Feature: The People Element

Design sits at the centre of the triangle of what is commercially viable and rewarding for business, what solutions can be facilitated technologically, and what is useful, usable and desirable for people. These are the independent variables from which design begins and they are not up for question. As Colin Burns of the user-centred design company IDEO has noted on the latter factor "there are no stupid folks out there, just stupid designers". We should note that the term 'user' is often used generically to describe people who use interactive products. In reality, users are people (or 'folks') who may be engaged in activities – including reading, learning, transacting, and collaborating – who span the gamut of human life. They may be employees, customers, learners, clients, partners or collaborators.

For a particular project we should avoid this de-personalising term but when we are talking about Web interaction in general the term is almost unavoidable, as it best captures the interactive nature of engagement with the medium. When thinking about users we should also be aware that the user of a product is not always the person who decides to purchase it. The requirements of a corporate IT manager specifying systems for thousands of employees and a parent buying for their teenager will be very different but all need to be addressed.

Human cognition
There is nothing 'natural' about using software or websites. All tools, from a Stone Age axe to a 20th-century motor car, provide an interface and a fit between the properties of the natural world and a human's perceptual, physical and cognitive abilities. For both ancient and modern tools this interface communicates both the tool's capabilities and how it is intended to be manipulated. As mass production took over from craft manufacture, tools were no longer made for a specific user, and understanding general human physiology became more important in creating tools that could be widely used. This 'fit to the body' became formalised as ergonomics (also known as human factors) around the time of the Second World War, driven by the challenges presented by one of the most complex, pressured and dangerous situations in which we interface with a machine: flying a fighter aircraft. As electronics took over from physical mechanisms in products, it became less easy to perceive their function and how they were intended to be used. Human interaction with products became more an issue of 'fit to the mind' and was investigated through cognitive ergonomics. With the development of the micro-processor and the advent of computing, this link became even more tenuous, and electronic devices became 'black boxes' that could take any form. Not only can a computer take any form, it is really a kind of universal tool that can perform myriad functions. Whereas the form of an electronic device might be designed to indicate its function, the physical form of a computer gives away nothing about any specific function and the locus of the interface moves to the screen (and to a lesser extent aural and other channels). To address these challenges, the disciplines of human-computer interaction and interaction design were developed, the former rooted in psychology and computer science and the latter in design.

To understand what is possible and what is happening when they use a computer program or a website, people tend to create a mental, or conceptual, model to help them understand and predict how the system will behave. Car drivers also have mental models that help them understand the way their vehicles work but they have the advantage that, unlike computer systems, the internal combustion engine, transmission and steering column have a physical form. Additionally, people will use a number of such systems – from Hotmail to Google – and retain a mental model for each. There are many other aspects to our understanding of interfaces that need to be considered. There are limits to the amount of information that we can take in at once; for example our ability to differentiate lists, such as menus, starts to diminish if they have over seven entries. This is reflected in the structuring of telephone numbers into a sequence of three then four, established in the US by research at Bell Labs when it was part of AT&T. On the other hand we are very good at recognising similarities and patterns, in everything from colour and tone, typeface and type size to spacing, shape and texture.

Human vision also has distinct characteristics. While we tend to focus on a small area, we can see objects in a wide periphery and we are particularly aware of movement in this area. We can survey a screen very quickly and decide what to home in on, moving swiftly from one type of item to the next (on the Web often the hyperlinks) while remaining oblivious to objects that are immediately adjacent (often the adverts). This behaviour is typically studied using eye tracking tools that enable researchers to correlate eye movements and mouse clicks with screen display. Such tools are also used to study how people read printed publications. Human vision has a given resolution and a set colour depth that it can perceive. The brain processes what it 'sees' in distinct ways, which can be exploited to enhance our perception. From their experience with the natural world humans are also familiar with a certain pace of interaction and this translates into expectations of digital systems. It has become axiomatic in HCI that if a software user doesn't get a response to an action in under a second, they are likely to develop a feeling of frustration. It has similarly been argued that Web page download times are an important factor in determining people's experience of the Web.

Identity and preferences
Much human interaction with software and Web sites is focused on executing tasks and if these processes are not well supported people get frustrated or simply fail to achieve their goal. We need to know what the steps are in a process, what is needed to affect each one, how long the process might take and where we are within it. We need to know when we haven't provided enough information, or that the information isn't in a format the system can use. We need to know if and how we can retrace our steps to correct something or reverse a choice we made, or simply how we can back out of an operation. Websites which pop up new windows during processes – for instance, to connect to a payment clearing system – may limit a user's ability to retrace their steps. Information on how to leave a mailing list is as important as information on how to join. If a serious error does occur we need to be able to recover from it quickly and painlessly. We also need to know when we have completed one task so we can move on to the next. If a system doesn't make it clear that a user has succeeded, he may waste additional time or have to find some other way of ascertaining what has happened. If a system indicates that a user has completed his task when he hasn't, his expectation – for instance, that something he has ordered will be shipped – will be incorrect.

User dos and don'ts
In general people want to increase certainty and decrease unnecessary repetition of work. People also expect consistency in the way systems operate, and may expect them to follow the pattern of equivalent real-world systems. Many Web sites undervalue users' input by making them enter information that the system could have inputted for them based on data already obtained. While this can be a result of limited programming and design resources, it sometimes represents a disregard for users' input. The worst examples of this are systems which delete data the user has entered, often in the process of a user trying to correct an error, or as a result of poor system performance.

Cultural issues
Human cognition is not a fixed thing. While much of it is physiologically determined it can also be socially shaped, and we need to be careful not to automatically project conventions we consider to be given on to other cultures. We can't assume, for instance, that red means 'stop' or 'danger' in all cultures, or that a tick means 'correct'.

Multiple users
While the differences in cognition between cultures may be the most significant, people within the same culture will also show great variance and design needs to take this into account where appropriate. Even individuals' cognitive abilities and skills change as they become expert at using a software tool and this move from novice to expert is an important dynamic in shaping tools to users' needs.

Reassertion of physical ergonomics
While the 'fit' of software and websites mainly focuses on cognitive ergonomics, fit to the physical world isn't entirely absent. Hand-to-eye coordination is needed to operate a mouse or other pointing device and this has a bearing on the ease with which small-screen objects can be selected or clicked. The screen is also semi-physical in the sense that it has limits beyond which a pointer can't be moved. One consequence of this is that the part of the screen that is quickest to reach is a corner, the next quickest being a location on an edge. This observation is derived from Fitts' Law. As the Internet becomes more pervasive and connects products beyond personal computers, physical ergonomics will again become an important issue for Web designers. This is already happening with data-enabled mobile phones, portable Web devices such as Pogo and electrical appliances such as Electrolux's Screenfridge. The need to understand the way a product fits the intended audiences and how comfortable it is to use is critical, and often underestimated, but comes second to designing products that those audiences need or want and which make sense to them overall. Neither should we be too prescriptive, as people often use products in unanticipated ways, or adapt them to their specific needs. People may use a shopping basket on an e-commerce site to facilitate comparison rather than purchase of similar products, or adapt email to serve as a task list and document repository. Humans are not simply cognitive machines seeking efficiency. Our behaviour is mediated by subtle social factors and trends which may be elusive but shouldn't be underestimated.

Extract from "What is Web Design?" by Nico Macdonald (RotoVision, 2003)
Text copyright © RotoVision SA 2003

Nico Macdonald is a writer on design, technology and business. He is also an advisor to Usability News.

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