Chapter 2 UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUALIZING INTERACTION Se oN. i cal SE. 2.1 Introd 2.2 Understanding the Problem Space and Coneeptualizing Interaction 23 Conceptual Models 2.4 Interface Metaphors 25 Interaction Types 2.6 Paradigms, Visions, Theories, Models, and Frameworks Objectives “The main aims ofthis chapter are to «+ Explin wha is meant by the problem space. Explain how to concepeainc interaction, ¢ Describe whats conceal models and how to hein co formulae one * Discus the ase of nelace metaphors as part of concepral mode * Outline the core interaction eyes or informing the development of a conceptual a + Inrxuce paradigms, visions, doris, model and frameworks informing imeaction design. 7 2.1 Introduction fats, documents, and So on in an efficient, safe, and enjoyable way. What How would you Sart? Would you begin by sketching out how the interface right look, work out how the system architecture should be structured, or start coding? Os, would you star by asking users about cheir current experiences of sharing fle and look at existing tools, eg. Dropbox, and, based on this, begin thinking about why and how you were going to design che appliato Tt depends on whar you are designing or building. Traditionally interaction designers begin by doing user research and then sketching thei ideas In AgileUX (see Chapter 12), ideas 2.2 UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM SPACE Ble sof time, effort, and money later on in the design process. I-thought-out ideas, and Fen a ee itr spec: ad whe tas of eign ght Fenn oe ed nourtming tres bee ne tree pce nog ag anand, seresimine the issues In this chapter we describe the step involved In paticulag, we focus 2.2 Understanding the Problem Space ‘and Conceptualizing Interaction In the process of creating an interactive product, it can be tempting t0 begin atthe nuts tix bolts level of design By this we mean working out how ro design the physical interface fn what technologies and interaction styles to use e.g. whether to use multitouch, speech, Graphical user interlace, head-up display, augmented reality, gesture-based, et. The problem tit starting here is thae usability and user experience goals (which we desribe in Chapter can he overlooked. For example, consider the possiblity of designing an integrated in-car atcrtainment, phone, and navigation system that allows driver to follow directions, find Searhy eating places, watch TV (already possible in Korea ~ see Figure 21a), and read their mail Such a gadget might seem attractive to some, offering drivers more choice: they can rcp an eye on live sports games, find if there is a Cozy Coffe Shop in the next rown, and alae in Kore and (t) A seen shat taken rom Figure 2:1 (a} Combined GPS and TV eytern HB vision of the future, Cooffown. In ths hypathetical scenario, 2g a2 UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUALIZING INTERACTION s0 on. However you might already be thinking “How distracting is that?” Now imagine how new projection technology could be used as part of the system ~ instead of displaying the dite ll display thae has to be toggled through i coal be displayed throughout the vehicle, on the dashboard, the rear-view mirror and the wing: shield (see Figure 2.16). However, thsi likely ro be even more dangerous ~ it could easly diseract drivers, encouraging them to switch their attention from the road to the various images being projected ‘While it is certainly necessary at some point ro choose which technology to employ and decide how to design the physical aspects its better ro make these kinds of decisions afer articulating the nacue of che problem space. By this we mean understanding and conceptual izing whac is currently the user experiencefproact and how this is going to be improved or ‘hanged. This requires a design team chinking through how thie ideas will support or extend the way people communicate and interact in their everyday activities In the above example, it involves finding out what is problematic with existing forms of navigating while divi eg, trying to read maps while moving the steering whee! or looking ae a small GPS display ‘mounted on the dashboard when approaching a roundabout, and hov to ensure that drivers ‘ean continue to drive saely without being distracted AAs emphasized in Chapter 1, identifying usability and user experience goals is a pee requisite to understanding the problem space. Another importane consideration is to make explicit underlying assumptions and claims. By an assumption is meant taking something for granted when it nceds further investigation, eg. people will want to watch TV while diving. By a claim i meant stating something tobe tre when is sill open to question, ee 1 multimodal style of