Contextual DesignHugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

Psychology of Everyday ThingsDon NormanJason I. HongCS294 Software EngineeringSoftware Usability

Contextual Design OverviewHow to create useful, usable, and desirable software for end-users?Recurring themes in Contextual DesignTry to understand entire context of customersBase decisions on observations of work practicesGet continual feedback from customers Get entire team involved programmers, marketing, QA, and customers

Contextual Design Contextual InquiryEthnographically-inspired field studiesGo out and observe with several actual customers at their workplace (Master-apprentice model)Customers not necessarily same as clientsMain goal is to understand Where, How, and What to expose the WhySay they want drills, really want holesThree secondary goals:Avoid designer biasProvide concrete dataGet entire team on same page

Contextual Design Questions about Contextual InquiryHow well does this technique work?Bang for buck compared to other techniques?What kinds of info does it capture? Drawbacks?How much does it depend on the interviewers and interviewees selected?Scale? How many customers to observe? Ex. MSWord vs custom app for small companyWhat tools would be useful here? Most of the tools weve examined focus on software dev rather than requirements

Contextual DesignAffinity DiagramsGoal is to organize the information collected from Contextual Inquiry field studiesEntire design team uses Post-its and large spaces to spatially organize ideas

Contextual DesignAffinity Diagrams

Contextual DesignAffinity Diagrams

Contextual DesignSome Questions on Affinity DiagramsHow reliable is this technique?Does it capture the results of contextual inquiry well?How often will you usually get the same diagram? or is it really that important, ie process vs artifact?Are there better ways of organizing the info?What kinds of tools?Little computer support here

Contextual DesignPaper Prototyping

Contextual DesignPaper Prototyping

Contextual DesignPaper Prototyping

Contextual DesignQuestions on Paper PrototypingBang for buckGauging improvement in software quality? i.e. convincing engineers and managementHow many times to do paper prototyping?How dependent is it on skills of design team?Why not just put the software out there? Release early and release oftenTools for improving software prototyping?Again, most tools here are carbon-based

Questions on Contextual DesignHow does Contextual Design compare?Does it work? If so, how well vs other processes?Resolving conflicts with other processesMarketing-driven requirementsXP focuses on the Source CodeOpen Source + Contextual Design?New software changes nature of work practices A Heisenberg effect for softwareIf Contextual Design is good and works, how to encourage it within our engineering culture?

Psychology of Everyday ThingsOverviewAuthor bioFounding chair of CogSci at UCSDVP Apple and HPCurrently Prof at NorthwesternAny favorite stories?Horror stories or good stories?From book or personal?

Psychology of Everyday ThingsOverviewConceptual Models and VisibilityCrosscutting principlesAffordancesFeedbackMappingsConstraintsErrorsConvention

Psychology of Everyday ThingsOverall Questions (1/2)Problems descriptive of software?Whats different about software vs physical artifacts?Higher barriers to entry with invisible s/w and chips?Do these design principles apply to software?If so, how?Better tools?Often have to explicitly design these principles inlittle support for designers to do the right thingHow to make it easy to create good Conceptual Models? Mappings? Affordances?Most tools and CS classes are text-orientedBig step jumping from text to graphics and sound

Psychology of Everyday ThingsOverall Questions (2/2)Are these problems also cultural?Design community focuses on novelty and aestheticsSoftware community rewards code and hackworthiness ex. Slashdot, RTFM, UnixLittle acclaim or excitement for usability and simplicityMarket doesn't always reward good designsHow can we change our tools, processes, language, and culture to focus on and match end-user needs?Do we need to? Done pretty well so far, haven't we?Better multidisciplinary education for undergrads?Can we bridge Interaction Design and Software Eng?

Make it easier to create these apps?Contributions + validation?Focus on privacy

Understand modelBetter design of applicationsCertain features (evolvability)Focus on customers throughout, not just at endMy horror story is remote control for video projector in the classroomNo affordance for the hidden flap in the remoteLittle feedback as to whether it worked or not (a little blinking light)Easier to point out horror stories b/c good designs are invisibleSome elements of Distributed CognitionTraditional cognition looks at individualsIn DCog, knowledge also in processes and physical worldThese are all "low-level" examples of principlesHow to make this work consistently and coherently on a larger-scale?

Lower-level support for these?Programming languages? (mostly text-based)Systems?Multimodal?Wireless?Ubicomp?