Designing for Productivity in the User eXperience

• The origins of the field of User eXperience
• Description of downloadable course materials

• Optional lecture, just for fun
• Interesting questions to ponder on the origins of the human brain and mind
• Answers offered in the last video lecture

• Definition of terms:  Usability, Efficiency

• A model of computer-human interaction
• A useful framework for thinking about designing for efficiency

• A model of the relative strengths and weaknesses of users vs. computer systems
• Another useful framework for thinking about designing for efficiency

• An important distinction between the efficiency made possible by a user interface design, and the actual efficiency of users when using it
• A discussion of the factors other than user interface design that may impact actual efficiency

Learn when efficiency is a key usability goal and when its a secondary goal.

• A cost benefit analysis demonstrating how designing for efficiency will result in a significant, bottom line return on  investment
• A useful reference for learning more about cost justifying usability in general

• I high level overview of the three efficiency evaluation techniques to be covered
• A discussion of where in the development lifecycle these techniques can be applied

• A high level introduction to the keystroke level modeling technique
• Useful references to the modeling literature
• A sample level of effort for the modeling technique

• Definition of the basic human operators used in the keystroke level modeling technique

• Definition of some sample system operators that can be used in the keystroke level modeling technique

• Description of some additional human operators that may be included in the keystroke level modeling technique

• Structuring a model by breaking a task down into a hierarchy of steps, substeps and interactions

• Building a model by assigning operators to interactions and capturing each instance of each operator as a tally

• Calculating the total task time in a model by adding up operator tallies, computing total times for each operator, and then summing across all operators for the total predicted task time

• Calculations for comparing models of the same task on two different user interface designs

• Analyzing the sources of productivity losses predicted by models of two different user interfaces for the same task

• Summarizing modeling data across tasks for a single development project

• A demonstration of modeling a simple step in an ecommerce shopping task:  traditional checkout 

• A demonstration of modeling a simple step in an ecommerce shopping task: checkout shortcut

• Hands on Modeling exercise:  description of website user interface #1

Hands on Modeling exercise: description of website user interface #2

• Hands on Modeling exercise: solution

• Setting efficiency design goals for a development project

• Categorizing efficiency design guidelines according to type and level

• Design guidelines at the information architecture level (motor and cognitive)

• Design guidelines at the conceptual model design level (motor and perceptual)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (motor)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (motor)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (motor)

Design guidelines at the page design standards level (cognitive)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (cognitive)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (cognitive)

• Design guidelines at the page design standards level (perceptual)
• Design guidelines summary

• Integrating general efficiency design guidelines with unique requirements analysis data

• A high level introduction to the efficiency heuristic evaluation technique

• A walk through of a template for documenting an efficiency heuristic evaluation

• An example of an efficiency heuristic evaluation with a simplified documentation technique

• Hands on efficiency heuristic evaluation exercise:  description of the exercise

• Hands on efficiency heuristic evaluation exercise: a sample solution

• A high level overview and description of the efficiency studies technique

• A breakdown of the steps for conducting efficiency studies
• Includes a sample level of effort

• A example of the data generated from an efficiency study
• Includes an example of how to document efficiency study data

• A sample of results from a project involving both keystroke level modeling and efficiency studies for multiple key tasks supported by an application under development

• Optional and just for fun
• Answers to the Infrequently Asked Question posed at the beginning of the course