Studio 2 - iPod Usability Explorations
8 Golden Rules of Interface Design
Strive for Consistency
Consistent sequence of actions should be required in similar situations: identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens and consistent commands should be employed throughout.
Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
As the frequency of use increases, so do the user’s desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviation, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an exert user.
Offer informative feedback
This means the system does something in response to the user’s action which gives him/her information about what s/he has done. For example, rotating the wheelpad on the iPod results on a volume scale going up and down telling you changed the volume. And you can hear it too.
Design dialogs to yield closure
Sequence of actions should be organized to provide beginning, middle and end. Informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions provides satisfaction to the user, a sense of accomplishment, relief. It is the signal to drop contingency plans and options, the way is clear for the next group of actions.
Strive to prevent errors, and help users to recover quickly from them
Design systems where users cannot make mistakes, prefer menu selection to form filling. Do not allow alphabetic characters in numeric entry fields. If an error is made the system should detect the error. Offer simple, constructive and specific instruction for recovery. Users should only retype the faulty part of a command.
Allow ‘undo’
Permit easy reversal of actions. Actions should be reversible as much as possible. Exploration is encouraged, anxiety is diminished. Different units of reversibility: an action, a data entry task, a name, an address block.
Make users feel they are in control of a responsive system
Users want to feel in charge of the system. No surprising responses, inability to obtain necessary information, inability to produce the wanted response. Make sure the user an action initiator instead of a responder to system actions.
Reduce short-term memory load
Reduce short term memory load for example displays should be kept simple, window motion frequency reduced. Sufficient training time allotted for codes and action sequences.
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Enable frequent users to use shortcuts
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Allow "Undo"
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Design dialogs to yield closure
The users I will be using to do my test:
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One user will be a person that is very familiar with the iPod.
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Another User will be a random young teenager.
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And there will be another two user, which will be from the older generation who slightly or not at all familiar with the iPod.
Instructions
The users will be provided with a printed version of three tasks which will also have boxes allocated next to each task, therefore they can tick each boxes of the task when they complete each assignment.
The rules of the tasks will explain exactly the same to all users before the start.
They will not be pressurized on time or if they getting any of tasks done incorrectly, also they will be allowed to restart the task again or to go back a few steps i.e "undo" to correct themselves if they think they have done a mistake.
The users will be notified that they can use the shortcuts that are available in the iPod, i.e genre, artists, albums and etc.
Analysing Data
The way the data will be analysed:
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Data will be analysed by us first therefore we will have a pre-record of how long each task should take, what shortcuts could be taken and how many clicks it will take to accomplish its objective.
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Each user will be timed on how long it will take them to reach there target for each task. This will help us to cross reference from the pre-record that we have done with the user's results which will define if the iPod has failed or accomplishedto be user friendly.
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We will also be observing on how many times the user Undo or restart the task again, which will tell us if the iPod is user friendly.
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Another observation we will be making is to see how many "clicks" the user will do to complete each task. Again we will cross reference there results to our pre-recorded result of the tasks.
The way we can establish weather the terms of the task and study, satisfies the rules is:
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Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
For this we have to provide the users to use shortcuts with in the iPod to use to complete there tasks, which would tell us if the shortcuts provided in the iPod is good and easy to use.
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Allow “Undo”
For our task we will have notified the users they are able to “Undo” i.e. steps back or restart the task without any time pressure or hesitation.
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Design dialogs to yield closure.
To satisfy this rule we gave out a printed version of the tasks with the instructions, therefore gave the users a beginning, middle and end.
Learning Outcomes
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Helped me to understand the different areas of usability’s for a design evaluation.
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Made me learn and understand about all the 8 Golden Rules of Don Norman.
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Allowed me to learn how to apply the 8 Golden Rules with a design and usability evaluation.
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