Who ya gonna call! You're on your own [software usability design]

The issue here is not whether discount techniques should be used; they are inevitable. The issue is, in trying to do the best job you can with the ridiculously limited resources provided you, what should you do? How confident should you be in the techniques you are using? A bad design may come back and bite you. When you choose a technique to use in a hurry, you are placing your professional reputation and perhaps your job on the line. You deserve to know four things about any technique that you apply. The hit rate: How many real problems will this technique uncover? The false-alarm rate: How many (and what sorts) of things will it falsely identify as problems (that may not exist, but are costly and time consuming to “fix”)? What does it miss? What types of problems (and how many) does this technique not discover? The correct rejections: How confident are you in your discount technique's ability to flag problems? Discount techniques are not a substitute for the potent combination of analytic and empirical methodologies that usability professionals can bring to bear in designing and evaluating an interface     

Usability Testing: A Journey, Not a Destination

Usability testing for interfaces can fit into a design project in several ways. The author looks at how good testing techniques can make projects run better and faster, and produce an improved result. The primary point is that there's no incompatibility between usability testing and a rational product process. We can think of usability testing as simply another aspect of quality assurance, and can fold it into the product process in much the same way as software quality assurance (QA). By having usability people involved from the beginning, big problems get found earlier, and small problems get found in time. The fear of losing control of a project to a usability person who finds a last-minute interface design problem is therefore a red herring. You can indeed find usability problems that might affect project completion late in the development process, just like you can find system architecture problems. But the way to keep this from happening is to test your system and your ideas during each stage of development, gathering the kind of information you need at each of those stages. That's why usability testing is a journey, not a destination     

Let's ask the users [user interfaces]

Tools, techniques, and concepts to optimize user interfaces are presented. Many aspects of usability can best be studied by simply asking the users. This is especially true for issues related to user satisfaction and anxiety, which are hard to measure objectively. Questionnaires and interviews are two methods you can use to determine how people use a system and what features they particularly like or dislike. Both methods are indirect: they do not study the interface itself but rather users' opinions about it     

Sisl: Several Interfaces, Single Logic

Modern interactive services such as information and e-commerce services are becoming increasingly more flexible in the types of user interfaces they support. These interfaces incorporate automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding and include graphical user interfaces on the desktop and web-based interfaces using applets and HTML forms. To what extent can the user interface software be decoupled from the service logic software (the code that defines the essential function of a service)? Decoupling of user interface from service logic directly impacts the flexibility of services, or how easy they are to modify and extend. To explore these issues, we have developed Sisl, an architecture and domain-specific language for designing and implementing interactive services with multiple user interfaces. A key principle underlying Sisl is that all user interfaces to a service share the same service logic. Sisl provides a clean separation between the service logic and the software for a variety of interfaces, including Java applets, HTML pages, speech-based natural language dialogue, and telephone-based voice access. Sisl uses an event-based model of services that allows service providers to support interchangeable user interfaces (or add new ones) to a single consistent source of service logic and data. As part of a collaboration between research and development, Sisl is being used to prototype a new generation of call processing services for a Lucent Technologies switching product.     

Happy together: sensors and users

This issue of IEEE Internet Computing is focused on data-driven applications in sensor networks, which, in a literal sense, might not seem to have much to do with user experience (UE). We are hoping to offer some insights into how UE people might think about this problem area and others like it, what issues they might raise, and what opportunities could arise by considering those issues. The final message is that, although sensor-network management presents a unique set of challenges, the usual rules of user-centered design still apply: know your users; know their tasks; design, test, and repeat. In some highly technical domains, you might be designing for skilled, experienced users with a clear foundation of domain knowledge and expertise. From a UE design perspective, this means that the designers can assume the presence of this knowledge about the domain, and design the system around it. The interface that results could well be impenetrable to anybody outside the domain, but that might be okay - there's nothing wrong with building interfaces for experts if that's who your users are. The catch is that the UI designers has to learn enough about the domain that they can do the design, because so much of what makes it an effective interface is bound up in the domain's details. That's the route that gets you a great interface, and a great user experience.     

The Nigerian Scam Just Keeps on Going and Going and Going and Going

Stop everything! I have found the answer to all your problems — millions of dollars, and it is free money! It is better than the Lotto! Better than gambling in Monte Carlo, or Las Vegas! There is no risk! No catch! You will no longer need to work. You can buy everything you ever wanted. Imagine that! Your kids can attend the best of schools; you can live in a great new house, with only one or two servants, as you don’t want to be too spoiled. No mortgage. No bills. Just think of it. You can jet with the jet set. You can travel the world first class. Oh, what a life!     

Security is a Process,Not a Product: Managing User IDs in the E-business Era

Picture the scene: you’re just leaving your house for work in the morning and before setting off you run a quick security check. All windows are closed, the back door is shut and the alarm set before you double lock the front door. You then place the front door key under the welcome mat with a sign saying ‘look under here’. This is what thousands of organizations are doing by failing to monitor and manage their user IDs effectively, because they are the technology equivalent of a master key to your network systems.     

