Interaction Design

Executive Summary

There is a growing specialization in terms of information technology resulting to a strong tendency in meeting consumers needs. Web design should therefore be intended for the development of an organization. The process of web design may utilize multiple disciplines such as animation, authoring, human computer interaction, graphic design and even interaction designed, all aiming at meeting a given objective. The following research will focus on an effective system that employs the star model framework (Lowgren et al 2004). The concept is the foundation upon which various organizations base their design choices. The following study aims at presenting an evaluation on how effective is the star model in designing an effective website.

Introduction

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is characterized by the way people interact with computers and to an extent, how we can understand computers. This type of interaction can be divided into there parts which include the user, computer and the way through which they interact. The main goal of HCI is to produce usable, functional as well as a safe system. The study presents the concept of understanding the factors which determine how users entertain technology (Stapleton 1997). The other segment involves the development of tools and techniques that give rise to an effective suitable system. There are several factors that ought to be considered when analyzing and designing a Website using the HCI principles.

There are three categories of interaction design concepts which are the star model, the dynamic systems development method (DSDM) and the user centered lifecycle design model. The star model interaction design will be used to create an effective web site that takes into account the needs. Human Interaction Design aims at understanding technology in a better way and hence helps in avoiding problems that result thereafter. It is therefore imperative that in observing the star mode, we employ the concept of usability. Application of this design should therefore aim to strive for consistency as well as enabling frequent users to take shortcuts in accessing information from the site (Plumley 2010). The following study offers a better solution as to why website development employs the star model

Development Methods

In order to positively evaluate interaction design, the system ought to develop a meaningful relationship between the service and people. Human Computer Interaction must therefore be related to methodologies and processes for designing interfaces. For instance, it will be important to develop the best possible interface within given constraints (Costabile et al 2005). It will also be composed of techniques geared towards implementing interfaces.

Interaction design aims at defining as well as facilitating an interaction between human beings through the service being provided[1]. Furthermore, a good design should involve human interaction as pertaining people, objects and spaces. It goes without mentioning that interaction design basically focuses on the human behavior (Ratner 2003). It should also be noted that interaction design is characterized by the evolution of art, architecture as well as media studies.

On the other hand, we can assert that several models and theoretical approaches have been used so as to help users understand technology. Interaction design entails several disciplines that include the user experience design which is envisioned by information architecture, communication design, and user interface engineering and human factors (Saffer 2009). It also involves industrial design as well as human computer interaction. The concepts involve unique processes that all are all aiming at usability status.

(Stapleton 1997)

The Star Model Concept

In this type on Human Computer Interaction, we look unto some steps that include task analysis verses functional analysis, requirements verses specification, conceptual design verses formal design representation, prototyping and the implementation phase.

Task analysis/functional analysis

The consumer’s needs are what are taken into consideration in developing a website. It is therefore imperative to consider what users are advocating for while visiting a given website and incorporate their views. The system will be characterized by interviews, survey and analysis with an aim of making an effective system and interactive usability status.

Requirements/specification

In developing a website, there are some requirements that have to be taken into consideration. It will be of necessity to tackle the characteristics of a website, the general outlook, site navigation and the several dynamic parts that involve websites.

Conceptual design/formal design representation

This is the most fundamental phase in any development of a website. This phase of the star model describes involves the user interface as well as the overall system and operational design. This is the focal point within which further development into a website arises (Lowgren et al 2004). It takes into consideration the use of splice tools meant for designing and development of the site.

Prototyping

The named phase is fundamental in the evaluation of a given website using the star model. Furthermore, it involves the development of a prototype in regard to the system with an aim of assessing the vital requirements and their functionality.

Implementation

This is the phase that illustrates how the website is being used. This phase enables developers to evaluate how vital the various stages can be. The system can now employ various segments into bringing out the needs of consumers.

Effective Web Design

In this stage, the research comes up with the steps that are taken so as to develop the web design. Consequently, the phase involves bringing into account the various aspects that were collected earlier pertaining usage of the website (Plumley 2010). We can be able to evaluate an effective web site if it has followed the required guidelines and rules with regard to accessibility. The following points can well demonstrate how the website should aim for.

• It should strive for consistency: Consistency ensures that users are able to use the site without being subjected to difficulties.
• Users should be able to use short cuts: The user can be able to handle the system appropriately by using the site.
• There is provision for informative feedback: Such type of website offers n opportunity for disgruntled users to state the areas that need improvements.
• Option of designing dialogs to yield closure: The website employed an interaction mechanism that offered users an opportunity of simplicity.
• The website should allow for easier reversal of the action that have been undertaken, and which may result to negative impact in the organization.
• Error Prevention: In designing the website, the study took into consideration the importance of allowing an easier way to handle errors that might arise.
• Supporting the internal focus of control is the other aspect that the website aims at achieving.
• Provision of an easier way of using the system by reducing short term memory load. Reduction of the load enables easier retrieval of information from the system.

