Alison Black

Keeping viewers in the picture: real-world usability procedures in the development of a television control interface

This paper deseribes practicaJ techniques used to ensure user oriented design of a TV control interfaee. Key issues were the early involvement of usability specialists, the use of different techniques throughout the design process to ensure the whole project team had direct contact with users, and ensuring usability principles were communicated effectively. The paper emphasises the importance of usability procedures in the design of consumer products, and of taking usability ‘out of the lab’ to the environments in which products will be used. USABLE CONSUMER PRODUCTS Most usability studies are aimed at improving life in the work environment, particularly at products for information workers. The same level of effort (or, arguably, more, given the wide range of users involved) is required to develop consumer products for domestic and leisure use. In developing a’rv interface for NokiaConsumer Electronics, IDEO were designing for a range of television viewers, with different levels of affinity for technology. The interface was to be appropriate for TV services and viewing cultures in different European countries. The number of channels now available by cable and satellite make navigation and selection difficult (channel hopping and information ‘grazing’ become impractical). So our goal was to devise a graphical TV interface to help viewers setup and find channels or information, without Ecourse to instruction manuals. This paper describes the practical techniques we used to ensure that product development was bound to the real needs Permission to copv without fee all or pan of this material is granted provided that the cop!es are not made or distributed for d!rect commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and Its date appear, and notice IS given that copyng IS by permission of the Association for Comput!ng Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to repubhsh, reqwres a fee andlor speclflc permission. CH194 Companion-4/94 Boston, Massachusetts USA e 1994 ACM 0-89791 -651 -4/94 /0243 ...

Visualizing Volcanic Ash Forecasts: Scientist and Stakeholder Decisions Using Different Graphical Representations and Conflicting Forecasts

3.50 of ‘rv viewers. The project time scale was tight (development cycles in consumer products are typically con{iensed) and dedicated human factors resources were limited. So we needed to establish the right level a}f involvement with potential users to steer product development and to extend understanding of users’ needs to the whole project team. LEADING WITH USABILITY A recurrent complaint of usability practitioners is that their involvement in product development comes after all other parties have established their interests, too late m make significant improvements [1, 5]. [n this project, Nokia project management initiated usability-led development by ensuring that the IDEO human factors and interaction (design team joined forces with their own design, engineerhhg and marketing team early in the product development cycle. Initially Nokiahelped IDEO understand their internal development of TV control systems. Thereafter members of the Nokia team joined IDEO in user research, and participated in workshops where feedback from the research was presented. MULTIPLE USABILITY METHIODS IDEO’s interaction design work comprises four stages: ● unakrstand (client briefing and background rwareh) ● observe (study people using existing or related products in environments where new products might be used) ● visua~ise (design and model or prototype new products) ● evaluate (test visualized products with potential users). The process combines techniques drawn both from the field study and the psychology lab no question of ‘either/or’ an ethnographic or experimental approach [4]. The process’s strength is the different opportunities it gives for understanding how people use products. Although the process is listed sequentially (see a similar sequence in Mander, s~~on and Wong [3]), a smooth progression k often difficult in real-world project management (indeed, it may even be a strength tha~ for example, fresh insights from observations me still coming in as visualization begins). The process certainly should not be sequential during visualization and evaluation, where a series of iterations is esseniial.

Volcanic Ash Workshop Survey Results

AbstractDuring volcanic eruptions, Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres issue ash advisories for aviation showing the forecasted outermost extent of the ash cloud. During the 2010 Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull eruption, the Met Office produced supplementary forecasts of quantitative ash concentration, due to demand from airlines. Additionally, satellite retrievals of estimated volcanic ash concentration are now available. To test how these additional graphical representations of volcanic ash affect flight decisions, whether users infer uncertainty in graphical forecasts of volcanic ash, and how decisions are made when given conflicting forecasts, a survey was conducted of 25 delegates representing U.K. research and airline operations dealing with volcanic ash. Respondents were more risk seeking with safer flight paths and risk averse with riskier flight paths when given location and concentration forecasts compared to when given only the outermost extent of the ash. Respondents representing operations were ...

Interviews of Experts in Decision Making: Robust Assessment and Communication of Environmental Risk (RACER)

Survey results from the 22 February 2016 Volcanic Ash Workshop with user groups from research and operations. Users included pilots, the civil aviation association, representatives from airlines, engine manufacturers, forecasters from the UK Met Office, and researchers from academia. Survey was a decision-making game for flight paths given different forecasts. The purpose of the survey was to see how decisions change if given different risk levels or different ways of displaying the information.

Visible planning on paper and on screen: The impact of working medium on decision-making by novice graphic designers

Interviews from winter 2016-2017 from a variety of producers and users of natural hazard information, including energy companies, environmental councils, public health, and insurance. The purpose of the interviews was to determine what kind of natural hazard information these sectors use and how they are presented. Results from the interviews informed surveys that were conducted as part of the Robust Assessment and Communication of Environmental Risk (RACER) project conducted under the Probability, Uncertainty & Risk in the Environment (PURE) Consortium. Participants were recruited by snowball sampling through a recruitment email. All transcripts have been edited to remove identifying information.