Chapter 4 Homework: What is interaction design?

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

Overview
The aim of this activity is for you to analyze the design of a virtual world with respect to how it is designed to support collaboration and communication.

Visit an existing 3D virtual world such as the Palace, habbo hotel, or one hosted by Worlds. Try to work out how they have been designed for taking account of the following:

Assignment Questions
Question A: General social issues

• What is the purpose of the virtual world?
• What kinds of conversation mechanisms are supported?
• What kinds of coordination mechanisms are provided?
• What kinds of social protocols and conventions are used?
• What kinds of awareness information are provided?
• Does the mode of communication and interaction seem natural or awkward?

Question B: Specific interaction design issues

• What form of interaction and communication is supported, e.g. text/audio/video?
• What other visualizations are included? What information do they convey?
• How do users switch between different modes of interaction, e.g. exploring and chatting? Is the switch seamless?
• Are there any social phenomena that occur specific to the context of the virtual world that wouldn’t in face-to-face setting, e.g. flaming?

Question C: Design issues

• What other features might you include in the virtual world to improve communication and collaboration?

Answers
Virtual world selected: Second Life.

Question A
What is the purpose of the virtual world?
According to Linden, Second Life does not have a specific purpose. They describe Second Life as “a free online virtual world imagined and created by its Residents.” Most people use Second Life for entertainment. It enables them to escape to virtual world where then can interact with other real people. It offers an experience that can be likened to the birth child of the SIMS game crossed with a social network. A small segment of Second Life users actually make a living from creating virtual artifacts and owning virtual land.

What kinds of conversation mechanisms are supported?
Second Life supports many of the same conversation mechanisms that people are accustomed to using in real life to govern turn taking. In my personal experience, I continued to follow conversation practices that I am accustomed to using when speaking to someone in person, even though the conversation was taking place on a text-based medium.

The conversation turn-taking model developed by H. Sachs et al. [link] seems to be applicable to this environment (at least according to my very unscientific research). I assume that conversations using voice, which is available in Second Life, support standard conversation mechanisms even more effectively.

Another conversation mechanism that is supported by Second Life is body language. Let me clarify what I mean. Citizens are able select from a large pre-defined list of gestures that enable them to communicate attention, emotion, mood, and more. This is pretty cool feature that can be likened to emoticons on an instant messaging application or social network.

What kinds of coordination mechanisms are provided?
Second Life does a pretty good job here again. They offer robust support for both verbal and non-verbal types of communication. As stated above, users can communicate using a text or voice/audio interface. Avatars are also capable of using a variety of different gestures for communicate. These include nodding yes, or shrugging, clapping, blowing a kiss, and more.

Rules are the foundation of this virtual world on its most basic level. The software code provides a set of rules upon which the entire virtual world is build; these basic rules are documented in the online user guide and help tools. They define the “virtual-physical” world of Second Life, which is the platform upon which user coordination can take place.

One also encounters many rules while exploring the world itself. These external representations are created by users and Linden Lab. They inform other users and help coordinate personal and shared activities. Maps are another key mechanism that supports coordination. They are available to help the users easily locate and transport themselves between islands.

What kinds of social protocols and conventions are used?
Most people seem to mimic real world conventions in Second Life. Conversations are initiated in a manner more akin to real world conversations compared to other types of text-based conversations. Users are conscious of the organization and appearance of the physical artifacts in this virtual world. This is reflected by convention such as the practices of users face one another when speaking, and the fact that many users are extremely conscious of their avatars clothing and style.

What kinds of awareness information are provided?
At the most basic level of awareness, Second Life users are able know who is around them via the visual representation of the virtual world. For the most part, users are able to understand what is happening though this varies considerably based on expertise level. It is possible to overhear others’ conversations as long as they are not having a private chat. Most of the groups of people that I encountered whose physical proximity insinuated that they were having a conversation must have been holding private chats. An interesting design element from the game is how the avatars make a typing movement in the air when they are writing a reply in a conversation.

Does the mode of communication and interaction seem natural or awkward?
The mode of communication and interaction offered in Second Life is natural on most accounts. The natural feel of the text-based conversations is in large part due to our modern-day familiarity holding conversations using messaging applications such as IM and SMS. The overall look and feel of the virtual world is natural. The communicative gestures of the character are fluid and clear in their meaning.

