How to Design an Effective User Interface October '96 Meeting/Workshop

Speaker: Tracey Chiricosta and Alica Alspach Jones Meeting notes by: Alan Muirhead This workshop has been presented twice at the STC Annual Conference. The Conference Proceedings and Presenter Bios are available online. To learn more, visit the STC-PMC User Interface Design Resource Page.

Nearly twenty people braved torrential downpours on October 19 to attend a three-hour workshop presented by Tracey Chiricosta and Alice Alspach Jones. Tracey and Alice emphasized that technical communicators represent the user and should help programmers modify screen designs if needed to increase ease-of-use and reduce the likelihood of user errors. Before designing a screen, you should understand how comfortable the typical user is with computers, what kind of distractions the users have to put up with, and exactly what they want the system to do. Summarize your findings in a usability specification that is as specific and quantifiable as possible: "User needs to do X tasks in Y minutes with no more than Z errors." Five types of interface Tracey listed five types of interface. The Question & Answer interface is highly computer-controlled, requires little training, and is subject to fewer user errors; however, it is also slower and more likely to frustrate experienced users. Menu and Form interfaces retain some computer control while allowing more flexibility. Command Language and Direct Manipulation interfaces are very powerful, but require a lot of training and are subject to dangerous user errors. Remember PC-DOS? Screen layouts In designing screen layouts, you should reduce visual load, direct the user’s attention to the important places, and always be on guard for visual clutter. Follow good design rules: left justify text, group related information together, and don’t make the user scan the screen to find information. Alice talked about screen operation, starting with choice of input device. Think beyond keyboard and mouse; choose the devices suited to the user, environment, and task. Select a cursor design you can see easily. Color is an effective tool, but color perception is relative and nearly 10% of the [male] population suffers from some form of color blindness. Color should be supplemented with highlighting and positioning. Don’t use more than a total of four or five colors throughout the entire interface. Icons are helpful, but don’t create new ones where there are de facto standards, such as the Microsoft print icon. Be sensitive to possible symbolism in other cultures. Inform Keep your user informed. Error messages should be in plain language, not computer-ese. If the system "goes away" for a long process, put up an in-progress message with estimated completion time. After you’ve designed your interface, test it! Get other people -- prospective users, anyone but yourself -- to walk through the interface and do their best to break it. Find what works and fix what doesn’t. Tracey and Alice are exciting speakers; they filled their talk with humor and real-world examples. They admit that none of this may be new, but the discipline of applying it in the real world is harder than it looks. But it’s worth it -- it works!

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