SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development

1. SIMS 213: User Interface Design & Development Marti Hearst Tues, March 7, 2006

2. Today • Content Layout Technique: Wireframing • Graphic Design

3. Wireframing • What is the main idea? • Separate content from layout and display • Graphic Design: • Use the page layout to signal the flow of interaction • Group conceptually related items together • Nielsen: • What does the layout communicate? • Test if a page of content becomes more usable because of the layout • A template (for a home page) should contain what items?

4. From http://www.gotomedia.com/macromedia/monterey/architecture/

5. From http://www.gotomedia.com/macromedia/monterey/architecture/

6. How to Test A Layout • Study conducted by Thomas S. Tullis from Fidelity Investments in 1998 • Assessed the usability of five alternative template designs for their intranets. • Method: • Show templates with “greeked” text • Draw labeled boxes around each page corresponding to 9 elements • No overlapping allowed • Indicate if something appears not to be there

7. The Elements • Main content selections for this page • Page title • Person responsible for this page • Intranet-wide navigation (e.g., intranet home, search) • Last updated date • Intranet identifier/logo • Site navigation (e.g, major sections of this section of the intranet) • Confidentiality/security (e.g, Public, Confidential, etc.) • Site news items

8. From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980517.html

9. From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980517.html

10. From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980517.html

11. From http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980517.html

12. Wireframing Study • Different parts of the designs scored better • Best parts were taken from each design and combined • Resulted in an overall better score

13. Results of Study

14. Graphical Design in UI Design • Sources: • GUI Bloopers, Chapter 3 • Jeff Johnson • Principles of Effective Visual Communication for GUI design • Marcus in Baecker, Grudin, Buxton and Greenberg, Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000 • Designing Visual Interfaces • Mullet & Sano, Prentice Hall • The Non-Designers Design Book • Robin Williams, Peachpit Press • The Zen of CSS Design • Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag, New Riders • Really terrific! Design aesthetics plus how to code it. • http://www.csszengarden.com/

15. Graphical Design in UI Design • Graphical Design must account for: • A comprehensible mental image • Appropriate organization of data, functions, tasks and roles • High-quality appearances • The “look” • Effective interaction sequencing • The “feel”

16. From http://www.warrenkramer.com/design/1/index.shtml

17. A Note on Tools • Many tools make it difficult to do layout correctly • Powerpoint especially! • As Maggie Law showed, can use Excel!

18. Layout Grids: A Design Staple • Organization • Use contrast to bring out dominant elements • Use grouping of elements by proximity • Use alignment for organization and aesthetics • Consistency • Navigational Cues The eye travels along the paths cut out for it in the work. • Paul Klee

19. Layout Grids http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/28/index4a_page2.html?tw=design

20. Two Column Layout Grids From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

21. Three Column Layout Grids From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

22. Symmetry vs. Asymmetry Beware of too much symmetry From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

23. Four Column Layout Grids From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

24. Format of variable contents Widget to widget spacing Message text in Arial 14, left adjusted Standard icon set Window to widget spacing No Ok Fixed components Layout Grids

25. Message text in Arial 14, left adjusted Standard icon set Apply The file was destroyed Cancel No Ok Good Layout: Do you really want to delete the file “myfile.doc” from the folder “junk”? ? No Ok Bad Layout: Slide from Saul Greenberg

26. Visual Consistency • Internal consistency • Same conventions and rules for all elements of the GUI (unless strong reason to do otherwise) • Enforced by a set of application-specific grids • External consistency • Follow platform and interface style conventions • Use platform and widget-specific grids • Deviate from conventions only when it provides a clear benefit to user

27. Slide from Saul Greenberg • Two-level Hierarchy • indentation • contrast Logic of organizationalflow Grouping by white space Alignment connects visual elements in a sequence

28. Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: User grouping to show relationships between screen elements Bad Good Good Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm: Mmmm:

29. Grid Layout Recommendations • Number of lines per page • # of lines you can fit on each page in your chosen font is divisible by the number of grid sections you intend to have. • Method: Flow some text on to a page and get a print-out in various column widths and different font sizes From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

30. Grid Layout Recommendations • Margins: a function of how much you need to fit on to each page • (From paper layout, not on-screen) • Foredge (also known as outside margin): • should be an average of head (top margin) and foot (bottom margin) • Foot (also known as bottom margin): • Should always be bigger than the head (top margin), at least 50% bigger than the bottom. • This is due an optical illusion called the optical centre -- we tend to see the centre of a page as being slightly higher than the actual centre. • Back (also known as inside or gutter margin): • the two back margins taken together should be roughly as wide as the foredge From http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/print/grids.html

31. Navigational cues • Provide initial focus • Direct attention to important, secondary, or peripheral items as appropriate • Assist in navigation through material • Order should follow a user’s conceptual model of sequences bad good

32. No regard fortask order; noorganization IBM's Aptiva Communication Center

33. Haphazard layoutfrom mullet & sano

34. Repairing a Haphazard layoutfrom mullet &sano

35. Bad alignment Poor choice of colors to distinguish labels from editable fields

36. Economy of visual elements • Minimize number of controls • Include only those that are necessary • eliminate, or relegate others to secondary windows • (but don’t want too many extra windows!) • Minimize clutter • so information is not hidden

37. Overuse of 3-d effects makes the window unnecessarily cluttered Slide adapted from Saul Greenberg

38. More Guidelines • From Chapter 3 of GUI Bloopers • Missing group boxes • Inconsistent group box style • Inconsistent separator style • Shoddy labeling and spacing • Radiobutton spacing • Inconsistent property label alignment • Very long labels • Poor label placement • Unlabeld container components • Inconsistent fonts • Tiny fonts

39. Web Page Layout • Controversies about: • Should users scroll? • How much whitespace? • Spool’s claims • Users scroll if the top part of the page contains useful information. • (If it contains branding, ads, etc, they assume more of the same below.) • Whitespace negatively correlated with usefulness • Viewing a page through a browser is like putting a small hole in a piece of paper and holding over the middle of a magazine page • Layout design is different for the web than print • Our studies suggest: • Text and link clustering is favored • Others claim this aids scannability

40. Related Issues • Text • legibility • typefaces and typesetting • Color and Texture • Iconography • signs, icons, symbols; concrete to abstract • Visual identity • unique appearance • Animation • dynamics of display