HCI International 2014

Martin Maguire (short bio)
Design School, Loughborough University, United Kingdom

Tuesday, 24 June 2014, 08:30 – 12:00

Objectives:

Many user interfaces to applications, while functional and attractive, suffer from poor usability because users do not have a clear understanding or model of how it operates. This can prevent them from learning how to use the application fully and getting the most out of it. An important aspect of ease of use and ease of learning is to develop a clear structure for the user interface that the user can follow. The main objective of this half day tutorial will therefore be to impart advice and guidance for the development of well-structured user interfaces and to enhance delegate’s skills in applying them.

Content and Benefits:

This tutorial will include both presentations and practical work. The session will start by reviewing some examples of user interfaces found on mainstream products, examining the structures behind them and the user psychology of why they are effective or not. Key guidelines will be presented for good design to create effective user interface structures and screen layouts. This will be followed by an audience exercise where they will evaluate some example system prototypes to assess how well they are structured and how the design could be improved. The session will end with a plenary discussion about how the tutorial learning may be taken forward in delegates’ own work. The tutorial will enable participants to approach the creation of a user interface structure more confidently and to appreciate how this can greatly enhance the usability of the design.

Target audience

The target audience will primarily be for those involved in user interface design for applications. It may include people in different roles such as UX team members, front end developers, QA testers and user representatives. They may be responsible for designing or evaluating applications. The session will not assume any technical knowledge and could be of interest to both human factors and non-human factors professionals as well as research students in HCI.

Bio Sketch of Presenter:

As a member of the Loughborough University Design School, Martin has a background in computer studies and ergonomics. His main interests are in the usability of interactive systems including the needs of inexperienced users, older people and people with disabilities. He has been involved in several EU projects to develop human factors tools, methods and guidelines to promote usability within European IT programmes. Martin led the development of the RESPECT User-centred requirements handbook for telematics systems. He has conducted ergonomic appraisals of IT and web-based systems for many public sector and private organisations in the UK. At the University he teaches HCI and Interaction Design.

Papers:
Context of Use with usability activities
Methods to support human-centred design