Chapter 2 Homework: What is interaction design?

This assignment was taken from the second chapter of the book Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interactions, written by Helen Sharp, Jenny Preece, and Yvonne Rogers.

Assignment Questions
Question A: Compare the ways the following information artifacts are organized:

• A personal pocket-sized calendar/diary (one week to a page).
• A wall calendar (one month to a page, usually with a picture/photo).
• A wall planner (displaying the whole year).

Question B: Using Johnson and Henderson’s (2002) framework, describe the conceptual models that underlie the design of:

• An electronic personal calendar found on a personal computer.
• A shared calendar found on the web.

Assignment Answers

Question A
Here is my analysis regarding the similarities and differences of the organization embodied in the following artifacts: (1) a personal pocket-sized calendar/diary (one week to a page); (2) a wall calendar (one month to a page, usually with a picture/photo); and (3) a wall planner (displaying the whole year).

The organization scheme leveraged in each of these artifacts features many similarities since all of these artifacts offer representations of the same phenomena – time. That said, the organization also differs in considerable ways to accommodate the different types and contexts of use that each of these artifacts is designed to support. Here is a list of the key differences and similarities that I was able to identify:

• All artifacts leverage the concepts of years, months, and days in a chronological fashion as central organizational elements. The relationship between these elements is kept consistent across all artifacts. What differs is how each artifact highlights different entities and relationships based on its purpose and the primary context of its use.
• Wall calendars and diaries lay out information across multiple pages due to the level of detail that they provide. Wall calendars display one-month per page and usually feature a length of 24 pages. Diaries display one-day per page and usually include a full 356 pages. Wall planners display a full year’s worth of information on a single poster-page.
• Wall calendars and diaries enable users to add annotations to specific dates. Wall calendars do provide limited space for annotations. They enable users to add special events and identify key dates. Only diaries provide users the ability to thoroughly plan a day’s activities by devoting a full page’s worth of space to single day. Diary users often fill up these pages with appointments and other time-relevant information. On the other hand, wall planners rarely offer space for users to add annotations to specific dates.
• Wall calendars and diaries always feature day-of-week information using visual or text notations. Day-of-week information is a core piece of data for users who want to plan their activities across a month or day; however, it less important for planning across a full year. That is why wall planners sometimes do not display day-of-week information.
• Wall calendars and diaries often feature images or quotes that are thematic or seasonal in nature. These features add variety to the experience associated to using these tools. They are also usually only discovered by the user when s/he views a new month or day. Though wall planners also tend to feature interesting designs, few are able to provide the discovery” and visual differentiation offered by an artifact with multiple pages.
• Wall planners and wall calendars feature multiple days worth of information on each page. As a consequence, these artifacts are more likely to include visual presentations that display days as a part of a week or month. In contrast, diaries focus on each day individually as its own entity. This feature of diaries enables them to capture substantially more in-depth information about the activities of each day. To help people organize their day’s activities, each page of a diary divides a day into half- or quarter-hours (check out this cool diary form Muji).
• Wall planners and wall calendars are both designed as posters and meant to be used in a single place, unlike dairies that are created in book format in order to be portable. Wall planners and calendars are designed to be hung up in a room to be used for reference and for annotation of key dates and events. On the other hand, diaries are designed to help people keep their lives organized minute-by-minute, including while they are on-the-go.
• Diaries often feature additional information such as contact books, world maps, notes pages, and personal contact information. These features are supported by the diary’s book-like format and they enable and reflect the diary’s role as a life organizer. Wall planners and calendars are not able to provide these additional features, nor would it make sense for them to support them considering the context of use.

Question B

Relevant Concepts: Johnson and Henderson’s (2002) framework for developing conceptual models: This framework identifies the standard components of a conceptual model. Thus providing guidance to designers regarding considerations that need to be addressed when developing conceptual models. The term conceptual model is defined as “high-level descriptions of how a system is organized and operates.” Components of a conceptual model:

1. Major metaphors and analogies: important metaphors and analogies used to enable the user to understand what a product does and how to use it.
2. Concepts: detailed overview of the concepts that users are exposed to and that they need to understand. Description should define the objects the concepts create and manipulate, any relevant attributes, and the operations that can be performed on concept.
3. Relationship between concepts: the relationship between concepts. Important things to define include whether an object contains another, or is part of it, and the relative importance of objects and actions.
4. Mappings: the mappings between the metaphors, concepts and the user experience the product is designed to invoke.

