Towards a Rational Basis for User Interface Design Methods (original) (raw)

2004, Proceedings of ICAD2004. Seoul

This paper contributes towards a rational foundation for User Interface Design (UID) methods. Currently UID process is primarily based on the trial-and-error approach, supported with miscellaneous testing techniques. In fact, we lack a scientific model for UID, explaining the objectives and concepts of UID and clarifying the solutions. There is an emergent need for a UID process to be not only broad enough to be applicable in different situations but also to be accurate enough to be applicable for specific cases. The current UID methods are based on an iterative process approaching the satisfactory solution in a successive chain of activities. In this paper, we strive to constitute the foundation of this challenging, rational design process. Usability may be defined as "quality of use" and it must be planned and engineered from a human perspective. Therefore, we need to systematically respect human needs, opinions, values, feelings, skills and limitations. Since the usability of a system stems from user, task, and context of use, we base our structure on the knowledge of these three elements. We construct our design model based on a pyramid of three elements: User-System-Context Needs, Concepts, and Principles. By means of AD theory, we linked these elements together to form the overall structure in which User-System-Context Needs, Concepts, and Principles play the roles of Customer Needs (CNs), Functional Requirements (FRs), and Design Parameters (DPs), respectively. The top level contains user-system-context needs, followed by Concepts (FRs) and Principles (DPs). Through AD approach, we seek the underlying concepts and principles in UID process. This model brings about both documenting design knowledge and facilitating communication. AD provide a good format for capturing background information and describing generically good solutions. Regarding these objectives, we act according to the following stages: