreviations)

• User experience and user experience design (UX and UxD)
• User interaction and user interface design (User Interface = UI, Interaction Design=IxD)
• Ergonomics (also called "human factors") and Cognitive ergonomics
• Human-computer interaction (HCI), the main academic field where findings are published.
• Usability and Web usability
• Information architecture (sometimes: IA)
• Design science

List of design and evaluation methods and techniques (to be completed)

• 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)
• List of User Experience Diagrams by Luke Wrobleski, Feb 2005
• Encyclopedia at interaction-design.org

See other articles for many more links.

Study programs

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

Videos

Most 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).

User experience design

(User experience and user experience design)

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

• Introduction to User Experience and Experience Design - Video 1 by Marc Hassenzahl, 14min on YouTube.

• 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.

• Jesse James Garrett 10th Annual IA Summit speech. Author of "The Elements of User Experience". (might be more useful to insiders, 45 minutes)

• UX Week 2008 | Don Norman | Peter Merholz Speaks with Don Norman about design and good or bad things, origin of "user experience" (9 min)., etc. Includes older clips from the "Design of Everyday Things" (Vimeo, 52 minutes).

• The Science and Art of User Experience at Google (18 minutes, start from 2:40, YouTube).

• Understanding and Designing the Everyday Internet, UX Week 2010 | Elizabeth Churchill. This is a longer 45 min talk by a Yahoo principal research scientist. Shows what big companies are looking at when they start being interested in people (vs. simple analytics).

Usability for web sites

(usability testing)

• 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 interaction design

(User interaction and user interface 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

Emotional design

(Design and emotion)

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

Sketching, wireframing, blueprints

(web wireframe)

• 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

Landing page optimization

• Landing Page Optimization 101 (6 min Vimeo). By sitepronews. Explains some kind of quasi-experimental design to test conversions from a landing page.

About UxD and IxD, it's difference, etc.

(User experience and user experience design)

• Chicken and Egg by Kai Brunner (3 min., Vimeo)
• User Experience Design?, Confused by labels ? short speech from Dan Ritz, a UX designer.
• UX Week 2008 | Bruce Sterling | Endnote. Part of the talk is about his life in Serbia (the future ?). (Vimeo, 37 min.)

Accessibility

(web accessibility)

• Keeping Web Accessibility in Mind (11.5 min. Flash)
• Experiences of students with Disabilities: Quicktime Windows Media from webaim

History

• The mother of all demos. On December 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart et et al., Stanford Research Institute, presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the online system, NLS, that included many elements of today's UI systems. (You Tube, several installments).

Bibliography

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.

• Gremillion, Ben . 2012. A Field Guide to Usability Testing. Smashing Magazine.

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

• Horton, Sarah (2005). 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.

• Hoffmann, R., & Krauss, K. (2004, October). A critical evaluation of literature on visual aesthetics for the web. In Proceedings of the 2004 annual research conference of the South African institute of computer scientists and information technologists on IT research in developing countries (pp. 205-209). South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists.

• 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.

• Lavie, T., & Tractinsky, N. (2004). Assessing dimensions of perceived visual aesthetics of web sites. International journal of human-computer studies, 60(3), 269-298.

• 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

• Travis, David (2014), Bluffer's Guide to ISO 9241, On-line, 9th edition. PDF (£9)

• Travis, David (2015), Usability Test Plan Toolkit, On-line, 9th edition. Word (£9). This toolkit helps planning your next usability study. It includes various Word templates that you can adapt and reuse.

• 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

About standards

• Bevan, Nigel, International Standards for HCI, online document, http://nigelbevan.com/papers/International_standards_HCI.pdf (based on chapter in Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction. Idea Group Publishing, 2006. An older HTML version is at usabilitynet). Retrieved March 2011.

• Gediga, G., Hamborg, K., Düntsch, I. (1999)The IsoMetrics usability inventory: An operationalisation of ISO 9241-10. Behaviour and Information Technology

• Marghescu, D. (2008) Usability Evaluation of Information Systems: A Review of Five International Standards, in Barry, C., Lang, M., Wojtkowski, W., Wojtkowski, G., Wrycza, S., & Zupancic, J. (eds) (2008) The Inter-Networked World: ISD Theory, Practice, and Education, Springer-Verlag: New York, (Proceedings of 16th International Conference on Information Systems Development (ISD 2007), Galway, Ireland, August 2007). PDF preprint

• Oppermann, R., Reiterer, R. (1997) Software Evaluation Using the 9241 Evaluator Usability Evaluation Methods. Behaviour and Information Technology v.16 n.4/5 p.232-245.

• Prümper, P. (1999) Test it: ISONORM 9241/10.In: Bullinger H-J and Ziegler J (eds), Proceedings of HCI International, Munich, 22-27 August 1999. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, USA.

See also (links to bibliographies)

• 20 User Experience Books you should own (2009)
• uxbooks
• Nick’s Top User Experience Books (2009)
• HCI Bibliography Lots of pointers (e.g. an index of 34000 articles, pointers to introductory books, some on-line texts)