Conceptual Models
From CS160 User Interfaces Sp09
Lecture on Feb 11, 2009
Readings
- Cognetics and the Locus of Attention. The Humane Interface. Chap 2. Raskin.
Shoeb Omar - Feb 09, 2009 11:43:40 am
I found the reading extremely intriguing and thought it was well developed. I think that the author is right in that understanding cognetics (an ergonomics of the mind almost) is extremely helpful in designing well thought out and built interfaces that make sense for users to use. I also think that the author raised a number of interesting points when describing the cognitive conscious and unconscious and how it related to habit formation and the singularity of conscious tasks. I think habit formation is extremely important to think about when designing interfaces and almost goes hand in hand with a point in an earlier reading about familiarity. If someone changed Ctrl-B to insert a breakline rather than bold the current text it would take a lot of getting used to in breaking the habits that current users have. Similarly when designing interfaces one must not only take care in seeing what habits one might be disrupting by making any changes to the interface, but also any habits that one might be unwittingly creating. One example of this could theoretically be UAC in Windows Vista. Many users probably just click confirm on these without checking them anyway, rendering their point moot. Thus, perhaps it is a new habit being created that is completely unnecessary and just annoying.
Furthermore, discussions on the singularity of the mind's function fascinated me. In a computing existence fascinated with multiprocessing and multi-threading, increasing parallel computing and so forth, it's funny that the mind itself can only process one thing at a time anyway so in some ways all this power is a little unnecessary for most day to day tasks. For example, most productivity is probably achieved in the office suite of programs and the web browser, things that require little computing power. The noticing of this has led to a rise in Netbooks which satisfy user needs because they appeal, in a sense, to cognetics. Users can only do so much at the same time anyway so why pay more for that? Finally I just thought the example of the shuffling cards sound distracting users from load time as something super cool and innovative--amazing that it worked so well and that users noticed the load time once the cards were taken away.
Saung Li - Feb 09, 2009 08:01:43 pm
This relates to the L&R reading we did before, in which it is suggested that a system should include generic features that users expect even when these features don't play an important role in the system's functionality. For example, after using the Windows copy and pasting feature for years, I unconsciously press ctrl+c and ctrl+v when I edit something out of habit, and I always expect to use those keys when editing text. I always felt uneasy using the Emacs program because it uses a different set of keys to copy and paste so I would always have to remind myself how to do it. A text editor without copy and paste would be outrageous because people have been so accustomed to using it that they can unconsciously use it. It is important, then, to design interfaces that do not deviate too much from the norm in tasks that are used very often so that users can switch to them easily. It is interesting that people just quickly click "Yes" or press enter to exit a program. One way to stop this is to switch the order of the choices so that the users would more likely press "no" or press enter (which selects "no") and be forced to think if the program is correct before they leave. However, doing this often can make the user used to that particular order and still quickly select "yes" to exit. It is important to design an interface that allows the user to focus on what they are trying to accomplish, and this can be done by taking advantage of the fact that a person only has one locus of attention. It is interesting how some people can do magic tricks by making people focus on one of their hands and not the other. Also interesting is when we listen to music we tend to not notice the background music as much as the main singer, but realize that music when we consciously think of it and discover new aspects of the song even after listening to it many times.
Rohan Dhaimade - Feb 09, 2009 11:19:59 pm
The article is interesting and points out many problems with UI design. I know that there are many habits that I just accept as true without sometimes checking what I'm doing. UAC is one example for Vista, clicking the next button when installing applications on Windows, clicking agree when you see an EULA. They are all habits that shouldn't be automatic but they are.
This article doesn't point out that there are sometimes habit that prove to be inconsistent and that repetitive actions might be overridden with other more habitual actions, so in a way, you can not form a habit because other habits are overriding it. There is a mention of this but it doesn't address it when the author mentions using Microsoft Word vs a Mac Word Processor. I own a mac and thus I am used to mac keyboard shortcuts ,particularly using the Command/Apple key rather than the Ctrl key for many actions like copy and paste. But during my time at work, I'm on a Windows Computer, so I tend to make the mistakes of typing and using the wrong key. I also tend to close window using the wrong combination, and it takes me a second to realize that I've made a mistake and that I must alter my decision. But the problem is, that I need to work on both systems. My habits on one system lead to more productivity but are an annoying habit on the other. So how would you deal with this kind of situation, can you never address it? Would it require some type of convergence between operating systems?
I also wanted to mention another thing that is associated with the shuffling noise and the cards. Do the load bars (even the ones that are just the same repeated image over and over) make load times seem shorter because they try to take your attention or do we eventually become desensitized to it. I wonder if the users played the game long enough they would no longer consider the shuffling noise and just thing the game is taking longer.
David Burban - Feb 10, 2009 12:23:09 am
While I felt that this paper was more for psychology majors, there are some really good points addressed here. The part that I found most interesting is the 10 second wait for a context switch. Unfortunately, the author did not develop this point as well as he did his previous points about our Locus of Attention, formation of habits (good & bad), and execution of simultaneous tasks. I notice that not only do I not read delete prompts, but I also press the key combination to bypass the recycle bin (saving me the work of clearing the recycle bin in the end). However, this has had the problem of me deleting files that I wish I hadn't.
Based on the artile, I believe that it would be beneficial if certain types of programs' keyboard shortcuts could be standardized, or at least given the option to use another standard of keybindings. While this could potentially confuse the novice customer, it could ease transition from one program (or operating system) to another.
