Iterative User Interface Design

Overview

This paper is about general iterative user interface design and it shows the successes of using this process. The improvement in overall usability was shown to be 165% from the first to last iteration, and the median improvement was 38%. They found that there should be 3 iterations since more iterations could actually decrease the usability if the usability engineering process was focused on improving other parameters.

The Benefits of Iteration

Nielsen presents a graph that shows that usability increases directly after each iteration until it eventually hits a plateau. A con is that sometimes after an iteration, usability decreases since new usability problems maybe introduced. The pro is that they can usually be ironed out shortly after. He suggests that interface reconceptualizations have not been studied on projects that were completed by an individual.

An example from later in the paper (Table 5) saw a dramatic decrease Time on Task, Subjective Satisfaction and increase in Errors Made and Help Requests from version 2 to 3 and 3 to 4. However, by version 5 they were all improved by the final version. A big con could be if a project can’t be updated before the final version and it would be better to have version 1 versus having version 3.

From my perspective, iterative design is natural, and projects will follow this without even the designers trying to. Building several different designs and comparing them side by side and then choosing the best will also work, but the chosen version would be improved through an iterative process. Choosing between multiple designs then using iterative improvements on the chosen design, using features from the different versions is the best method for design.

Conclusions

The number of iterations cannot be chosen in advance since the version from iteration 3 might be worse than the first but with two more iteration could be much better than the first. It would be a big con to try to chose the exact number of iterations before hand and a large pro to allow this number of iterations to be dynamic.

Discussion

• Iterative usability design for individuals instead of teams
• Alternative to iterative design: iteration is natural
• Nielsen writes about iPad & touches upon multi-touch in the paper:
• http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ipad.html

Multi-touch: Analysis of Natural Gestures for Controlling Robot Teams on Multi-touch Tabletop Surfaces

Overview

This paper is about a study of users using natural gestures for controlling robot teams with multi-touch input. The authors developed 26 tasks for the users to complete and recorded the gestures that they attempted while trying to perform the tasks. Finally, they classified these gestures (selection, position, rotation, viewpoint, user interface elements) and did some analysis on them resulting in some discussions & conclusions.

Related Work

Common tasks that are performed with a pointer tend to be favored to be executed with one finger. This would make it difficult to use multi points for these common tasks. Since users have learned to perform them with a single point, it would be very difficult to reteach users to use multiple points to perform these same tasks. Additionally, users typically control a computer with a single hand and users would have to learn to use two hands. Koskinen proved this in a study.

Results and Discussion

One interesting finding, is that users did not prefer to use one finger from hand hand. Further, they showed that when users confront an unfamiliar multi-touch UI, they are more willing to use multiple fingers and multiple hands. When multi-touch becomes more widespread, I think that it will be more commonly known to use multiple fingers and multiple hands. Additionally, this pro shows that when users are encountered with real life-like objects in a virtual environment, they are more likely to use real-world type interactions (multi-hand & multi-finger).

Discussion

• Multi-finger, multi-hand contradiction:
• It was interesting to see they found a contradiction to the belief that users prefer to use one hand and one finger.
• Users exploring multi-touch UIs:
• It was interesting to see the natural reaction to users encountering a multi-touch UI
• Bias from past learned behavior from mouse pointers:
• What can be done to unteach users of the single point paradigm? Or, should multi-touch UIs design be changed, from a possibly better UI, to adhere to users familiarity with single point driven interaction?

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts now has several new features added.

Random Thoughts - Search

The website is more interactive for the user because users can now target words they are interested in. I did this by making all the words from each most turn into a hyperlink that searches for other posts with that word in it.

Random Thoughts - Add Applications

The pesky links that went to Facebook, MySpace, etc... were removed from the main navigation. This really hurt the user experience. They are all now on a separate page called "Add Application".

The users now go through a different flow while going to the site. A user can still post without having to register, login, or even submit their e-mail, but it is easier for them to submit their e-mail while posting. This will allow users to be notified of follow up comments on that post. It also invites the user to register.

This website needs some remodeling on the user interface. It is too narrow and simple.

J2ME Mobile Applications

J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) is a version of Java targeting mobile devices. It is much more efficient than J2SE (Java 2 Standard Edition) and can run in a constrained environment. It is not strictly limited to mobile devices and can run on some embedded devices. Java is known to be highly portable. Portability allows a build once, compile for many different devices scenario. J2ME can be easily ported across mobile devices. This does not hold true for all situations. The hardware on one device can be different than the next device. So, a J2ME application with GPS functionality that runs on a GPS capable phone, obviously, can not be ported to a non-GPS compatible phone. J2ME provides a complete object-oriented programming environment. There are many tools included in the J2ME software development kit that allows developers to easily build clean and usable user interfaces. There are a large number of tools included in the development environment. The BlackBerry Software Development Environment/RIM (Research In Motion) utilizes J2ME for the programming language. There is a complete JDK Java Development Kit to handle developing applications for the BlackBerry.

Learn more about J2ME Services.

Introduction to J2ME.

Xanga Weblogs

Xanga is another blogging website that is community based. It is a social-networking blogging website that has a really nice interface and very easy to use. It is not very different from any other blogging networks, but it is just as good as some of the greatest blogging websites. The biggest difference is the credits that users can earn and even purchase for money. Having credits allows you to give "mini" to others users blogs. These are little images. If someone gets a mini, they earn credits and give it to other users. This is a nifty feature that users could use to get traffic.

The prices as of now:

# $5 = 5000 credits
# $10 = 10000 credits
# $20 = 20000 credits
# $50 = 50000 credits
# $100 = 100000 credits

Users can easily give minis to other users blogs and get a link back to their blog. A mini is easier to give than a comment sometimes and they don't have to be relevant. This is the only feature that really differentiates this from any other blogging website.

View my Software Blog created on Xanga.