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BEST PRACTICES FOR INTERFACE DESIGN USABILITY

ALFRED MENSAH ATOMBOH (B. ED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

BACKGROUND TO STUDY
The use of information technology in this information age is cutting through every facet of life; it is used by individuals, businesses and governments for entertainment, education, research, healthcare, warfare, accounting and a host of transactional endeavours just to mention a few. As a result of the vast array of usage of the computer, different age groups interact with computer software. With increase in Technology software in distributed, embedded, dedicated and special purpose systems now exists. Software is now as ubiquitous as computer systems as seen with mobile computing which is taking over. Access to software is not limited to any age group but spreads across the groups. Children, Teenagers, Adults and the Elderly all use these software and this bring into play the complexity of designing software for meet the needs of the various different age groups. Each age group have their unique characteristics, preferences and need when it comes to the use of computer software. On the other hand developers of software grapple with ever-changing requirements and demands of users. Before software is delivered, users change their requirements as a result of Technological improvement that come up. This change in requirement would contribute to in no small measure to the time and cost of delivering software. Studies have shown that it is important to have HCI specialists involved in design. A formal experiment reported that professional HCI designers created interfaces that had fewer errors and supported faster user execution than interfaces designed by programmers. One reason is that training and experience in HCI design has a clear impact on the designers mental model of interfaces and of the user interface design task. This implies that HCI design is not simply a matter of luck or common sense, and that experience using a computer is not sufficient for designing a good user interface, but that specific training in HCI is required. In addition, poor user interfaces have contributed to disasters including loss of life. For example, the complicated user interface of the Aegis tracking system was a contributing cause to the erroneous

shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane, and the US Stark ships inability to cope with Iraqi Exocet missiles was partly attributed to the human-computer interface. Sometimes the implementation of the user interface can be at fault. A number of people died from radiation overdoses partially as a result of faulty cursor handling code in the Therac-25 (Myers, 1994).

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES


In order to achieve the ultimate aim of designing interface that are usable, the following objectives in the form of research questions would receive the researchers attention: 1. Will the use of best practices for interface design make interfaces usable? 2. Will focus on only changes that user want to see improve usability? 3. Will the use of the difficulties encountered by different age groups improve usability of interface design? 4. Will interface usability increase design cost and time?

METHODOLOGY OF STUDY
I intend to interview sampled individuals from different age groups on interaction with software, difficulties and what they want to see interfacing their favourite software. Developers would also be interviewed on user interface design. User Design interface tools would be used to create prototype User Interfaces for sampled individuals who would be interviewed after they interact with the developed user interface. Data collected would be analysed. Essential to the study is problem solving skills, extraction of information related to a topic from raw data and identifying the trends and patterns; these skills I possess.

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE
The study would be adding the best practice for interface design. It is the ultimate aim of the study to improve the body knowledge of usability of user interface design.

Bibliography
Myers, B. (1994, January). Challenges of HCI Design and Implementation. Retrieved May 6, 2013, from Psychology, Univesity of Texas: http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/loveLAB/love/classes/design/readings/ myers.pdf

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