Jeffrey Patzer - Feb 10, 2009 02:25:01 am
This is probably the first real analytical paper I have read on the conscious and unconscious not focusing on Freud. The biggest point of this article, that I gathered, was that a good interface needs to develop a good habit. The article goes into great detail how the conscious can only hold so much information and the unconscious takes care of the rest of the stuff. A successful interface becomes the rest of that stuff. The other interesting idea raised was being able to always undo something. Warnings and messages can never really be totally effective, from personal experience i know this to be true, since people will tend to continually select the same option. The idea that one never has one of these irrevocable mistakes be permanent is a great idea, albeit not really existent yet. However, some things are beginning to implement those options (like firefox's restore session option-> taking the user back to where they were before). The takeaway message I got from this was that one needs and interface that effectively utilizes the focus of attention and allows the user to be flexible and unpredictable (because humans are just that).
Nalditya Kusuma - Feb 10, 2009 03:50:07 pm
The reading emphasizes how to build user interfaces using human's psychology. It explains how to use cognitive consciousness and unconsciousness psychology to build more effective interface that helps users to not allowing habits to cause problems for them. One example from the reading that I like is the delete file confirmation; sometimes it is annoying for me too because I know what I want to get rid of but still face confirmation warnings. Unix anticipates this by allowing users to set/unset option "-i" for "rm" command so that deletion does not require any further confirmation. Ubuntu's GNOME realizes this problem and does not require any confirmation when users choose to delete files after highlighting a bunch of them, because if there is a file that is accidentally deleted they can recover it anytime from the trash bin (it is actually named "move to trash" rather than "delete"). Another famous example that have similar problem is the Therac-25 problem (ya'll know this!) that had too much unnecessary warnings, making operators ignore them all as habits and resulting in human loss.
Sean Hansen - Feb 10, 2009 05:45:41 pm
About David's comment: the nature of consciousness is a valid and important subject for anyone to study. By learning how your mind works, you can better take advantage of its capabilities. This is not to say that everyone should go out and take courses on improving thinking methodology (although I'd personally like to try one), but you're going to have your mind for a long time, so you might as well learn how to use it properly.
As for the article, I liked how the facts it asserted were simple and immediately verifiable; anything they didn't provide an example of themselves was easy to verify just by thinking a bit. Making a point in that manner goes a long way towards making it believable, as opposed to supporting your point with the argument "It works this way, trust us."
Chunwei Lai - Feb 10, 2009 06:03:21 pm
People who are familiar with computers and people who have little to no exposure to computers expect and react differently to interfaces. Despite this difference, accommodations can be made for both since many interfaces makes use of symbols and images that one would normally see (such as exclamation mark, use of the color red, etc). Serious actions (such as deleting a file) requires confirmation and trivial actions are generally performed without second confirmation similar to what one would normally expect. However, not all actions are uniform among interfaces such as copy and paste requires different keystrokes on different OS but for familiar users those actions are easily performed whereas new users have trouble immediately adjusting. Performing copy and paste isn't really something one thinks about doing in detail, as it becomes a habit that we perform. Even among applications of an OS, there are conflicting keystrokes with the OS itself though these are generally avoided when possible by interface designers.
Cuong Ngo - Feb 10, 2009 07:15:19 pm
Though pretty long, this chapter turned out to be a good read. I never thought that designing user interface would involve such a careful consideration of our ergonomic and cognetic limitations. Apparently an interface that requires the user to multiply two 30-digit numbers in 5 seconds just doesn't make sense at all. This reminds me of this one time I came across a website where I had to find a derivative of some complicated trig function in order to sign up. I gave up right after the first try considering I took Calculus almost 3 years ago. It would have been easier if the math was simpler but that wasn't the case. The chapter also pointed out the importance of habit development in terms of interface design. Designers must "create interfaces that do not allow habits to cause problems for the user." Once a habit has been formed, we can't just simply undo it by our "willpower." A good example from the chapter is interchanging the brake and accelerator pedals. We might step on the right pedal the first few times, but our habit will take over eventually. I agree with the author that "only a time-consuming training process can undo a habit." I myself find it pretty hard to sleep early even though I've been trying to.
Kevin Huey - Feb 10, 2009 07:11:05 pm
I kind of enjoyed this reading. Who would've thought that doing X amount of things at once could degrade the quality of each of those tasks? As an example, let's use my activity list while I completed the reading: locus = the reading (since this is new material for me), habits = eating dinner, listening to music, playing online poker, and talking on the phone (many at the same time, but not all at once). These other activities are habits that I'm used to doing, so engaging in those tasks don't require much of my attention (though material from a phone call could require more attention, and it did need more so I stopped reading for a short period of time).
One idea to make deletion confirmations more effective is to implement some kind of random-generated string of letters and numbers in order to delete something. People are forced to become more engaged with the confirmation box (rather than clicking yes/no or pressing 'Enter'). However, the problem with this implementation is that users may eventually get very annoyed, very fast. Going through a long process to delete a file you KNOW you want to delete is just pointless to regular users. They'll demand a refund for the computer they bought (see: Windows Vista Security Checks).
Alan Young - Feb 10, 2009 09:13:51 pm
Raskin's article on Cognition and Conceptual Models was interesting because it prompted me to think about my cognitive conscious and cognitive unconscious in a way that I have never thought about before. The examples of how conscious thoughts become unconscious and vice versa were very clear and the fact that there are many cases that are on the boundary of both makes it interesting to me. It reminds me of the placebo effect, where a patient's concentration on his cognitive unconscious, which can be some bodily function, actually manifests itself in cognitive conscious or in the physical body. The idea of muscle memory is also touched upon as well as the idea in "the Psychology of everyday Things", that humans naturally prefer abstractions of real world models. If I were to think about every muscle used in typing this sentence, I would become too exhausted to finish. It's the fact that I can just see this as hitting the keyboard to input characters that makes everything easy, and with years of practice and muscle memory training, fast as well. The concept of absorption and the stories of the dangers of human errors resulting from absorption was very educational in that there are both pros and cons to it. The cons were obviously tragic, as in the pilot's error resulting in loss of lives. The pros were interesting because they are things that I feel I unconsciously do in my life. The stated example was that time delays in card games can be masked if shuffling sounds is on. I like to play video games with the sound on because every time something is loaded, I can hear the music/sound and I don't get as impatient.
