1• Next week CDS in class– Teams will do a session designing collaboratively around their project – Please attend, important activity• Please Download ArgoUML tool and take a look at creating Use Case Diagrams and Activity Diagrams with it– Requires a 512 meg machine to run well2Why the Mac, Win, KDE all have some short comings (IMHO.) Flow & CsikszentmihalyiCopyright (c) 2005 - Poelman & Associates, Inc. unless otherwise copyrighted. All rights reserved.3Flow• Research done by Csikszentmihalyi(pronounced chick-sent-ME-high). Focused on when people are the most optimized. When they are most creative and productive. •Syn.:– In the Flow– In the Zone– In the Groove– http://www.ccp.uchicago.edu/faculty/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi/html/– http://www.brainchannels.com/thinker/mihaly.html4Quote from Csikszentmihalyi•“… being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."5Quote from Csikszentmihalyi•“How does it feel to be in ‘the flow’?– Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training– Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality– Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going– Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored– Sense of serenity - no worries about self, feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of ego - afterwards feeling of transcending ego in ways not thought possible– Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing– Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own reward”6© 1998 Csikszentmihalyi7Quotes from Csikszentmihalyi• On enjoyment versus pleasure. A hot bath or receiving a massage is pleasurable but not enjoyable. “ …that the difference was that pleasure lacked a sense of achievement or active contribution to the result.”• “…having to learn to control our consciousness. This might come from practicing certain disciplines such as arts, sports or religions. Difficulty is often found in trying to apply these disciplines with others, such as with partner or children or workmates!”• According to the surveys “15% of people say they have never experienced the flow, 15-20% say they experience it every day (or several times a day), with the rest in between.”• There is no apparent correlation between intelligence and flow. Instead it is more related to the approach a person takes towards the tasks they wish to achieve, whether its assembly line work or brain surgery. In fact, surgeon that perform the same surgeries repeatedly, e.g. plastic surgery, actually complain of boredom and dissatisfaction.8Most UIs break the flow• Dialog Boxes• No memory of what I have done in the past i.e. printer dialog• Annoying notifications• Can’t find what I’m looking for on the menu or buttons• Saving documents• Popups• Email notification• (IM) Instant Messaging• No undo feature•Broken links• Anything that forces me to think about something outside the current task• UI Design Goal – facilitate users getting into flow and staying there.9Windows UI Stinks• Where to start …– Why the border at the top of the screen between the application title and the top of the screen– The auto-hiding taskbar – easily triggered– Cascading menus have a linear “zone” not a triangular zone like the Mac– Autosave on Office usually doesn’t work IMHO– Every new version of the OS they change the look and feel, for no good reason (other than marketing)10X on Linux• Most of the same problems as window• How many buttons should a mouse have?11Mac• One button mouse• Half size function keys on some keyboards, some have different numbers of function keys• Some of the OS X features go backwards in terms of usability and flow12Think• Why am I doing this?• What would make my users more empowered?• What are their goals?• What gets them into flow? What breaks the flow?• How much of a learning curve difference can they tolerate?• What do they already know how to do really well (like “QWERTY”) that if changed would actually be suboptimal?13• Questions• Comments•7.2514UsersUnderstanding the users is critical to design of user interfaces15Models• Mental (Conceptual Model)– how the user “thinks” it works.• Manifest Model– how the software presents to the user that it works• Implementation Model– how it is truly organized internally i.e. code, objects, relationships, data structures, database tables, communications, etc..In a well designed UI, the manifest model help create an accurate and useful mental model for the users, rather than closely reflect the implementation model16Levels of Users (NPEG)• Non-user• Novice (Beginner)– Needs to learn the applications basic capabilities– Can benefit form tutorial/learning modes– Benefit from recognition assistance – hints, menus, prompts and help screens– Very limited mental model for the software– Hopefully most don’t stay here long• Practitioner (Intermediate)– Most people end up here– Somewhere between novice and expert– Can start here if they have experience with a previous version of the application or a similar application that support them making predictions about how the application will work. – May be expert at some aspects of the application but not reached that level with most of it– Incomplete mental model for the application – 50-70% of application may be mentally modeled by user• Expert– Hard to get to here– Use free recall– Expect rapid performance– Need less informative feedback– Seek efficiency – use accelerators, mnemonic keys, short cuts – Almost fully complete mental model for application– Integrated conceptual model of the system that allows high level of predictability of actions with the software and the result•Guru– Does things with the app that the developers didn’t envision or realize you could do with the app. They have a very rich mental model of the app that allows them to make inferences and predictions of what might be able to be achieved – Works around a applications limitations, bugs, flaws to “outsmart the app”– May understand the