Question B
What form of interaction and communication is supported, e.g. text/audio/video?
Second Life supports all main forms of interaction: text, audio, video, and computational.

What other visualizations are included? What information do they convey?
Second Life is well crafted from a visual perspective. The visual flair is actually provided mostly by the creativity of the members of the community, who develop most experiences and structures that exist in this world. Visualizations that are built into the interface include different modes for displaying chats, maps that provide location information, and the main interface of the virtual world environment.

How do users switch between different modes of interaction, e.g. exploring and chatting? Is the switch seamless?
The switch between different modes of interaction is seamless. If a user is exploring he can easily start chatting with someone else nearby by typing; if a user has a voice-enabled system then they just have to talk. Gestures are not integrated as seamlessly; these have to be selected from a drop-down menu.

Are there any social phenomena that occur specific to the context of the virtual world that wouldn’t in face-to-face setting, e.g. flaming?
As with any medium that allows people to communicate from a distance, people are definitely less concerned with politeness and manners. One social phenomena that I witnessed was a user who kept repeating everything that was said in a conversation between me and a third user.

Question C
Overall, I think that Second Life does a thorough job at providing users with effective communication and collaboration tools. So much so that technology companies such as IBM have built virtual campuses where they hold meetings with employees from around the world. Here are a few ideas that could be explored:

• Allowing users to select moods and emotions. These features would work in a similar way to gestures. The main difference is the duration of a mood or emotion in comparison to a gesture. Moods and emotions last longer and would be controlled using on/off switches.
• Make it easy for users to create and share documents on the fly. Provide capabilities for users to work on documents simultaneously with seamless ability to switch back and forth between focus on the document and on the virtual world.

Chapter 3 Homework: What is interaction design?

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

Assignment Questions
Question A: first elicit your own mental model. Write down how you think a cash machine (ATM) works. Then answer the questions below. Next ask two people the same questions.

• How much money are you allowed to take out?
• If you took this out and then went to another machine and tried to withdraw the same amount, what would happen?
• What is on your card?
• How is the information used?
• What happens if you enter the wrong number?
• Why are there pauses between the steps of a transaction?
• How long are they?
• What happens if you type ahead during the pauses?
• What happens to the card in the machine?
• Why does it stay inside the machine?
• Do you count the money? Why?

Question B: Now analyze your answers. Do you get the same or different explanations? What do the findings indicate? How accurate are people’s mental models of the way ATMs work? How transparent are the ATM systems they are talking about?

Question C: Next, try to interpret your findings in respect to the design of the system. Are any interface features revealed as being particularly problematic? What design recommendations do these suggest?

Question D: Finally, how might you design a better conceptual model that would allow users to develop a better mental model of ATMs (assuming this is a desirable goal)?

Assignment Answers

Question A

Here’s My Take
Here is my understanding regarding how an ATM functions. The user owns a card that has a magnetic stripe that holds his/her account number. To execute a transaction using an ATM, first the user has to insert his card in the appropriate slot for the machine to read the user’s card number. Next, the user is prompted to input a four-digit pin number to access the account.

Once the pin number is entered the ATM machine connects to a central server via the internet and authenticates the user. If authentication succeeds, then the ATM machine remains connected to the server to enable the user to access various services such as viewing account balance, funds withdrawal or deposit, and potentially account transfers. When the user performs an action on his account, the ATM machine communicates with the server to execute the command.

For security purposes the ATM machine will request that the user re-enter his pin number every time s/he requests to execute a new action, e.g. withdrawing money. Other security features include that the ATM machine asks the user whether s/he is ready to quit after every transaction; it also automatically logs off a user after a short period of inactivity.

Take from Subject One Card is entered and account is confirmed after pin number entry. The amount entered is calculated in terms of number of bills usually of $20 denomination and spit out at you, and appropriate debits are made on the account. You are then told to have a nice day. Meanwhile hardly noticed by you is that your bank, the bank that owns the atm, and perhaps the operator of the atm has embezzled “so-called” fees from your account.