interaction for controlling a ear navigation system ~ one that involves speaking while driving ~ is perfectly safe. Writing down your assumptions and claims and then tying to defend and suppore them can highligh shose that are vague or wanting In so doing, poorly constructed design ideas can be reformlated. In many project, involves identifying human activities and interactvities that are problematic and working ‘out how they might be improved theough being supported with a different sof functions In ‘others iccan be more speculative, requiring thinking through what to design for an engaging, ‘ser experience chat does not exis The process of articulating the problem space is typically done as a team effort. Invac ably, team members wil have differing perspectives on the problem space, For example, @ project manager is likely to be concerned about a proposed solution in terms of budgets, timelines, and staffing costs, whereas a softwate engineer will be thinking about breaking it down into specific technical concepts. tis important that the implications of pursuing cach perspective are considered in relation ro one another. Although time-consuming and sometimes resulting in disagreements among the team, the benefits of this process can far ‘outweigh the associated costs: there will be much less chanee of incorrect assumptions and unsupported claims creeping into desig solution thae lace eucn out to he unusable or wanted. Furthermore, spending time enumerating and reflecting upon ideas during the e stages ofthe design process enables more options and possiblities to be considered. Box presents hypothetical scenario of a team working through their assumptions and c showing how, in so doing, problems are explicated and explored, leading to a specific avenue of investigation agreed on by the team, Explicating people's assumptions and claims about why they think something might be a good idea (or not) enables the desga team as a whole to view multiple perspectives on nt kinds of informational on one sn ly 1 2.2. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM SPACE 29 BOX 2.1 ‘A hypothetical scenario of early design highlighting the imptions and claims (italicized) made by different A team ass members of a dk company has desided it need to develop a0 for smartphones because its marketing team has discovered that m tomers have swiched ont #0 using another mobile browse The marketing people assume Inching wrong with tee ower ad tha thee rivals havea Bere produc. But te don't Know what the peoblem i with thers. The design team par in charge ofthis proc asume they need ro improve the usability ofa numberof che browser Functions. They cla ha this wll win back users by enaking fears ofthe interface simple, more aac, and mor flexible to use “The wer experience resatchers on the design team conduct aa initial user study in escgating how people use the co Sets acer eee Cau bese ce cance Usabiliy. They obverse and talk to many differen uses. They discover several things about he usability of ther web browser, sme of which they were not expecting. One relation i yany’s web browser on a variety of smartphone. They pare thee functionalicy and thar many of thei cantomers have never actully used the b eis Ridings tothe rest ofthe team and have & Jong discussion about why each af them thinks iti mot being wsed, One member clams thatthe web browser's fanetion for orga ing bokmarks is ily and error prone and assomes hiss the reason why many users fot use ite Another member bucks her up, saying how asekwar itis to us ths method when wanting to move bookmarks Between folders. One ofthe usr experince archiecs agrees, ‘everal of the anes he talked to mentioned ow dificult and vime-coasumin they Found it when tying to move bookmarks beeen folders and how they often ended cidenally pring eer nto the wong folders. {A sofoware engineer reflcts on what hs ben say and makes the claim that the book tect needed ince he assumes that most people do what he docs, which mar function o evista welt by ficking through thir story bist of peeviously visited pages. Another member ofthe team disagrees with him, clang chat many vers dono ike leave 3 tsi tobe able to save only sts hey think chey tthe sites they have visited and would pre ‘nigh want ofevist The hookmark funtion provides them with this option. Another pein Aiscussed is whether 10 include motfequcnly vised ites a5 thumbnail images or as tbs The software engineer agrees that providing ll pions could be solution but wories how this igh cle the sal screen terface ‘fer much discussion cn the ros and cons of bookmarking versus history lists the eam decides o investigate further how fo support ellectively the saving, ordering, and reieing of ches using mobile web browse Al gre that she