Are Design Standards Any Use for Designing Systems?

1
Are Design Standards Any Use for Designing
Systems?

• Marguerite Autry, Ph.D.
• Bill Killam, MA CHFP
• 20548 Deerwatch Place
• Ashburn, VA 20147
• [phone]

2
What is a standard?
3
Standards

• Something, such as a practice or a product, that
  is widely recognized or employed, especially
  because of its excellence.
• Dictionary.com (Definition 5)

4
Guidelines (de Souza Bevan)

• Guidelines
• a useful compilation of HCI knowledge
• an authoritative source of advice for designers
• a means of transferring knowledge to designers
  as part of educational or training courses

5
Style Guide

• Style The combination of distinctive features
  of literary or artistic expression, execution, or
  performance characterizing a particular person,
  group, school, or era.
• Guide Something, such as a pamphlet, that
  offers basic information or instruction
• - Dictionary.com

6
Specification

• A detailed, exact statement of particulars,
  especially a statement prescribing materials,
  dimensions, and quality of work for something to
  be built, installed, or manufactured.
• Dictionary.com

7
Standards, Guidelines and Style Guides Are
Different from Specifications

• Horizontal Market
• MIL-STD-1472
• IEEE P1583
• The Windows Interface An Application Design
  Guide
• Do not address specific designs, but design areas
• Sequence control
• Accessibility

8
Why have a standard?
9
Why have standards?

• To allow a product to relate to other products
• To meet legal requirements
• To assure quality and consistency when more than
  one creator is responsible
• To ensure industry best practices are used
• To create a usable or more usable product

10
Who would use the standards?
11
Who would use

• Human factors specialist
• Interaction Designer
• IA
• Graphic Designer
• Content Writer
• Software Analyst
• Hardware Analyst
• Systems Engineer
• Software Coder
• Hardware Expert
• Tester/QA
• Manager

12
How are standards used?
13
Mosier and Smith Survey Says the Purposes are

• As an aid during design
• To establish requirements in advance of design
• To evaluate a proposed design
• To evaluate a completed design

• 62
• 46
• 41
• 25

14
Types of Standards
15
Types of Standards

• Standards for safety Cars, food, drugs,
  highways,
• Standards to assure fairness and consistency
  Weights and measures
• Standards to assure interoperability CDs and CD
  players
• Structural standards that describes static,
  intrinsic properties of an object for
  interchangeability the size, shape, color, etc.
• Functional standards specifies how an object
  behaves or is capable of behaving
• Performance standards are similar to functional
  standards but includes some metric of quality and
  a given threshold for that metric
• Process standards that define the analysis,
  design, and development process

16
Standards for HCI Design

• Standards containing design data
• DoD
• ISO, ANSI, and HFES standards
• Commercial Standards
• Public Style Guides
• Guidelines Documents
• Books on Design
• Process Standards that describe the process that
  is to be used during a design process
• DoD
• ISO
• Book on Design

17
Standards Containing Design Data
18
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply?

• Client-Server
• Guidelines For Designing User Interface Software
  - Smith Mosier (744 guidelines)
• The Essentials of User Interface Design Cooper
• Human-Computer Interface Design Guidelines
  Brown
• Microsoft, Apple, Motif, OpenLook, IBM CUA Style
  Guide

19
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply? (continued)

• Client Server (continued)
• ISO 9241 (17 parts)
• ISO/IEC 10741-1 Dialogue interaction - Cursor
  control for text editing
• ISO 924110 Dialogue principles
• ISO 924112 Presentation of information
• ISO 924113 User guidance
• ISO 924114 Menu dialogues
• ISO 924115 Command dialogues
• ISO 924116 Direct manipulation dialogues
• ISO 924117 Form filling dialogues

20
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply? (continued)

• Client Server (concluded)
• ISO/IEC 11581 Icon symbols and functions
• ISO 11064 Ergonomic design of control centers
• ISO 13406 Ergonomic requirements for work with
  visual displays based on flat panels
• ISO 14915 Software ergonomics for multimedia
  user interfaces
• ISO/IEC 14754 Pen-based interfaces - Common
  Gestures for text editing with pen-based systems
• IEC TR 61997 Guidelines for the user interfaces
  in multimedia equipment for general purpose use
• ISO/IEC 18021 Information Technology - User
  interface for mobile tools

21
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply? (continued)

• Content
• New York Times Manual of Style and Usage
• Chicago Manual of Style - University of Chicago
• Elements of Style-Strunk and White
• Developing Quality Technical Information A
  Handbook for Writers and Editors- Hargis,
  Rouiller, Wilde
• ISO 90012000 Documentation Requirements

22
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply? (continued)

• Web Sites
• Designing Web Usability The Practice of
  Simplicity - by Nielsen
• Usability for the Web Designing Web Sites that
  Work - Brinck
• Web Usability and Navigation A Beginner's Guide
  - Merlyn Holmes
• Son of Web Pages That Suck Learn Good Design by
  Looking at Bad Design - Flanders Peters
• Site-Seeing A Visual Approach to Web Usability
  - Wroblewski
• Web Bloopers 60 Common Web Design Mistakes, and
  How to Avoid Them - Johnson
• Shaping Web Usability Interaction Design in
  Context Badre
• 200 e-commerce guidelines
• Standards for Online Communication- Hackos
• 101 Standards for Online Communication-Stevens

