Interactivity 1

User Centred Design

A Very Brief Introduction
Putting people in the centre of the design
process and understanding their needs
and behaviours will help the designer
better understand the person who will be
ultimately using their design artefact -
“the user”. 


The birth of the user comes from human-

computer interaction (HCI), engineering
and psychology and usability studies most
closely associated with interface design
and interactivity.

As graphic design changes in response to

cultural and technological conditions,
user-centreded design provides the
potential for greater participation of
graphic designers in expanding domains
of interactive design and interdisciplinary
teams.
As the world is becoming more and more
suffused with interactive technologies,
how can designers support an
increasingly diverse range of activities? 


Computers can be used to send

messages, gather information, write
essays, draw, plan, calculate, play games
through speech, touch, handheld devices.
Interfaces are designed with menus,
commands, forms, gestures, icons,
scrollbars, card swipes. There are
responsive environments, mobile devices,
wearables and networked homes.

What this amounts to is a multitude of

choices and decisions for an ever
increasing range of possibilities. So how
can designers optimize and support the
user’s activities in effective and enjoyable
ways?
A designer could make a guess and rely 

on intuition - and then hope for the best.
Or the designer could be more principled
through a deeper investigation to more
thoroughly understand the user - hence
UCD.

This involves:

❖ taking into account what people’s needs, wants, limitations, obstacles, goals, motivations
❖ consider what might help people with the way things are done or could be done
❖ listening to what people want and get them involved in the design process
❖ using refined methods and techniques to capture and analyse the design process
 Interactivity 1

PACT Analysis
A Framework for User Experience Design

People
Activities
Contexts

Technologies
PACT Analysis
People Who are the users?
Activities What are they doing?
Context Where are they doing it?
Technology How will do it?
 Who are you designing for?
People have varying characteristics

People Physical differences

❖ Size - height and weight

Activities
❖ Senses - vision, hearing
❖ Disability - accessibility

Psychological differences

Contexts

❖ Spatial ability - wayfinding
❖ Language - cultural interpretation
❖ Attention - memory, stress, tiredness
Mental Model - association, memorability

Technologies
❖

Usage differences
❖ Novice or Expert- technical knowledge
❖ Homogeneous or Heterogeneous
 What are the people doing?

People
Why are they doing it?

Frequency

❖ Regular - daily, yearly

Activities Cooperation

❖ Alone or with others

Contexts

Complexity

❖ Well defined or vague

Safety Critical

Technologies ❖ Prevent injury/harm, errors

Nature of Content
❖ Amount of info, form
 Where are the activities occurring?

People Physical

❖ Environment - weather, noise, location

Activities Social

❖ Supportive, private, public

Contexts

Organizational

❖ institutional, workplace

Technologies
 What are people using or will use?

People Designed to to support people’s requirements

Medium

Activities
❖ Hardware, software

Input

❖ Mouse, touch, gesture, scan, speech

Contexts
 Output
❖ Display, audio, tactile

Communication

Technologies
❖ networks, one-to-one, many

Content
❖ accurate, relevant, understandable
People
Scoping a problem with the PACT

Goal is to harmonize the PACT elements

Useful to understand current state and

Activities
❖

identify opportunities

❖ Scope as many Ps, As Cs and Ts as possible

Contexts

❖ Observe and talk to people

Technologies
People
Think about the user community

How is this community defined ?

People

Activities
❖ Stakeholders
Contexts
❖ Physical, social, functional

Contexts

Activities
❖ Some obvious others not

Technologies
Current and proposed

Technologies
❖