Navigating the applet-browser divide

The World Wide Web has emerged as a new application-delivery platform. In response, developers are offering users sophisticated Web-based Java applets that range from cybershopping carts to complex tools for genome mapping. These applets give you application functionality without taking up space on your hard drive. But trailing behind the applet bounty are new usability questions. A major one is how to make applet navigation seamless in the Web browser domain. Java applets are programs you write in Java and integrate into your Web page. Although applets can provide functionality similar to traditional applications, the applet code need not be installed on the users' hard drive. Instead, the applets execute Java-compatible Web browsers. Unlike standard Web pages, which users simply visit and browse, applet-enhanced pages let the user manipulate applet components and dynamically interact with information. The author discusses tools, techniques and concepts to optimize user interfaces     

Building an international security standard

The Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation standard (CC) promises to replace scattered and often conflicting regional and national security standards. An emerging international standard, it is intended to support developers, evaluators and consumers of security products. The CC provides a framework to rate products by evaluation assurance level (EAL). Each EAL embodies a recommended set of assurance requirements: the higher the EAL, the more secure the product. You can use EALs to pick and choose which assurance requirements you want to satisfy. Think of the EALs as you would think of bandwidth or processor speed. Not everyone in your organization needs a dedicated T3 line or a 450 MHz desktop. Likewise, not every security product you use needs an EAL7 rating. The article shows how you, as a security products consumer, can use the CC to help determine if a given product meets your security needs. By rating different products according to their EALs, the CC can help you comparison shop and select an appropriately secure product. Further, the standard's international scope can help you integrate your system's security components with those in other countries-whether those components belong to customers, vendors, or other divisions of your own enterprise     

Social activity indicators for groupware

Suppose you're a member of a few development teams, working with people who are geographically dispersed. You're using distributed groupware to work with your team mates. How do you decide when to work on a project and when to ignore requests to work on a project, when there are enough users on the groupware system to bother using it, who is available to answer a question, and which applications should get the most real estate on your screen? To help answer these questions, distributed groupware systems must indicate something about the social world they represent-who is on the system and what they are doing. User interfaces for groupware (or computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) applications) must therefore convey social information. It's energizing to know, for example, that your team mates are busy working away on a project. And it's nice to know when your friends or colleagues are available on a chat system. You might not need to know the semantics of the messages or documents involved, just that some activity is occurring. This is true for systems used by work groups as well as those used by an organization or a community of users. We think such social indicators should be a standard part of the CSCW user interface. On the basis of social psychology theory, we believe that a class of social indicator, which we call social activity indicators, is a simple, powerful way to improve user-interface functionality. Furthermore, social activity indicators are easy to build     

Special issue on out-of-box experience and consumer devices

“Computer equipment is hard to choose, install, maintain, and, especially, operate” (Landauer 1995 In: The trouble with computers: usefulness, usability, and productivity). How many cables did you have to connect (and organise) before the personal office system was properly installed and put into use? How many set-up procedures and agreements did you have to complete before you could access your e-mail with your mobile phone or PDA? Did you lose any documents or applications when you replaced your old computer with a new one? Computers, mobile devices and information technology products are sometimes difficult to put into use because of the several operations required prior to their first use.     

结构可变更、界面可配置的通用基础信息模型

针对关系数据库设计中潜在逻辑结构变更的需求,利用模板-实例思想,在关系数据库基础上设计实现一套对基础信息统一表达处理模型,以实现新旧逻辑结构数据共存、逻辑结构立即变更立即生效的目的;与通用信息模型相结合,针对广泛自定义输入界面需求,利用表格布局方式和浏览器交互功能,设计实现可配置界面功能;通过配置即可完成逻辑结构定义、输入输出界面编辑功能;模型的原型已应用于某单位人力资源决策辅助系统中。     

Design and Evaluation of a Touch-Based Personalizable In-Vehicle User Interface

There is a trend of personalizable products at the same time as there is a substantial growth of functions in the automobile user interface. A research through design approach was used to explore the potential of a personalizable vehicle user interface to improve traffic safety as well as user experience by offering a product that is tailored to the user’s own needs and preferences. A prototype was evaluated by 20 participants with several methods: interviews, Computer System Usability Questionnaire, Microsoft product reaction cards, and driving simulator measures. The prototype was experienced positively (flexible, easy to use, and usable), few usability issues were found, no negative effects on driving performance were found, and it was assumed that it could improve traffic safety. All participants stated that they would want to use such a system in their own cars.     