23
Issue 1 Which Standards to Apply? (concluded)

• Accessibility
• ISO DTS 16071 Guidance on accessibility for
  human-computer interfaces
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiatives (WAI)
• Section 508 Web Accessibility for People With
  Disabilities - Paciello,
• Maximum Accessibility Making Your Web Site More
  Usable for Everyone - Slatin Rush
• Accessibility for Everybody Understanding the
  Section 508 Accessibility Requirements - Mueller
  (Author)
• Understanding Accessibility - Yonaitis
• Guidelines for Accessible Web Site Technology
  Users - Ward, Rubens, Southard

24
Issue 2 Vagueness

• Do not use words that typical users may not
  understand
• Ensure that tab labels are clearly descriptive
  of their function or destination
• Limit the amount of white space
• mechanically operated controls and keys shall
  be tactilely discernible
• Provide content that, when presented to the
  user, conveys essentially the same function or
  purpose as auditory or visual content
• Color coding shall not be used as the only means
  of conveying information, indicating an action,
  prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual
  element...
• Character size should be large enough to be
  easily read from the expected viewing distance

25
Issue 3 Lack of Complete Guidance

• When products provide auditory output, the audio
  signal shall be provided at a standard signal
  level
• When a product permits a user to adjust color and
  contrast settings, a range of color selections
  capable of producing a variety of contrast levels
  shall be provided

26
Issue 4 Interpretation

• The preferred subtended angle of arc for a font
  shall be 22 minutes, where F 2 tan-1 h/2d

27
Issue 5 Interaction and Application in the Real
World

• Conflicts between various sources, various
  concerns, and various design domains
• Standards are developed and tested under specific
  conditions. They cannot be generalized to all
  populations, activities, and environments.
• Standards are developed by isolating variables
  therefore, interaction issues between individual
  standards are not accounted for.
• Selection of font type can effect character size
  requirements
• Character size, contrast ratio, lighting
  conditions can effect and even overcome the
  individual standards

28
Issue 6 Technology Issues

• Guidelines across varying technologies
• PDA, Cell phone, and LSD delivery
• Browser- types and capabilities
• Guidelines based on changing environments
• Screen sizes
• Download speeds
• Guidelines based on emerging technologies
• e.g., screen readers
• Wide screen vs 43 aspect ratio displays

29
Issue 7 Strictly Following Standard Can Yield
Less Than Desirable Results

• Variations on a Theme (by Thomas Payne)
• Times like these try mens souls
• How trying it is to live in these times
• These are trying times for mens souls
• Soulwise, these are trying times
• E.B. White
• Awkward Results
• This is the sort of English up with which I will
  not put. Winston Churchill (attributed)
• Valid, but useless
• Purple dreams sleep furiously.

30
How to Treat Standards Containing Design Data

• Since the book is a rule book, these cautionary
  remarks, these subtly dangerous hints are
  presented in the form of rules, but they are, in
  essence, mere gentle reminders they state what
  most of us know and at times forget.
• Learn the rules so you know how to break them
  properly

E.B. White, The Elements of Style
the Dali Lama
31
Process Standards
32
What are Process Standards?

• Standardize roles and responsibilities
• Standardize activities that need to occur in a
  design, their order, and the intended interaction
• Enforce a separation of design and build/code
  efforts

33
Corporate Standards
34
Corporate Standards

• Company wide procedures
• Company wide or Product Line specific style
  guides
• Documentation of Design Decisions
• Standardize common elements of a corporations
  product line
• Corporate branding
• Widget level standardization
• Gadget level standardization
• Visual layout
• Culmination of data from multiple sources
• Standardize documentation required to get from
  guidelines and design data to product
  specifications
• Standardize product evaluations and levels for
  acceptance

35
How does it all fit into the design development
process?
Content Writers
Interaction Designers
Management
Graphics Team
Product Specification
Corporate Standards
Coders
QA
36
Are Design Standards Any Use for Designing
Systems?
37
Conclusions

1. Design handbooks, design guidelines, style
   guides, and standards containing design data, are
   all valuable, but are best for teaching and
   learning not for doing. Designers should know
   them before starting a design.
2. Design standards are good for reference, provided
   they are specific to the design domain (and not
   too general) but are not for designers to have to
   read and follow. These should be gathered from
   different sources as a starting point, tailored
   for the domain and corporation, and re-evaluated
   each time they are used.
3. Designs should be evaluated against design
   standards to ensure that any deviations were
   intentional.
4. Designs should be evaluated against performance
   standards to ensure the product works as desired,
   regardless of violating existing guidelines or
   standards.
5. Design specifications should be developed from
   the designers knowledge of guidelines and
   standards within the specific design domain.
6. Process standards are more important, as well as
   dedicated, skilled people.

38
There are no Guarantees and no Design Cookbook

• Good products come out of a good design process,
  but only if
• You use experienced design personnel
• Who already know the standards for design within
  their field
• Who know where to look for additional data when
  needed
• Who have the time and drive to do this work
• Corporate standards are used to provide
  additional design data and to establish
  consistent products
• Procedures are in place to allow for a sufficient
  design effort to occur, including testing design
  assumptions and obtaining user feedback, before
  products are developed