Timothy Yung - Feb 10, 2009 10:15:34 pm
I found this article very interesting especially after reading the last one about Contextual Inquiry. I really liked the description of cognetics as the ergonomics of the mind. In the past when I designed user interfaces (or when I created animations), I was able to deduce many points in this article. For example, in an animation, if too many things are happening at once, the viewer, having only a single locus of attention, cannot observe all the details. Similarly, in a user interface, if a feedback animation occurs in too elaborate of a manner, the user may end up becoming confused.
The comparison between the cognitive conscious and cognitive unconscious was very useful because although the concept lingers in all designers' minds, we usually don't realize that this distinction exists. One might say that the concept of cognitive consciousness and cognitive unconsciousness lied in my/[our] cognitive unconscious.
Finally, I found the explanation and exploitation of habits and automation to be very intriguing. In the past, I knew it was bad practice to have multiple ways to accomplish the same task, but I could never quite pinpoint the reason for why this type of practice was bad. I also never realized that human automation could actually be exploited and made use of in an interface design. Very good read.
Lucky Ongko - Feb 10, 2009 10:56:56 pm
The article is interesting because it intersects psychology with designing a good user interface. It started by explaining how the mind work in states of conscious and unconscious. With some simple do-it-yourself example, Raskin explains and proof the two different states of mind. He then explains what locus of attention is and how it affects human actions in forming habits/automation and doing simultaneous task. One of the important thing to remember is that we only have one locus of attention and we should design our interface taking into account the singularity of the locus of attention. Though the things mention in this article seems trivial and unimportant, if we are able to exploit the things mention in the article it would really improve our implementation of our user interface.
Timofey Titov - Feb 10, 2009 11:09:10 pm
We can see why interfaces should have menus and dialog boxes organized by category. Not only is it easier to find and navigate through, but it also appeals to the way humans work. You can concentrate on a specific function that you want to perform. Switch of context can be very useful in situations where the user has to make important decisions. One should stimulate the locus of attention perhaps in different ways to prevent habit development at such crucial steps. Proper interface according to Raskin is the one that the user becomes familiar with quickly and forms a habit of using it to perform work or tasks. I did not quite understand how the conscious/unconscious model of the mind applies to interface design.
Dwijgarg - Feb 10, 2009 11:12:39 pm
I felt that this article was geared more towards cognitive science, and also people who want to understand interactions of people and computers, rather than those who want to make efficient and user friendly interfaces. The article talks about ergonomics and cognetics, which in my opinion are not really very much related to the art of interface design. However, after a full read of this article, I found that I was almost completely wrong. The designer has to take such factors into account while designing interfaces, as he/she has to keep the user's comfort levels and needs in mind. Designers have to make sure to keep cognitive consciousness and unconsciousness in mind while designing interfaces. As the article states, understanding human's limited mental abilities and how they work in relationship to human-machine interface is very important in interface design. For instance, I found the fact that the current "desktop" interface system is in fact very inefficient. The reason stated for this is that the computer should always return you to the task you were doing before the one you just finished. It should not return you to a home space. The same concept can also be applied to websites.
Mark Dhillon - Feb 10, 2009 11:35:22 pm
I gotta say, this author starts it off with a a pretty righteous statement: We must master the ergonomics of the mind if we want to design interfaces that work well. I couldn't agree more. It's not something I've ever considered in those terms before, but it makes so much sense. I feel that the ergonomic mouse is much easier to utilize than the standard mouse, as with the keyboard and other things. This can be attributed to the fact that people studied how the hand grips things and developed a new design. Of course the same can hold true for interface design, it's just more difficult (but also more rewarding). I especially liked his later statement about how most of the problems that people have with computers are because of poor interface designs rather than the complexity of what they want to, or a lack of intelligence. I can't help but be reminded of my mom, who still calls me to figure out where the files she has downloaded went or how to clear her cookies from the browser. It's not a difficult thing to do, it's just not immediately obvious to a lot of people (especially those who didn't have the benefit of growing up with computers).
Matthew Can - Feb 10, 2009 11:44:50 pm
This was an interesting reading. Its perspective on UI design was much different than the task-centered approach covered in class. I never thought that a closer look at the conscious and unconscious factors of the human mind could reveal so much about UI. For example, the reading mentioned that habits could form over time with respect to an interface as conscious processes become unconscious and automatic. A negative example of this is the user automatically confirming a permanent action without taking the time to read it. In the positive case, this means that the interface does not interfere with the user, that it does not get in the way of the user's consciousness as the user performs a task. Central to this analysis was the locus of attention, the notion that the human mind is only consciously engaging one object at a time.
One of the problems I see with this concept is that it is not clear how to apply it in practice. What is the best way to make use of the locus of attention? Will it be the same for all users? Which interface interactions should be conscious and which unconscious? These questions can only be resolved by trial and error. I guess one way to do it is by incorporating this analysis into the iterative design process. That is, the designer should view his interface through a cognetics lens each time the process loops, identifying potential weaknesses and advantages involving the conscious, unconscious, automaticity, and the locus of attention.
Sum Sum Wong - Feb 11, 2009 12:11:20 am
Although as mentioned in the first paragraph of the reading "it is easier to understand the machine side of the human-machine interface than to come to grips with the far more complex and variable human side, "the study of human side is necessary for developing a good user interface. The beginning of the reading is quite psychological: it explained, by using a lot of examples, the terms cognetic conscious and cognetic unconscious and how they are related to the design of good user interface. Indeed, unconscious acts of user play important role in UI design. For example, as mentioned in the first (or second?) reading, a good UI design should include functions that users expected even if the function is kind of useless because users may unconsciously use the function.
