Designing for Humans

DFH Follow-Ups

Here's some follow-ups on several items I've blogged about in recent months:

• Redesigned BMW iDrive: The New York Times reviewsthe improved user interface (including rotary text entry, pictured above) and control system for the storied design failure that I discussed most recently in July.
  

• Design Research Blog: Sam Ladner provides a new article and slide set discussing Qualitative versus Quantitative Research (part 2) on her blog.  I discussed a couple of her earlier posts on design research back in June.

• Design Research Portfolio Review: Last, but not least, following up from this past April's IDSA northeast district conference, Marty Gage (Lextant) has provided his presentation slides for his talk, What is a Design Research Portfolio? - Download Research_portfolio_final(PDF).

BMW Redesigns i-Drive

In recent years the BMW i-Drive system has become the poster child for bad usability in interfaces (e.g. Don Norman's criticisms) - a conveniently-named foil to the positive user experience of the iPod.  But CNET now reports that a new version of the i-Drive (pictured) is in the works.  As a past user of the i-Drive, the new design seems to be addressing some of the key problems I experienced, with dedicated buttons for accessing each of the primary modes, and a single-axis rotary control apparently replacing key functions that previously relied on a multi-directional joystick.

Interactive Gestures: Designing Gestural Interfaces

While Dan Saffer's forthcoming book Interactive Gestures: Designing Gestural Interfaces is not out yet, you can download and read the first chapter.  Aptly titled "Introducing Interactive Gestures", Saffer covers the recent and formative histories of direct manipulation interfaces, as well as key definitions, and relevant usability/design issues in an approachable manner.

The chapter is readable, while still providing appropriate references to human factors principles and technologies.  If you're new to the world of gestural interfaces, this is a great place to get an overview of the field.  If you're already knowledgeable, this is a useful refresher, and you might learn some new terms like "iceberg tips" (touch points that are larger than they visually present).

I did spot one point of dispute.  In his explanation of affordances (p. 30), Saffer refers to James Gibson as a "cognitive psychologist".  While Gibson was a psychologist, his theories of perception were actually contrary to the cognitive movement - Gibson posited a theory of direct perception where information is perceived without the need for any intermediating mental interpretation (i.e., cognition).  A more accurate label would have been "ecological psychologist" - but since that's not a school of perception known by most people, simply "psychologist" would probably be best.

Forgive me for being academic.

State of the Art in Interface Design

Coming Soon: Nothing Between You and Your Machine (New York Times) discusses the recent trends in direct manipulation interfaces in consumer products. The popularity of the Nintendo Wii and the Apple iPhone are in large part due to their intuitive user interfaces that utilize physical manipulation to give users a more direct feeling of control.  The re-emergence of voice control as a potential interface medium is also discussed.  The overall shift away from the point and click paradigm may be finally happening:

“I’ve wondered for a long time why the computer interface hasn’t changed from 20 years ago,” said Austin Shoemaker, a former Apple Computer software engineer and now chief technology officer of Cooliris. “People should think of a computer interface less as a tool and more as a extension of themselves or as extension of their mind.”

Download the Human Factors Design Standard

Even if you don't design aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration's Human Factors Design Standard, is an invaluable (and free) reference for design practitioners. 

The complete design standard is large (10MB) and comprehensive - "an exhaustive compilation of human factors practices and principles" - but it provides succinct and tactical, evidence-based information.  For example, concerning touchscreens, fourteen specific guidelines are given for button size, labeling, position, dead space, etc, but the need to test with representative users is also recommended to keep these rules grounded in reality.

In 2007 the FAA added draft updates related to interface design, including displays and non-keyboard input devices (e.g. mouse, joystick, touchscreen). 

A brief, anonymous survey form is required to download the Human Factors Design Standard (HFDS).  Once past that, you may download the entire document or any of the 15 individual chapters or drafts, ranging from Alarms, Audio and Voice to Anthropometry and Biomechanics (a particularly strong section of the document).

Sparsely, but appropriately illustrated, the HFDS gives the actionable guidelines that so many product designers and students are desparate to find in a single location.

PS - Experimenting with larger font size for better readability on recent posts.

CES and Bug Labs

 

While I was not able to attend the Consumer Electronics Show this year due to other work commitments, all reports indicate that it was bigger than ever.  As expected, a number of high performance, high definition videocameras were announced, featuring researcher-friendly capabilities including larger capacity hard drives, image stabilization and greater optical zoom ranges.  I'm somewhat partial to the new JVC Everio line from a styling point of view, especially the top of the line GZ-HD7.