format ofthe existing we br Strata ito iid and that one of heir priocte is 1seehow they can cea simpler way of revisiting websites onthe smartphone. A2 UNDERSTANDING AND CONCEPTUALIZING INTERACTION 2.3 CONCEPTUAL MODELS. a the problem space and, in so doing, reveal conflicting and problematic ones. The following amework is intended to provide ase of core questions to al design teams in this process sid 0 pay more mones fora new TV becuse of hi enhancement? A numb of people plained 0 Be elowevee a fundamental wsbly problem was overlooked: many people c FP Srevon sks, The gleses were also easy lst, sipping down the back ofthe sofa. And Meaning cm made #dlfeult to do other things ike fcking through mltple channel Testing and evesting (many people simultancouly use second devise, sch a emarzphones Mod abies while watching TV). Most people who bought 3D TVs stopped watching them Fer while because of the sably problems, While cursed TV doesnt reste ewer 0 Bscépecal posi its not clear whether the claim about the enhanced viwiag experience * Are there problems with an existing product or user experience? If so, what are they? + Why do you think there ae problems? * How do you think your proposed design ideas might overcome these? * Ifyou have nor identfed any problems and instead are designing fora new wser experienc, ow do yu shnk your proposed design eas support, change, oF extend en Wa Going things? Mrsmsns de extra cow of buying a new TV. ACTIVITY 2.4 sete framework ia the above sto expe the main asumpions ad lis beind 3D TV panied tials Having a good understanding of the problem space greatly helps design teams to then fable to conceptualize the design space. Primarily this involves articulating the proposed system and the user experience. The benefits of conceptualizing the design space early on are serwens ve the asumpeons ile? Comment SDTV went on sae + Orientation ~ enabling the design team to ask specific kinds of questions about how the ‘conceptual model will be understood by the targeted uses. + Open mindedness ~ preventing the design team from becoming narrowly focused early on * Common ground ~ allowing the design team to establish a set of common terms that al can understand and agree upon, reducing the chance of misunderstandings and confusion 10 and curved TV in 2014. There was much hype and fanfare about the enhanced user experience they would offer, epecally when watching movies, «ports © 3D TV wat that people woul not mind wearing the lasses that were needed to sein 3D, nor would they mind paving. lot more fr new Denabled TY screen. A clone was that poole would really enjoy the enhanced cant and color detail provided by 3D, based onthe favorable feedback ceived worldwide when iowing 3D fils, such 25 Anza, ata cinema. An assumption for curved TV was hati would provide more exit for viewer to optimize the viewing ange for omic’ ving fochoth was: Could the enhanced cinema viewing expe ence that both claim become an actal desired living room experience? There i 0 existing problem to overcome what is being proposes anew way of experiencing TV, Were people ers, and deamas. An assionption fi Arsng later on (Once formulated and agreed upon, a conceptual model can then become a shared blue print. This can be represented asa textual description andlor in a diagrammatic form, de Pending om the preferred lingua franca used by the design team. The conceptual model is ted by the design team as the bass from which to develop more detailed and concrete as pects ofthe design In doing so it can produce simpler designs that match with wsers tasks, slow for Faster development time, est in improved customer uptake, and needles ean ing and customer support (Johnson and Henderson, 2012). oom. Bu the uranswered qs 2.3 Conceptual Models How do you develop a conceptual model and how do you know you have a good one? We begin to address these questions here by drawing on Johnson and Henderson's (2002) account of a conceptual model. They describe one as “a high-level description of how a system is organized and operates" johnson and Henderson, 2002, p. 26). In this sens, i is an abstraction outlining what people ean do with a prac and what concepts are needed tounderstand how to interact with it. A key benef of concepruaizing a design at this level is tae i enables “designers to straighten out cheir thinking before they start laying out their ‘widgets [Johnson and Henderson, 2002, p. 28) Tn a nutshell, conceprual model provides a working strategy and a framework of general concepts and their interrelations. The core components att Figure 2.2 A family watching 20 TV + Metaphors and analogies that convey to people how to understand what a product is for and how to use it for an activity (eg browsing, bookmarking