Chao Michael Zhang - Feb 11, 2009 12:37:43 am
A really interesting section of the reading was when they were discussing steps that can be taken to ensure that a user really intends to carry out a non-reversable, or permanently damaging, operation. Computers often require a confirmation in which the user either types Y or N for Yes or No, but this very quickly becomes habitual and completely useless. I've experienced this to be true, as I have made it a habit to delete things in Linux with the -f flag, or automatically type Y when deleting something.
On the other hand, a non-habit forming option needs to be provided in order to force the user to consider whether or not they actually want to perform the action. However, even the "draconian" example they gave does not seem to suffice, as the user will probably form a habit of following the instructions as quickly as possible to expedite their work. For example, even if the user needs to type a word backwards or type the nth word in a paragraph, they will quickly be trained to do this "thinking" task as quickly as possible with minimal actual "thought".
Thus, my question is, "is there a more foolproof way of forcing a user to consider their action without the possibility of having a habit formed?"
Derek Liu - Feb 10, 2009 11:52:58 pm
Habits is a rather interesting point that came up in the article. Working with or using anything that requires repeated similar actions will create an automatic response using that particular object over time. For example, I use Windows and Linux as my main operating systems, both have some form of start button or sub menus in a bar located on the top or bottom of the screen. Both also feature options within open windows (File, edit, view, etc.) However, when I use a system running mac osx I find myself constantly searching for some sort of "start" button or my file, edit, and view options within windows, rather than on the top bar of the operating system.
I also felt the most important issue that this article addressed was the issue of when bad human-computer interaction can cost lives. The article focused more on the human side of the problem, however communicated a good lesson for all of us when using our machines or doing daily tasks. I'm sure many of us have been so absorbed in some problem big or small that we lose awareness of what is going on around us. In the case of the airliner whose pilots were absorbed in switching a bulb instead of watching their altitudes, it cost many lives. In the case of the other airliner who was landing the plane without his wheels down, it could have very well cost lives of the people on board.
Ian Hildreth - Feb 11, 2009 12:50:15 am
I thought this article was repetitive and exceedingly detailed in describing differences between the conscious and the unconscious, making this article geared more for other fields of study. However, it made me reflect on all the different things that I do in my unconscious as a repetitive task, such as breaking for the red light, or even the keystrokes I use on a computer. Having said that I think it is very important to take the nature of simple repetitive tasks into mind when designing interfaces to make them as seemless as possible for the user. At the same time, as pointed out with the story of the absorbed airline pilots who crashed, killing over 100 people, when there is a crucial decision or danger; anything out of routine, it is extremely important to make the warnings as different and noticeable as possible, so that a user can easily distinguish it from the rest of the interface
Ling Chen - Feb 11, 2009 01:10:59 am
It's true, I never bothered thinking about the last letter in my name, or how my cloth feel, until I was asked in the article. Even though the article seemed to focus on human psychology at first, it revealed much of the things we need to watch out for as a designer. After all, we have to understand our user's mind in order to come up with suitable interfaces. Our user's habits also affect much of our design because we need to "create interfaces that do not allow habits to cause problem for the user. We must design interfaces that deliberately take advantage of the human trait of habit development and allow user to develop habits that smooth the flow of their work." The author mentioned that attention includes actively paying attention and going with the flow. I thought it was interesting to know that we are unable to attend to multiple simultaneous stimuli because we only have one locus of attention. When we are absorbed in certain task that involves our locus of attention, it's difficult for us to transit to a different locus. So when we design, we would know to put a greater stimulus. The article also brought up some useful examples, such as the masking of time delay and the typing backward a word at random for confirmation.
Yin-Zen "Johnny" Hwang - Feb 11, 2009 12:41:51 am
this almost reads like a description of The Force. It seems like cognitive decisions (conscious) is similar to that of a computer. something important: most ppl cannot remember the explicit wording of a popup message that happened even 5 seconds ago. therefore the popup needs to be able to convey its message not through the wording of the message itself. habits are like some kind of abstraction. important: good interfaces form habits easily.
that's why knowing how existing interfaces work is so important, because ppl are prolly used to them. lol the draconian method reminds me of vista. habits > stuff that make sure you know what you're doing.
i really like the idea of returning to where you left off. that function in firefox is so useful.
Anatol Tsang - Feb 11, 2009 01:33:01 am
I liked the author's aside on not comparing how the human brain works to devices and technology that exist today. Our understanding of ourselves (or at least the brain) changes so fast that what may seem relevant and fitting today will no longer be fitting years from now.
I liked this article a lot. When I read the first couple of paragraphs, I was not looking forward to what I was going to read. However, I was interested in knowing all the little quirks and unconscious things that we humans do when interacting with the world. It's true that we form habits and you can't not form a habit (I've walked to class accidentally before, when I was supposed to be walking somewhere else). Also, our attention can be so focused on some things that it takes a long time for us to switch contexts. Unfortunately, my Windows operating system takes an even longer time to load.
Colin Downs-Razouk - Feb 11, 2009 01:48:08 am
I disagreed with this article on several points, and had a difficult time taking the reading's point seriously because it offered no empirical data to prove its point. Here are the two main points that I disagreed about:
- I think it's a good idea to have multiple ways to do the same thing. In the reading it said briefly that providing multiple ways of doing things distracts the user from doing something habitually and makes them think about choosing the best way to do something. It said that it would explain this in more detail in section 3-7. I think it's argument is fundamentally flawed. If you can make using the program a habit, why can't you make your choice of how to do an action also a habit? The root of this confusion is that it is never really clear what is a habit, and how you get a habit.
