| IS-104 Digital Interaction Design	|
| Geir Inge Hausvik			|
+---------------------------------------+

PACT and the process of interface design

=========================================

Envision	Understanding
	\	/
	Evaluation
	    |
	  Design

=========================================

P - People
A - Activities
C - Contexts
T - Technologies

Understand the ACTIVITIES of PEOPLE and the CONTEXTS within which they will use TECHNOLOGY.

Design and visualize TECHNOLOGICAL solutions that will fit with PEOPLE and their ACTIVITIES in the CONTEXTS where they occur.

=========================================

PEOPLE	- Physical Characteristiscs
- Anthropometrics
- Senses
- Abilities / disabilities

Phyical characteristiscs affects how accessible, how usable, and how enjoyable using technology will be.

	- Psychological Characteristics
- Memory
- Orientation
- Words and numbers
- Attention and focus

	- Mental Models
A mental model is a mental structure that reflects the users understanding of a system and therefore is a source of expectancies about how a system will respond.

	- Social Differences
People have different backgrounds and make sense of signs and symbols in different ways.
People make use of systems with different motivations and aims.

	- Attitudinal Differences
- Values
- Aspirations
- Ideological stances

========================================

ACTIVITIES

Designers should focus on:
1. the overall PURPOSE of the activity
2. then the MAIN FEATURES:
	- temporal aspects
	- cooperation
	- complexity
	- safety-criticality and error tolerance
	- the nature of the content

========================================

CONTEXTS

Thee useful types of contexts are distinguishable:
	- Physical
	- Social
	- Organizational

========================================

TECHNOLOGIES

Interactive technologies change rapidly. Designers need to be aware of technological possibilities for input and output.

INPUT technologies support people to enter data into a system reliably and efficiently.

Technologies for OUTPUT rely primarily on vision, hearing, and touch.

========================================

UNDERSTANDING

User research
Aim: to understand the requirements
Involves collecting and analyzing data
Requirements are essentially about understanding

DESIGN

Conceptual design (the "WHAT")
- An abstract view of a design solution

Physical design (the "HOW")
- Operational design
- Representative design
- Interaction design

ENVISIONMENT

Designs need to be visualized
- to help designers clarify their own ideas
- to enable people to give feedback

Scetches, fully functioning prototypes, scenarios.

EVALUATION

We can evaluate the outcome of any of the other three activities: understanding, design and envisionment.

Many different techniques for evaluation
	- Analytical evaluations
	- Field studies
	- Testing with users

PERSONAS AND SCENARIOS

PEOPLE who will use the system are represented by PERSONAS (profiles of different archetypical users)

ACTIVITIES and the CONTEXTS are captured in SCENARIOS of use.

Thinking about people involves thinking of what they do. Thinking about scenarios involves thinking of who will undertake them . Personas and scenarios are interrelated.

PERSONAS

Imaginative descriptions of users based on the understanding developed (through interviews, questionnaires, observations)
 - Personas are fictitious – they are synthesized from knowledge of real people
 - Personas need to have goals. Personas want to be able to do things using your system
 - It is best to develop a few concrete personas who have specific characteristics, such as age, interests, a name, etc.
 - Try to bring the characters alive – perhaps include a picture

SCENARIOS
- Stories about people undertaking activities in context using technologies
- Scenarios (and their associated personas) are core constructs for interactive systems design
- They are useful in understanding, envisioning, evaluation, and bothh conceptual and physical design.