Incorporating Accessibility, Usability and Portability in Web Design

• Usability: The design format of the website has employed the guidelines regarding usability so as to meet the needs of consumers.
• Website portability: The concept involved in this case has been the use of HTML language which offers website portability.
• Accessibility: The developed website can easily be accessed with consumers who are in need of particular information.

Web Accessibility

It is important for web developers, content managers and website owners to make their website accessible to an increasing market segment that includes older web users, businesses, governments and other organizations. Therefore, according World Web Consortium (W3C) it published a WAI’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0. It providers web content developers with standard procedure for making websites and web applications that interact better with older people due to their aging needs, people with disabilities . It explains in details how the needs of the group can be met through the browser rather than using assistive technology.

What are their needs? Older people suffer for aging related impairment that affect how they interact with the web browser (W3Schools,2011). Their vision reduces contrast sensitivity, color perception and focus, therefore, making the reading of web pages difficult. Their motor control also reduces making it difficult to type or either uses the mouse. They suffer from hearing impairment making it difficult to either hear audio or even background music. Lastly, their ability to remember, concentrate and visualize complex operations on the web browser is also affected.

In this case we developed the website, and have taken the important decision regarding the development to ensure that it confirms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0. The following section will explain the important considerations and guidelines that were used in implementing and developing the website.

Perceivable Information and User Interface

(Blue Templates, 2010)

Text

Text Size: Older people require large text because of their declining vision. Therefore, developers when implementing the website the text size was taking into consideration according to WCAG 2.0 (W3Schools,2011). When implementing the website the text can be able to be resized without assistive technology by up to 200 % with little loss of content or function.

Text Style and Text Layout: It represents how hard or easy is it for people read the content in the website. This is an important feature with people older people with declining vision. Consequently, the website took inconsideration requirements that included text style, text justification, line spacing, line length and horizontal scrolling.

Color and Contrasting

Older people lose perception due to changes in contrast and sensitivity. Therefore, when implementing the website color was not to convey information, illustrate an action or prompting response.

User Interface and Navigation

(Blue Templates, 2010)

Link

Older people require links to be clear and identifiable due to their impaired vision. As a result links where determined from the link text alone and a visible keyboard focus indicator showing the web page focus.

Navigation and Location

Older people require navigation to be clear due to the declining cognitive abilities. Therefore, the website was created which was easy to locate the Web page within other web pages (W3Schools,2011). The titles were used to describe the topic and purpose was clearly indicated.

Understandable Information and User Interface

(Blue Templates, 2010)

Page Organization

Older people are inexperienced user of the web; therefore have poor habits browsing habit (W3Schools,2011)s. The rather read the entire website, so a proper page organization is very important. The website organized in a manner that had clear heading s and labels the clearly described the topic and purpose of each page. The heading and subheading were used throughout the website and techniques using visual representation were used to organize the text.

Understandable Language

Older people find it difficult to understand complex sentences, hard words and technical terms (W3Schools,2011). Therefore, when implementing the website mechanism was identified using specific definitions or word and phrases used in website that word be unusual or restricted.

Consistent Labeling

Older people suffer from cognitive decline therefore poorly perceive navigation and presentation of visual and textual information. Consequently, the website contents were developed in a manner that ensured that elements and functionality were identified consistently throughout the website.

Robust Content and Reliable Interpretation

Older people may be ignorant and user web browsers that might not be capable of handling current releases. Therefore, the website was developed to ensure that might this criterion.

Information Architecture

Information architecture comprises of the structural details of the information involved. In order to present an idea on how the content is compounded, the study describes the fundamental steps followed so as to achieve a perfect website. The information carried on eth website is fundamental in arriving at ones objective (Ratner 2003). On the other hand, lack of meeting users need goes against the laws described in website regulations.

In this section, there will be analysis and design of the data stored by the website where by there is concentration on entities, their attributes as well as interrelationships. The information in web development therefore entails modeling of data in regard to individual data base for the users in a site. The website will focus on bringing principles of designs as well as architecture to the overall view with employing the aspects of effective web design.

Use Case

The basic idea of using a use case in modeling is simple; it focuses on what the system must do who or what and by whom. When developing the website using the use case it included the following components:

Actors: represent people or things that interact with the system. It can be generally defined as things that are outside the system.

Use Case: this represent thing of value that the system performs for the various actors.

Use Case

Sequence Diagram

A sequence diagram is UML interaction diagram that illustrate how the various processes operate with one another and the order.

Sequence Diagram

Structured System Analysis and Design Method

It is an approach used in analyzing and designing information system. It is based on the water fall approach of information system design and it thought to represent a rigorous well documented approach in contrast to0 Rapid Application Development and other methods such as DSDM.

Structured System Analysis and Design Method

Legal, Social or Ethical Issues

In this section will present legal, social and ethical issues that are evident when the web based system was being developed:

The legal issues

The website system name is one of the legal issues that can arise in the development of the website. In this case we should be very should be very conscious in regard to the name of the website and the name might be occupied by other businesses. In the naming process I got the name the name of the website to be available in the web based business .net domain.