Take from Subject Two
ATM works like a computer. Your ATM card is like an activation key only usable with the right password. If you don't provide the right password, the machine will eat it. The ATM uses software programmed by the bank (so I guess every bank's ATM is slightly different for that reason) and depending on which button you choose for what to do next, it does various things. So I guess you can think of the ATM like a road to search for treasure... Your cash is the ultimate treasure and what you do from the moment you stand in front of the ATM until you get the actual cash is like your path in search for the treasure. The ATM is also networked, so someone is always watching your every move.

[click on the charts to enlarge them]

Question B

For the most part everyone has a pretty accurate mental model regarding how an ATM works. All of us understand that the services provided by ATMs are accessed using a card with a corresponding pin number. Another shared understanding is that ATM services are enabled by connections to bank databases where transactions are authorized and captured.

The biggest difference between the each explanation was the focus of the author. I focused on providing a technical/systems description of how an ATM works; subject one’s description covered user experience elements such as frustrations with excessive bank fees; subject two provided an overview that from a much looser metaphorical perspective. Otherwise, there were small differences related to each person’s understanding about specific elements of the user experience (e.g. amount money that can be taken out, reasons for delay, response to wrongful input, etc).

These findings indicate that most people in my social circle have accurate mental models of the way in which ATM machines work. This seems to suggest that the way ATM systems work is, for the most part, transparent. However, there are certain elements of the interaction about which the users still lack clarity or dislike, these include: the amount of money that can be taken out; the total value of the fees being applied to the account; and the inability to count the money when the ATM is in a public place.

Question C

For the most part, users have a good understanding regarding how ATM systems work. Therefore, the improvement opportunities to address user issues are mostly small and incremental in nature (e.g. addressing the small information gaps). This is not to say that new technologies, concepts and approaches could not be used to improve the experience of using an ATM in ways that current users cannot envision.

Here are a few design recommendations to address the three design gaps identified between system image and the user’s mental model:

• Lack of clarity regarding the amount of money that can be taken out. Possible solution includes: providing users with information regarding their daily withdrawal limit (as well as any ATM specific limits). This issue is only present when using ATM machines that are not from the issuing bank.
• Lack of clarity regarding the total value of the fees being applied to the account. Possible solution includes: providing users with information regarding ATM and bank fees applied to transactions. This issue is only present when using ATM machines that are not from the issuing bank.
• The inability to count the money when the ATM is in a public place. Possible solutions include: create cash dispensers that leverage arrangement of bills and time delay to enable users to count the money in the tray while it is being dispensed.

Question D

Many advances have taken place in the design of ATM systems over the past several years. The new ATM from Chase Bank in New York is a great example of a well-designed ATM system. It has several notable improvements from older systems including easy, envelope-free, deposits, and improved touch screen interfaces.

Here are a few areas related to the conceptual model of ATM systems that offer opportunities for improvements:

Access to services provided by ATM
Using presence awareness technology, similar to that available on luxury car models, banks could design ATM machines that can identify the user without the need for a card. Users would have a key (rather than card) that contains an RFID chip, or similar technology. Therefore, when a user approaches a machine s/he would be prompted to enter their pin without the need to insert a card.

Rather then focus on improving the experience of using ATM machines, it is also valuable to explore how to provide the same services using different channels. Cell phones offer a lot of promise in this area. Many people already prefer to use their cell phones to check their account balance when they are on the go. Money transfers and payment by cell phone is becoming more widely available across the world.

Despite the increased use of electronic forms of payment, there are still many types of transactions for which people need cold hard cash. From a cash withdrawal and deposit standpoint, no alternatives exist to having a physical device such as an ATM (other than cash back services available at select stores that accept debit cards). For these types of transactions the cell phone could be used to enhance the existing experience. Perhaps using Bluetooth technology it could serve as the key to support the presence awareness described above. It could also provide the user with a confirmation or electronic receipt of their transaction, including all relevant fees.

Security of services provided by the ATM
New types of technologies can be leveraged to improve the security of ATM systems. Fingerprint or other bio-authentication methods could replace the pin, which would not only provide increased security, but also reduce the cognitive load required to memorize the pin number (or rather, all of your pin number and passwords). Of course, this would mean that you can no longer take out money from your significant other’s ATM card.

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.