- I think that it is sometimes useful to have a confirmation step. Personally, I like my web browser to ask me if I want to close multiple windows if I tell it to quit. This tells me that there are other tabs (or other windows) open that I am not currently looking at. This is useful because when I am looking at a window and I am done with it, I often just press the quit shortcut. If this is the only window open, then it quits and everything is well. If it is not the only window open, it asks me that question, and I look at what else I have open, and I decide wether to quit or not. I can imagine that there are other situations where this is useful.
My main problem with the article is that it does not suggest that any of their presumptions are based on studies. I'm an engineer and I am not a fan of philosophical arguments, so this reading was difficult for me.
Gregory leshner - Feb 11, 2009 02:02:30 am
The paper was useful for centering the locus of my attention on how the brain pays attention to operations and activities around it. There were several "ah ha" moments in the paper but they were few and far between. I felt the author could have given us a few more concrete applications of his concepts. I suppose I am saying there was a lot of fluff in the paper. Some of the salient points I am taking away from this paper are: 1) leave important information onscreen or in an easily accessible place as the brain forgets. 2) By providing a distraction like the sound of shuffling cards, a user doesn't notice how long your process may be taking. 3) People form habits, use that knowledge to your advantage by leveraging habits they may already have. 4) That confirmation screens are useless ... but I already knew that. Actually I am pretty sure that all of this was already somewhere in my cognitive unconscious. :)
Carol Chen - Feb 11, 2009 02:02:28 am
I found the most useful concept of this reading to be the concept of designing an interface so that even if users form habits, the habits are harmless. Since habituation is a given, the logical next step is to make sure the effects of the habituation are benign. The rest of the reading was interesting as well. The human mind is a fascinating study, and the detailed explanations of how cognitive conscious and unconsciousness differ was instrumental in helping me understand why attention needs to be paid to certain aspects during the design process. The example of how absorption kills provided good reason to not stop at giving error messages or warnings, but setting up a system so that users cannot make disasterous operation errors, or so that users can at least undo their accidental actions. As the reading explained, malfunction causes people to become absorbed with the problem and less observant to other indications around them.
Denise Ngai - Feb 11, 2009 02:13:25 am
"Ergonomics takes into account the statistical nature of human variability."
This statement pretty much sums up the reason why, as the book states, it is important to consider ergonomics when designing interfaces. Each person is different. Each person has his/her own preferences and needs. Therefore, it is important, when designing an interface, to consider all the variations possible in order to cater to the preferences and needs of as many individuals as possible who may use the interface. An interface that may be easy to understand by one person may be completely difficult to understand by another. For example, computer savvy individuals will probably have an easier time adapting to an interface and customizing certain settings than a non-computer savvy person. It is for these types of situations that ergonomics are essential in the planning of an interface design.
Prahalika Reddy - Feb 11, 2009 02:32:38 am
Today's reading was incredibly interesting to read, and even more so to think about. The concepts explained in this chapter are all basically trying to explain the brain, and yet, they don't classify the brain as one specific thing. Instead the reading talks about the brain will react to certain situations and circumstances.
What's interesting about this reading is that the concepts are pretty basic and obvious, like habit formation and interruptions stopping a train of thought, but rarely do people actually think about these things. Which, to me, seems to be exactly what the article is about: ideas floating around your unconscious until you directly acknowledge them.
Also, it was intriguing to realize just how useless confirmation steps become after a while. Although in theory they are the perfect tool to avoid making mistakes, if they do eventually become part of the entire process of doing a certain task instead of a separate step, they are essentially worthless.
Sean Ahrens - Feb 11, 2009 02:52:51 am
Great reading choice! I loved this reading. I really wish to do more of this type of reading throughout the semester. One thing I'd like to comment on here is the author's mention of persistence of vision/hearing. I have a really good story to relate to this. I once had a dream as a kid, where I was crawling beside a coffee table and accidently knocked over a glass on that table, the glass fell to the floor and made a loud crashing noise as it did so. The craziest part about this dream, is that the crashing noise was real -- while I was dreaming, my mom had dropped a glass or something similar in the kitchen, and it shattered on impact -- right as the real crashing sound occured, so did the visual of the dreamnt glass hitting the floor. This is actually pretty freaking crazy if you think about it. Let me recount the events of my dream again: 1) I knocked over the glass on the table; 2) it fell; 3) it hit the floor and shattered. Now there is a chance that it could have been absolute coincidence that the glass my mom dropped in the kitchen shattered at the exact moment that the glass in my own dream did, but it seems far more likely to me that my hearing the real glass shatter spurred that entire sequence of events. What I am proposing is that I heard the glass shatter unconsciously while asleep, then in my dream recreated a system of events that would cause that result, and only then, when the event was fully explained by the glass in my dream falling and hitting the floor, did the audio switch to my conscious and become a real sound effect that I heard. Seeing that the author remarks that the persistence of hearing can last from 900ms to 3,500ms this seems entirely plausable -- after all, a glass falling from a coffee table could easily take less than 1.5 seconds to hit the ground. Intriguing, no? :)
Phiroath Chan - Feb 11, 2009 03:07:20 am
This reading defiantly had a philosophy feel to it. I find myself constantly thinking about what really exists in the world. A good point was made when the issue of ergonomics and cognetics was brought up. We as human beings do have a great sense about how objects interact with us physically. It has been proven over and over again in products such as chairs and desks on the market. The problem now is the we as humans don't even realize out mental limits and I agree with the author on that point. The comparison between cognitive conscious and cognitive unconscious was done in great detail. I agree that you have to be aware of fear and that makes it part of the cognitive conscious. Fear or danger was a great point since fear can drive us to make decisions to either get us away from danger or get us in more danger and to make those decisions we kinda have to be conscious. I also agree that routine mundane tasks are part of the cognitive unconscious because if you repeatably do the same thing everyday your body starts to get use to it. A favorite example of mine is martial arts. The more you train and practice the more muscle memory you develop.