But beyond the typical consumer product lines, one product stood out and even took the Best of CES award for the emerging technology category.  That product is Bug Lab's Bug, described as a:

"collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/web community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program and share innovative devices and applications. We don't define the final products - you do."

In other words, a set of modular consumer electronics components that can fit together and then be custom programmed to do whatever the user/developer desires - open source will help with that a lot. 

The current set of modules include an LCD display, a camera, GPS and motion detector - all to be released this quarter, with second quarter modules including a touch screen, keyboard, and audio module.  Check out some videos on YouTube.

These components represent a promising set of opportunities for user and design research:

• Create custom data gathering devices and programs to conduct observational research (camera), time and motion studies (motion sensor, GPS), etc.
• Develop custom products and user interface prototypes for testing using the hardware and software capabilities

The quality of the hardware (e.g. video image quality, motion detector sensitivity) and the ease and flexibility of the development environment will be key of course, but I look forward to the possibilities that BUG may enable for the creative designer/researcher.

Affordances in Product Design

One of the ongoing "philosophical" points of contention when I was in graduate school was between the cognitive psychologists and the ecological psychologists over the theory of perception. 

In a nutshell, the cognitive approach assumes that information in the world is ambiguous and cognitive-perceptual processes are required to interpret stimuli into meaningful information.  For example, an object is observed through the visual system and the brain uses that stimulation in conjunction with memory to disambiguate and identify the object.  This is in fact how most people understand perception to work. 

The minority alternative comes from the ecological perspective ("ecological" as in a rich stimulus environment, and not related to sustainable design), which posits that information in the world is specific and sufficiently detailed to communicate information without any interpretation.  That is, the visual stimulus is unique and conveys the relevant characteristics to the observer.  

This contrast in approaches also emerged in the world of product and interface design over the term "affordance".  The term was coined by J.J. Gibson, the father of ecological psychology, to define the relationship between an actor (e.g. human, animal) and an object or environment.  For example, a flat surface "affords" sitting on, a pointy one does not.  Note that an affordance is a property that exists whether it is perceived or not or acted on or not. 

Following Gibson, the term "affordance" was popularized, but also modified in use by Donald Norman, among others, to emphasize the perception of an affordance (rather than the existence of one).  In other words, good design is about effectively communicating affordances to the user. 

Now a recent article in Design Studies looks at the issue of affordances vs. perceived affordances in a tangible way - by applying those ideas to the control panel of a stereo system.  The paper summarizes the theoretical issues that I have attempted to touch on above, and then illustrates how they are applied to controls.  While there are not actionable conclusions from this work, it's an opportunity to understand some of the key theoretical issues in perception and design.

Incidentally, ecological psychologists have more fun.

Two-Sided Touch Screen

Touch screen technology has been quite newsworthy in 2007 -  Jeff Han's large-scale multi-touch screen, Microsoft Surface, the Apple iPhone, and Synaptic's Onyx concept - to name a few.

But overlooked amongst these was the news this summer of the Microsoft/Mitsubishi collaboration on a two-sided touch screen.   This technology directly addresses one of the critical usability issues with touch screens - the user's hands blocking his or her line of site with the screen.  The two-sided touch screen optically tracks hand movements on the back side of the display and mirrors them to the front (see images).  It is likely that this solutions solves one problem, and introduces user usability challenges with working "backwards"

Incidentally, this is the first post I've done using the new Windows Live Writer, rather than directly via Typepad's site.  Writer provides some nicer features and editing capabilities.

Principles of Universal Design

The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University provides an overview of key principles or guidelines for universal product design that accomodates the wide variety of human capabilities and attributes.  The guidelines are downloadable and are also provided in several different languages.

Remote Control Design

A case study from the Design Council discusses how ergonomics and user testing led to the succesful design of a cable remote control for a broad population.

Overview of Touchscreen Research

Many products rely on touchscreen input.  Appendix A of Gregory Bender's dissertation provides an excellent overview of touchscreen technology, human factors and design research, with general guidelines.  Note that this tends to focus on larger touchscreens applications (e.g. kiosks, ATMs), rather than smaller devices (PDAs, media players).

The appdenix starts on page 78 of this document, which is actually page 89 of the PDF file:

http://www.thisoldtractor.com/gtbender/papers/dissertation.pdf