Interaction Styles

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Chapter 11

• Interaction Styles

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Interaction Styles

• An interaction style is a collection of user
  interface controls and their associated behavior.
  The interaction style provides both the look
  (appearance) and feel (behavior) of the user
  interface components, indicating the way a user
  will communicate with the system.

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Different Interactive Styles

• There are several interaction styles from which a
  designer can choose. In this chapter we present
  five interaction styles in detail
• Command Line
• Menu selection
• Form Fill
• Direct manipulation
• Anthropomorphic

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Command line

• User enters a command from a formal command
  language this tells the computer what to do.
• Planning an action sequence doesnt help much
  because the user is required to recall the
  different (often esoteric) commands.  
•   Perceiving what happened again it doesnt
  help much because often very limited feedback is
  provided.
• Use some operating systems. This is appropriate
  because most operating systems are used by
  experts who already know the commands and who
  have a good mental model of what is going on
  inside the machine.  

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Direct manipulation

• User manipulates screen objects to control the
  computer (operates in a manner analogous to the
  real world). 
• Planning an action sequence helpful because the
  possible actions are visible.
•   Perceiving what happened again helpful
  because the effect of the action is immediately
  visible
• Used in GUI interfaces. This is appropriate
  because many GUIs are used by novices who need
  support through the interaction process the
  emphasis on recognition rather than recall really
  helps. 

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• -An appropriate interaction style for this
  system, considering the advantages and
  disadvantages of the suggested interaction style
  in this context. 
• Menu-based system is likely to be
  most appropriate. Advantage easy to guide users
  through the material. Disadvantage unlikely to
  be able to include all the possible options and
  users may get a wrong impression of how many
  options are possible. Only one interaction style
  is required. Just naming the interaction style
  gets nothing.

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Models

• Instructing how users carry out their tasks
  through instructing the system what to do
• Conversing a person conversing with a system,
  where the system acts as a dialog partner. i.e.
  communicating as if talking with another human
• Manipulating and Navigating describes the
  activity of manipulating objects and navigating
  through virtual spaces by exploring users
  knowledge of how they do this in the physical
  world
• Exploring and browsing the idea of allowing
  people to explore and browse information,
  exploiting their knowledge of how they do this
  with existing media (i.e. books, TV, radio,
  libraries.)

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Using interface metaphors as conceptual models

• Pros
• Provide users with a familiar orienting device
  i.e. the file folders of windows which represent
  an office or the cells of spreadsheets represent
  the fields of a ledger
• Help them understand and learn how to use a
  system. Simplicity in task by the icons.
• Provides key words that are familiar to the user
  conveying a transaction like the pipe () used to
  send output in UNIX like a pipe is use to send
  waste to a waster treatment center.

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Cons

• Trying to create an interface, which behaves like
  the real object. This causes a problem because
  the interface is meant to give understanding to
  the device.
• Many interfaces are to constraining forcing the
  user to move through numerous files folders to
  locate a file in various subdirectories. The
  path is unclear.
• Conflict with design principles i.e. the trash
  can icon in Macs means eject or delete causing
  confusion for some users when trying to eject a
  disk or delete a file from memory
• Overly literal translation the interface design
  may be molded after a physical design that is
  poorly designed. i.e. the complexity of the
  commands associate on a scientific calculator.

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First pass involves thinking about the problem
space and identify some initial user requirements.

• Information presentation
• The way information is to be presented and
  interacted with at the interface
• What combinations of media to use
• Which dialogs and interaction styles to use
• How to structure items in graphical objects, like
  windows, dialog boxes and menus

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Second pass should involve more extensive
information gathering about users needs and the
problems space and identifying some initial user
requirements.

• Feedback
• The kind of feedback that will be provided
• What kind of help to provide and in what format
• What navigation mechanisms to provide
• What combination of input and output devices to
  use

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Third pass should continue explicating the
requirements, leading to thinking through
possible conceptual models that would be
appropriate.

• Media combination
• Whether to provide agents and in what format
• Whether to design operations to be hardwired and
  activated through physical buttons or to
  represent them on the screen as part of the
  software
• Which kinds of icons to use