Kevin Nakahara - Feb 11, 2009 03:17:09 am
I thought the subject material in the reading was very interesting, and made me think about how I focus (or "locus") on things in everyday life. The part distinguishing between the conscious and unconscious was kind of hard for me to follow, since I see so much ambiguity between the two. For example, if someone has the TV running in the background while doing homework, and is able to recall events on the TV even though he was focused on the the homework, is it really right to say that his attention to the TV was unconscious? The part describing the locus of attention was easy for me to relate, since I have a very one-tracked mind and find it hard to manage to do many things at once. It is certainly a hurdle to take into account while designing any effective user interface, especially ones implemented in life and death situations. The notion of having to consider the time it takes for a person to be cognizant of something was also interesting and should also be taken into account (ie, you don't want a timed confirmation prompt set to 5 seconds when it may take people 6 seconds to see it exists). Finally, the bit on confirmation screens had me thinking about their effectiveness. Certain ones, like the one prompted by Firefox while closing many tabs, seems to work on me, while the one for saving before closing often goes past me. It seems especially interesting since the prompts, graphically are not that different. The example they had of the more foolproof method of confirmation may have seemed silly, but I don't think its all that bad an idea.
Chang Su - Feb 11, 2009 03:10:20 am
Raskin's is perhaps the most interesting and inspiring reading to date. It also does not suffer from the lack of real and relatable examples as several previous readings. Although most of the underlying concepts described in the chapter, such as visual and auditory memory, development of habits, and the locus of attention, were well known to me, I never imagined these concepts could be applied to the field of computer interface design in such an ingenius way as the Canon Cat. That to me, even more so than the example of the tragic albeit darkly comdedic plane accident, is the best lesson I take away from this reading. I also applaud the author's suggestion of designing applications such that when initiated, they always return to the state just before their last termination. This idea, although awkward due to our acclimatization to the ubiquitous implementation of starting everything on a clean slate, is indeed a more logical choice in many cases.
However, I must caution that this is not universally true. Many times when we close a program it signifies a kind of termination. For instance, when we close a book we might expect to continue later from the same place we left off. But when we actually put the book away onto the shelf, it might mean that we have finished the book for good (or given up reading it). We do not then expect to touch that book in a while. It is therefore important to determine for each program if closing the program is analogous to closing a book, or putting the book away. And whether to return the program to the previous state upon initiation is dependent on that decision.
Moonway Lin - Feb 11, 2009 03:30:29 am
It would be very convenient for users if there were a global standard for features that are common to many applications (copy+paste, escape, close window, etc.) As Raskin discussed habit-forming, using the example of Command-T in Macs vs. MS Word, I couldn't help but think of the many times when I tried to press Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V (to copy and paste, respectively) in Emacs, only to find that they didn't work (and thus reminding myself that I was using Emacs), and wishing that Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V meant the same thing in MS Word, Apple iWork, and Emacs/vim. The same applies to Ctrl+W, which is typically used for closing windows but is used for highlighting individual words in other applications. If someone develops a habit over using Ctrl+W for some other purpose, that could cause disastrous results in environments where Ctrl+W means Close Window. For example, there were times when I had a half-written paragraph in Firefox and then I accidentally pressed Ctrl+W, thus losing all my work. Commands that are habit-forming should proceed with a warning or confirmation screen (as Raskin also discussed) when using them may result in irreversible data loss.
Shendy Kurnia - Feb 11, 2009 03:46:46 am
This reading is interesting. I think it explains why people usually do not pay attention in details of warning message that appear on the interface they are facing. Habits makes user just click the OK button without reading in detail what the warning message is about for example. I once found a program installer that behaves differently. Instead of just providing the OK button to their term and policy, the program won't let the user continue without scrolling down the page. It cannot guarantee the user read the whole thing, but it is an interesting approach. I wonder if this problem, user's ignorance, can ever be solved. Let's say if someone come up with an idea to make sure user grab the meaning of warnings, user will get used to that method and will find a shortcut eventually to get rid of the warning message, and the cycle will go on an on.
Raymond Young - Feb 11, 2009 04:01:43 am
Conscious and unconscious immediately reminded me of a GUI, since the user is not conscious of many things. Processes that run in the background or that have no graphical representation hardly, if ever, cross our mind.
I found the habit formulation very common, essential even, in life. For example, in emacs I press C-x + C-s to save my file via the keyboard. Then I go to other word processors and I forget that the save command is C-s. And then once I get used to that, it's worse going back to emacs because I press C-s and I get the search function. So now I typically use emacs for everything unless I need fancy fonts and styles. The way I think of habit formulation is "taking out the middle man", the middle man being the process to execute an action. After a while, your brain knows exactly what it has to do to cause the desired result to happen. When I want to save my file, I don't think about how to do it...instead I don't think and simply desire to save my file...then let my my brain execute the well-formed habit developed from each previous time I desired to save my file (and actually had to think about it). I noticed quite a few years ago that this is how I quickly learn anything. In terms of the vocabulary presented here, what I believe happens is that I quickly form a habit and store it in my short term memory, and as long as I have to repeat that habit within 10 second intervals, I can continue to act as though I have learned how to do something like play an instrument. This is what I do when I improvise on any instrument. I first find a note that fits in the current progression, then I store the habit of playing that note into my short term memory, then find other notes, and store all those into my short term memory. Then I make up a rhythm to play the notes. If I haven't played one of the notes for 5 or 10 seconds, I may forget that it is a "good" note to play. When I play a "bad" note it is because I forgot which note I intended to play; the note which I played less than 20 seconds ago (but more than 10 seconds ago). In this manner, I can improvise a solo over many progressions without having to know anything about the key, or even which notes I am playing. I simply desire to play good notes with relative pitches to one another, and then let the short-term habits I formed do the rest of the work via my brain.