用SQL Server存储过程编写倒推算法

倒推算法是ERP中根据企业产品结构计算产值,在制品、产量的常用算法。合理使用了此算法,能有效提高检索和运算速度,采用主键索引加存储过程更能提高复杂交叉搜索的速度。SQL Server是很普及的典型网络数据库,使用该语言结构,笔者编写了大量的管理算法,倒推算法就是其中之一。     

An investigation on Ribbon interface design guidelines for people with less computer literacy

In the recent years, there is an intense competition between software development companies to design better interfaces. In this marketing rat race, Ribbon interface came to make software user interface easier. After the introduction of Ribbon by Microsoft, it was widely used by various software development companies. Ribbon is a replacement for menus and toolbars and it tends to organize tools in tabs based on their similarities. Although Ribbon interface has many advantages, previous researches have shown that there are serious usability issues that hinder usage of Ribbon interfaces for users with less computer literacy. In order to solve Ribbon interfaces usability issues, this study tried to introduce Ribbon interface design guidelines by focusing on the issues related to users with less computer literacy. In this study two separate sets of moderated (in-person) usability testing were used. The first set evaluated the usability issues of an experimental Ribbon interface software in terms of both visual and cognitive issues. The second set was used to evaluate the Ribbon interface prototype that was designed based on the discovered usability issues in the first usability test. In order to ensure the validity of the data, the researchers tried to triangulate the data collection process by collecting data from different sources, namely, quantitative measurement of participants' performance, direct observation, and interview. Based on the comparison of the usability tests results which points out the factors that have led to participants' performance improvement in the prototype version, a number of guidelines are extracted for Ribbon interfaces. These guidelines are applicable to Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint and most of the software that can be developed with Ribbon interface. Putting these guidelines into action, self-learning would be promoted and learning issues of users with less computer literacy would be decreased.     

Rapid Prototyping of Adaptable User Interfaces

User interface adaptation has been proposed in recent years as a means to achieve personalized accessibility and usability of user interfaces. Related user interface architectures, as well as a variety of related development method and tools, have also been elaborated. Admittedly, however, despite the recognized validity of the approach, which has been proved in practice in a series of prototype systems, the wider adoption and uptake of user interface adaptation approaches are still limited. One of the identified obstacles is the complexity intrinsic in designing such interfaces and the need of radically revising the current user interface design practice to account for (a) the alternative designs required for adaptation, (b) the parameters involved in driving adaptations (i.e., selecting among alternatives at a given point during interaction), and (c) the logic of adaptation at runtime. This article proposes a twofold tool-based support strategy for user interface adaptation development, based on (a) an adaptation development toolkit and related widget library, which directly embeds lexical level adaptations into common interactive widgets, and (b) embedding such a library in a common integrated development environment, thus allowing designers to define and view alternative adaptations at design time and create adaptable user interfaces through traditional prototyping. The aforementioned approach has been implemented in the domain of adaptable applications for older users, producing tools that are currently in use in the development of a large suite of interactive applications in various domains. The approach presented in this article is claimed to be the first and so far unique supporting rapid prototyping of adaptable user interfaces, thus minimizing the divergence between typical development practices and user interface adaptation development.     

Usability Principles for Augmented Reality Applications in a Smartphone Environment

Through the rapid spread of smartphones, users have access to many types of applications similar to those on desktop computer systems. Smartphone applications using augmented reality (AR) technology make use of users' location information. As AR applications will require new evaluation methods, improved usability and user convenience should be developed. The purpose of the current study is to develop usability principles for the development and evaluation of smartphone applications using AR technology. We develop usability principles for smartphone AR applications by analyzing existing research about heuristic evaluation methods, design principles for AR systems, guidelines for handheld mobile device interfaces, and usability principles for the tangible user interface. We conducted a heuristic evaluation for three popularly used smartphone AR applications to identify usability problems. We suggested new design guidelines to solve the identified problems. Then, we developed an improved AR application prototype of an Android-based smartphone, which later was conducted a usability testing to validate the effects of usability principles.     

Usability testing — on a budget: a NASA usability test case study

Okay, so you've purchased a graphical user interface (GUI) builder tool to help you quickly build a sophisticated user interface, and your developers promise to follow a particular style guide (e.g., OSF/Motif, Apple/Macintosh) when creating the GUI. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is no guarantee that the application's user interface will be usable; that is, where the user interface helps, rather than hinders, the end-users from doing their jobs. Numerous techniques for testing the usability and user satisfaction of an application's GUI are available, such as design walk-throughs, field testing with beta releases, demonstrations of prototypes to future end-users, and user questionnaires. One of the most effective techniques is usability testing with defined tasks and metrics, and yet, it is not commonly used in project development life cycles at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). This paper discusses a low-budget, but effective, approach we used at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to perform structured usability testing. It did not require any additional staff or a usability laboratory, but did successfully identify problems with the application's user interface. The purpose of the usability testing was two-fold: (1) to test the process used in the usability test; and (2) to apply the results of the test to improving the subject software's user interface. This paper will discuss the results from the test and the lessons learned. It will conclude with a discussion of future plans to conduct cost benefit analysis and integrate usability testing as a required step in a project's development life cycle.     

基于MVC模式的Web用户界面建模

分析了企业信息系统的Web用户界面开发特性,研究了当前主流前端框架的MVC(模型-视图-控制器)设计模式应用,针对Web前端开发需求及最佳实践方法,提出了一种符合MVC用户界面开发最佳实践的组件化Web用户界面建模方法.设计一套抽象和描述Web用户界面组件的UML(统一建模语言)概要文件,从界面数据模型、界面组件模型到界面交互模型等3个方面完成Web用户界面建模.以一个装修行业定制型ERP(企业资源计划)系统为例,通过用户界面建模实践,验证了本建模方法的可行性、易用性和有效性.