The social issues

In the matter of the social issues of the web based system we look at people. In other words, users’ point of view will be considered, that is how they want the website to appear and the way they will perceive our information. In regard to this the following aspects were tackled;

Page layout

The aim of this website is to attract the website visitors via an attractive user interface and working environment. A better page layout was an approach that was used in the implementation of an attractive user interface (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). To add on this, there is a direct link between the page layout and the content like how the flow of information is represented on the webpage. As the researchers have reported people are always ready to scroll in the examination of the web pages, and if appropriate web content is not discovered rapidly there is a probability that they will runoff. For the said reason I have maintained the pages simple and clean.

The download speed

Downloading the website is one of the major elements and this means the retrieval of the website to the user browser. The user can feel distracted if the services of the website do not support the relevant speeds and better mechanisms for downloading. Therefore the downloading speed strategy should be easy, simple and better so that the user doesn’t feel distracted from the website.

The usability investigation might be carried out in the demonstration of how extremely important the test of the website download is. In less than 15 seconds the users can lose interest in the website even if they were paying attention in that area (Kolko, 2011). In this case the website was developed using simple HTML language that can appear in any of the available user browser’s in less than 5 minutes depending on the download speeds giving a response time that are very good.

Colors

A more attractive color theory is a theory that must be observed when building an online website. I addition to this, the color that are present in a website are the tools that mainly attract the visitors/customers. Web-browsers have their own colors that are standards are used for the navigational links. When more colors are added there is a risk the visitors will be puzzled by the site. Then developed the web pages color template in the implementation of the web based business platform using Blue White.

Ethical issues

The resolution of the ethical issues was one of the key issues that were given a keen eye in the course of developing the web based platform. The main key issue that arose was exposing the information that was secret to the business via the web. In this scenario no special or information that was discrete to the business was exposed.

The process of development

The enhancement of the working style that is the traditional working style of the business was the project basic motive. The system that was being replaced is a working system that is paper based. And for this reason the process of editing, searching, and retrieval was very difficult (Löwgren & Stolterman, 2004). Generation of profit for the innovation and gaining competitive advantage using the art of technology that adheres to the customary ways of doing business is the main objective of the project. The project will be seen as a tool that facilitates peoples’ daily online search. The already established stores will be credited by this project.

Work breakthrough schedule (WBS)

A large project such as this is sub-dived into manageable individual components that are usually in a hierarchical structure that acknowledges the traditional work through structure. The Work Breakthrough Schedule for planned that will be implemented in the development will be presented in this section.

The Requirements

The system requirements insight will be provided in this section. Each aspect of the System non-functional requirements will be the emphasis in this area.

Software requirements

• Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, Linux, Mac Os
• HTML used for coding
• MS Office for the documentation
• UML tool for development of CASE

Hardware requirements

• Pentium 4 or equivalent machine for the development
• Available internet connectivity

Aspects that worked well in the development process using White Blue Template

Well in the web based development process the following given aspects worked well throughout the project;

• The process of designing the system was very successful
• Consultation from web development professional, lecturers and friends in the process of development (which was of great help)
• The system requirements collection in regard to the business management was easy as every party involved were contributing.

Aspects that did not work well in the using White Blue Template

The following is an outline of the aspects that did not work in regard to overall work handing in the online system development.

• System testing proved to be a challenge especially the functional testing
• Long time was taken when fixing hardcore usability problems
• The process of implementation was a challenge i.e. making the system run live was a problem

Conclusion

The report has clearly illustrated of how the website was developed and designed. The report has outlined various aspects of the development: the user interface, the development life cycle, accessibility, design developmental model, evaluation and requirements. The overall report gives a detail insight of the star developmental life cycle approach for developing an information system.

Reference

Blue Templates, (2010). Blue Template. Retrieved 26th April 2011 http://www.bluewebtemplates.com/website-templates/bluewhite-website-template/

Cooke, D. (1994).The impact of CASE technology on software processes. Singapore World Scientific

Costabile, F.M. et al. 2005. Human-computer interaction. Birkhauser. Massachusetts, MA.

Lowgren, J et al. 2004. Thoughtful interaction design: a design perspective on information technology. MIT Press. Massachusetts, MA.

Plumley, G. 2010. Website Design and Development. John Wiley and Sons. New Jersey, NJ.

Ratner, J. 2003. Human factors and Web development. Routledge. London.

Saffer, D. 2009. Designing for interaction: creating innovative applications and devices. New Riders. New Jersey, NJ.

Stapleton, J. 1997. DSDM, dynamic systems development method: the method in practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kolko, J. (2011). Thoughts on Interaction Design. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Löwgren, ,. J., & Stolterman, E. (2004). Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective

            On Information Technology. Massachusetts: MIT Press.

W3Schools, (2011).Web Accessibility. Retrieved 26 April 2011 http://www.w3schools.com/quality/quality_accessibility.asp