Automaticity is common in my life as well. Every day, I floss my teeth. Then I brush them. I keep a spraybottle of glass-cleaner and a rag under my sink so that, as I brush my teeth, I can clean off the crap I just flossed onto the glass. So I'm performing two major tasks at once. If I focus on brushing my teeth, "interference" occurs, and the quality of my glass-cleaning degrades; and vice-versa. However, if I choose a locus which is common to both, it becomes much easier to perform the tasks simultaneously. The common locus I focus on is "cleaning". When I focus on cleaning, I can more easily let my brain do the work of figuring out how to clean what I will to be cleaned. Then I just will "clean", and give each task ("brush teeth" and "spray and wipe glass") a nudge by starting each. Then let the habitual movement of brushing my teeth and cleaning the glass "clean" to their maximum efficiency (which I don't have to worry about since I'm not thinking about it).
In thinking about these concepts, one consideration in UI design becomes clear: how to make the learned habits of navigation through the UI simple; simple enough to easily be stored in memory. This is important because the less complicated the steps to move within the UI to a desired state, the easier it will be for the user to "take out the middle man". It's like laying off workers: if an employee isn't doing much, then remove him/her and things will still get done. The employee's job description here is the sequence of steps to get from state to state within the UI (e.g. a keyboard command).
Sean Kim - Feb 11, 2009 04:04:44 am
Jef Raskin said in his book, The Humane Interface, that there are ergonomics and cognetics depending on what we can and cannot do. And he emphasizes the difference between cognitive conscious and cognitive unconscious. In this article, unconscious is acquired with a repetition or routine situations. It has more capacity than conscious and is operated simultaneously. Therefore, I believe that if the user interface can achieve the locus of unconscious for using, it will be the best achievement for efficient implementation. I think this is why it is better for developer to start with previous familiar interface.
Adit Dalvi - Feb 11, 2009 02:37:08 am
The discussion on the cognitive conscious and the cognitive unconscious intrigued me a lot. Although we know that people often form habits in what they do, thus making it easier and faster to do these things; however, designers are often faced with the problem of interface choices because of the vast number of habits that can exist. Interface designers have to try and encapsulate as many people of their target group as possible, and often this is not possible because of these habits that people develop and then expect out of a new interface. The locus of attention discussion was interesting because I of the fact that people by nature concentrate on one thing at a time only (the rest is the cognitive unconscious). This is important because interface designers have to account for the fact that people can get interrupted during the process of using the interface and the design should try and account for this to make the user experience seamless. This would have been a good read before the last lecture on task analysis, especially in the context of BART users.
Victor Lum - Feb 11, 2009 04:04:04 am
This seemed more like something I'd read for a psych class than for a CS class. Although after reading it, I realized how much the way our minds work affect how we should design user interfaces. Most of the ideas in the article are stuff that I unconsciously knew, like forming habits and having one locus of attention, but I guess I never thought about applying to using a computer. I never really thought we could form bad habits working on a computer, although when I think about it, I seem to just click things without reading them. I guess this shows how we truly need to understand our users, not just what they want but how their minds work in ways that even they don't know, to design a good interface.
Joseph Tsay - Feb 11, 2009 04:06:24 am
I found this reading pretty interesting, and I liked how it was able to combine knowledge about conscious/unconscious thoughts and habits with the task of creating useful and intuitive user interfaces. I found the part discussing confirmation messages to be particularly true, as I have had plenty of experience myself with accidentally deleting files because I always used the same keystroke (shift+delete, space bar) to permanently delete things instantly. I agree with what the reading had to say about this, that there was no good way of having a confirmation step because it would either be too easy that a habit would form, or too cumbersome that the user would become frustrated, and that the best way was to eliminate the confirmation step altogether and just allow for the user to undo most actions.
Adam Kauk - Feb 11, 2009 04:02:05 am
This reading makes some good pointss. Often times it feels like computers think that their users can do something or follow some explanation. I feel like the newspaper industry is a little like that. They put a ton of news on the presidential Candidates in the newspaper, but no body reads it all. Maybe they could cut it down, but then say that there are more examples in the reading.
Jason Lo - Feb 11, 2009 05:01:22 am
I thought this article presented several interesting ideas on how to design a good interface. I often multitask on my computer since I have two monitors and do find the one locus of attention to be quite true. I almost always use one screen at a time, but not having both does impede my productivity. Similarly, when working on an assignment, I realize a new song is playing, but when I try to remember which song had been playing earlier, I can't remember. Another example that goes the opposite way is that lens for slrs that make noise when focusing seem to take longer than ones that focus quietly. The developing of habits is also an interesting point. Habits are part of the reason why an OS should standardize its interface across all programs to reduce confusion.
Siddharth Shah - Feb 11, 2009 05:17:12 am
I really liked this reading because it made me realize that designing a good, solid user interface is not an easy task and in fact can get quite complicated if you are trying to do a good job. The main thing that stuck with me after reading this article is the idea of habits, specifically bad ones. User interfaces can lead to bad habits that actually defeat the point of that aspect of the user interface. I'm thinking specifically of deleting files in Windows. I'm so used to the warning dialog box (asking me if I'm SURE I want to delete the files I just got done saying I wanted to delete...) that in my head, I consider the keystroke to delete to be Shift+Delete,Enter when in fact the Enter is only to dismiss the warning dialog box. In this case, the warning box is failing to serve its purpose because I'm so used to it that I don't actually stop and think whether or not I really want to delete. Another example is confirmation dialogs that tell you that your latest action was successful. Rather than showing these dialogs ad nauseam, why not show a dialog box only when something goes WRONG? This will grab the user's attention better and cause them to actually focus on the words in your dialog box.
