"Designing for Interaction" Text Review
This online review is intended to be used as a study guide for the Saffer text.
Here you will find a series of questions related to the material we will have
covered. Chapter and section references correspond to chapters and sections
in Saffer's textbook, Designing for Interaction.
Review of the Saffer Text
What is Interaction Design?
- What is human-computer interaction (HCI)?
- According to Saffer, how does interacion design differ from HCI?
- Why is it important to design good interfaces?
- Is "interface design" art or engineering?
Chapter 2: Starting Points
- What is a design brief?
- Who are the stakeholders?
- What is the significance of business goals? constraints?
- Be sure you can describe each of the following approaches to ineraction
design:
- user-centered design
- activity-centered design
- systems design
- genius design
Chapter 3: Interaction Design Basics
- Be sure you understand the various elements of interaction design, and
how they are significant:
- motion
- space
- time
- appearance
- sound
- What is the significance of each of the following "laws" of interaction
design?
- Moore's law
- Fitt's law
- Hick's law
- Magical number 7
- Tesler's law
- Poka-Yoke principle
- Define, and give examples of, each of the following ways that humans can
interact with a computer:
- Command languages
- Menu systems
- Direct manipulation
- What is feedback? What is feedforward?
- What are the characteristics of good interaction design? Be sure you can
discuss several of these.
- How can the responsiveness of a digital product be characterized? What
are the ideal values for each?
Chapter 4: Design Research and Brainstorming
- What is design research? Why is it important?
- How does one conduct design research? How can you keep it ethical?
- What are some popular research methods?
Chapter 5: The Craft of Interaction Design
- What are some tools used in the design process?
- What is a research model? How does it inform the design process? What are the forms that it can take?
- What is a persona? How does it inform the design process?
- What is a scenario? How does it inform the design process?
- What is a task analysis? What is a task flow? How does these inform the design process?
- What is a use case? How does it inform the design process?
- What is a wireframe? How does it inform the design process?
- What are prototypes for? What forms can they take?
Chapter 6: Interface Design Basics
- Layout
- How are grids used?
- How is visual flow achieved?
- What is the "squint test"?
- How can a page's layout aid navigation?
- Typography
- What are the advantages of text?
- What makes text more readable?
- How many typefaces can you use in an interface? How do you emphasize
some text?
- Icons
- What are the advantages of icons? What are their disadvantages?
- What are some characteristics of good icons?
- Color
- What is simultaneous contrast? Explain the implications.
- What are some basic rules for the use of color in an interface?
- How do warm and cool colors suggest 3D space?
- What are vanishing boundaries? What are vibrating boundaries? How are
they created?
- Attention
- What is the user's eye drawn to immediately?
- How can you make a page easier to scan?
- How can you emphasize important elements?
- Elegance
- What makes an interface simple and elegant?
- What is chart junk? What are data prisons?
- What are the top-10 design blunders? How can you avoid making them?
- Define each of the following widgets, and describe how it might be used
in an interface:
- Switch
- Button
- Dial
- Latch
- Slider
- Handle
- Check box
- Radio button
Chapter 7: Smart Applications and Clever Devices
- Why does Saffer say that today's applications and devices are "dumb"?
- How can multitasking be used to make applications smarter? What are some potential pitfalls, and how might you get around them?
- What are some ways an interaction designer can help the end user to "connect" with an application or device?
- What's the difference between customization and personalization?
- What does it mean to "achieve flow"?
- Why should you make a product adaptive? What shouldn't be adaptive?
- What is hacking? When is it OK? How can layers be used to "design for hackability"?
- What are ambient devices?
Chapter 8: Service Design
- What is a service? How is it different from a product? What are the characteristics of a service?
- What are touchpoints? What forms can they take?
- How is a service not like a product? What's the advantage of distributing products as part of the service?
- How is designing a service different from designing a product?
- How can a service have nonobvious stakeholders?
- What is a process map? What is a service blueprint? How do they inform the design process?
- What is a service moment? How does it relate to touchpoints?
- How can you prototype a service?
Chapter 9: The Future of Interaction Design
- How will computing change?
- What will be needed in the "next web"?
- What are intelligent agents? How can they be used in interaction design?
- What are spimes? How might they be useful? How might they be a threat?
- What is meant by "transmedia"?
- What is wearable computing? What sort of inputs do these systems get? What are some applications?
- What is ubiquitous computing? What are some ways of interacting with ubiquitous devices? What are some potential uses? What are some potential problems?
Epilogue: Designing for Good
- What is "good design"?
- Why is it important to consider the consequences of an interface?