Analysis part 1 - An electronic personal calendar found on a personal computer

Major metaphors and analogies: The major analogy is managing a day planner. Other important analogies include a using yearly planner, monthly calendars, automatic alerts, text-editing applications, which feature file save, delete and create functions, and email applications, which include attachment and social capabilities. From a metaphor perspective, “events” is the most prominent one. Another important metaphor on calendars with sharing capabilities is “invitations.”

Concepts: These include the Calendar, a calendar, creating calendars, saving calendars, modifying calendars, deleting calendars; Events, single instance and recurring events, creating events, saving events, modifying events, deleting events, receiving events, sending events, accepting events, rejecting events, linking events to calendars, attaching documents to events, adding alerts to events, setting availability status for event.

Relationship between concepts: The calendar contains calendars, which in turn contain a group of events. Events are linked to calendars directly. Events can be linked to more than one calendar or event. Events are linked to other events via the calendars. Events contain start and end dates and times, locations, invitees, personal status, meeting name, and description. The ability to schedule and save an event is more important than the ability to invite participants to it, add an attachment or link the event to a calendar. Sending an event invitation is more important than being able to respond or receive response to an invitation.

Mappings: The calendar refers to the chronological organizational structure of the interface. This organizational structure is based on years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes. Calendars and events are created and added to this structure. An event corresponds to real-world events. When a user creates an event the system requires that they create a name, and define start and end dates/times. Additional optional attributes can also be defined at the time of creation or later through modification. A calendar corresponds to a group of events such as “work,” “birthdays,” or “personal.” When a user creates a calendar the system requires that they create a name only. User can add existing events or create new ones. An “invitation” corresponds to an email message that is used to invite individuals to an event. Invitations include information regarding the meeting and links that enable recipients to respond to the meeting request (accept or reject). When a recipient accepts an invitation from another user the event is automatically created on his/her calendar.

Analysis 2: A shared calendar found on the web.

Major metaphors and analogies: The major analogy is managing a day planner. Other important analogies include a using yearly planner, monthly calendars, automatic alerts, text-editing applications, which feature file save, delete and create functions, email applications, which include attachment and social capabilities, and negotiating schedules to book a meeting. From a metaphor perspective, “events” is the most prominent one. Another important metaphor on calendars with sharing capabilities is “invitations.”

Concepts: These include the calendar, private calendars, shared calendars, others’ calendars, creating calendars, saving calendars, sharing calendars, viewing calendars, deleting calendars, setting and changing calendar owner and participants; Events, single instance and recurring events, private and shared events, mine others’ events, creating events, sharing events, saving events, modifying events, deleting events, receiving events, sending events, accepting events, rejecting events, linking events to calendars, attaching documents to events, adding alerts to events, setting availability status for event, setting and changing event owner; Owners and participants, setting owners and participants, changing owners and participants, deleting participants, blocking participants, adding participants.

Relationship between concepts: The Calendar contains calendars, which in turn contain a group of events. Events are linked to the Calendar and calendars directly. Events can be linked to more than one calendar or event. Events are linked to other events via the calendars. Events and calendars can be private, or shared. Events contain start and end dates and times, locations, owners, invitees, personal status, meeting name, sharing status and description. Calendar and/or event have owners, who determine who is able to modify their shared calendars and events. The ability to schedule and save an event is more important than the ability to invite participants to it, add an attachment or link the event to a calendar. The ability to make a calendar private is more important than the ability to make it shared. Sending an event invitation is more important than being able to respond or receive response to an invitation. The ability for calendar owners to set rights privileges for events within their calendar supersedes the event owners privileges.

Mappings: The Calendar refers to the chronological organizational structure of the interface. This organizational structure is based on years, months, weeks, days, hours and minutes. Calendars and events are created and added to this structure. An event corresponds to real-world events. When a user creates an event the system requires that they create a name, and define start and end dates/times. Additional optional attributes can also be defined at the time of creation or later through modification. A calendar corresponds to a group of events such as “work,” “birthdays,” or “personal.” When a user creates a calendar the system requires that they create a name only. User can add existing events or create new ones to calendars. An “owner” corresponds to the person who has the rights privileges to make modify a calendar or event. “Participants” correspond to people who are related to an event or calendar but are not able to make modifications to that entity. When a user creates a calendar or event s/he is automatically assigned as the owner. Owners can modify ownership status and rights privileges assigned to participants of an event or group. An invitation corresponds to an email message that is used to invite individuals to an event. Invitations include information regarding the meeting and links that enable recipients to respond to the meeting request (accept or reject). When a recipient accepts an invitation from another user the event is automatically created on his/her calendar.