On another note, I find the story about the pilots who crashed into the Everglades either 1) spurious, or 2) SCARY.
William Cho - Feb 11, 2009 05:59:24 am
This approach on user interface design was fascinating. I was reminded again that humans often form habits through interaction with an interface, and that a major goal of the interface designer is for usage of the interface itself to become automatic, a habit, for the person using the interface (to improve workflow). The interface should also not cause habits that will be problematic for the user.
Alexander Cho - Feb 11, 2009 06:36:45 am
This reading was quite interesting and the concepts presented about cognition are easily noticeable and verifiable (and often times humorous to reflect about). Truly we have noticed that it is very hard to "think" and "hit" at the same time. For example I play guitar, and I have played many songs. If I hold the guitar and just think about the song I want to play, my fingers automatically play it, but when I start thinking about what I am doing I start to slip up or it is very difficult to tell someone what frets I am playing when I am not holding a guitar. I recently deleted 2 hours of work because I reacted to a warning message automatically. It said "your copy of the file has been deleted, would you want to save a copy in the workspace?" The file I was editing was in my temp folder, and only seconds after I read the warning message and clicking no, I realized what I had just done. Humans having one locus of attention, and the fact that when the system acts unusual is the time where the warning message is both most needed and most ignored is something to consider while making our UI project.
Eric Hernandez - Feb 11, 2009 07:11:21 am
This reading was informative and brought up good points, but did have a lot of clutter. Almost half of this chapter was spent defining conscious and unconscious, all just to lead up to the simple notion of "Locus of Attention." There were other philosophical tangents that were a bit dragged out, but good points to consider in UI design were made. The idea that states should be saved, for example, a word processor automatically opening the last saved document, is generally a great idea that is not used enough. A factor as simple as this has indeed heavily influenced my choice on which IDE to use for projects. The Locus of Attention is also something that must be considered. A great example of this at work is when a user must access menus that are not immediately available on-screen. If the user has never encountered that menu before, and that menu is necessary to accomplishing a task, then the user will have to spend time experimenting until the menu is found.
Salman Rahman - Feb 11, 2009 07:53:34 am
Unlike last time's reading, today's paper was very interesting and enlightening. As an MCB major with a neuro emphasis, I am very interested in the way the mind works and this paper was the first one I have read that takes an in-depth look at mental processes in order to improve computing for users. Before I read this article, I had never connected the ideas that improving UI design requires an understanding of the user's cognitive unconscious and conscious. The author did a great job explaining the difference between the two with the two examples he presented. In the first example, he asked us to think about the last letter of our first name. This is something we are not conscious of until it is brought to our attention, such as bladder pressure.
In describing absorption and the locus of attention, I found the example the author gave of the plane crash to be an important and interesting case study. I can't believe that the pilots could be so engrossed in changing a small little light bulb that they failed to notice multiple warnings that indicated a crash was eminent unless corrective measures were taken. But it does go to proving the author's point that if someone has fully fixed their locus of attention on a task it is very difficult to switch that locus.
Aaron Hong - Feb 11, 2009 09:11:18 am
Whenever I do these readings I always come upon a quote or paragraph that seems to describe some kind of frustration with a user interface that I am currently using.
The quote that stuck out to me this time is: "One notable example is the tendency to provide many ways of accomplishing the same task. Having multiple options can shift your locus of attention from the task to the choice of method." (20)
The particular interface I thought about this time is Autodesk's Maya. The interface is so hulking big, and is so well described by this quote, that at the beginning of everything semester in UCBUGG we tell people, "There is just about a million was to do one single task." We try to teach them multiple ways of doing it also. Maybe that was a mistake.
The multitude of tasks and the complexity of the interface maybe be enough to overwhelm their minds, but we in addition to that are injecting all the possible different ways of doing something simple. Now this is the difficult question. The reason they have so many different ways to do a single task in the interface is to facilitate easy of use for novices and experts, for one style or another. How then, do we present them the different ways without shifting their locus of attention from the task to the choice of method, because there is merit in each method, and probably a suitable one for each person.
Anjana Dasu - Feb 11, 2009 10:11:02 am
I thought the most important part of this article was the habit formation section. It really made me think about the way experienced user interact with different applications. The example given of using apple T for text formatting in mac applications vs. paragraph formatting in MS word brings up, what is my mind, an important issue-- maximal consistency across platforms/products. I use a mac and apple H is the command to hide applications. This, however, doesn't work for Adobe Creative Suite products, and I know this well. Yet, out of habit, every single time I use photoshop, I try to hide it using apple H. And the most frustrating part is that the actual command for hide in photoshop is (comparatively) more complex so I never even bother to learn it and end up doing double effort by using my mouse to go to the menu and then click hide. Another example of a cross-platform inconsistency is using apple on Macs and ctrl on Windows-- it can be annoying for a user to switch between the two. I think to enhance user experience, designers should pay close attention to current habits and try to stick close to their boundaries. Even if the habits seem like bad habits, there are users who have absorbed them to such a degree that changes will be frustrating. On a completely different note, I think the type-this-random-sequence-of-letters-or-word-in-odd-font-type routine isn't really that great for realizing you are doing something irreversible/important because I personally just keep focusing on the letters/word instead of remaining on the previous task.
Bernardo de Seabra - Feb 11, 2009 10:19:24 am
In the book "The Human Interface" the author narrates, with examples what constitutes a good interface for humans what he calls the ergonomics of the mind or more scientifically putting: cognetics. Cognetics is the study of applicable, engineering scope of our mental abilities. Most of this study is based in our conscious and unconscious. The author goes about a great length warning the reader to over simplify these two terms in order to abstract the terms from the scientific biological sense. He basically states that an item of information can reside in the conscious and unconscious "compartments" of your brain. Once you become aware of a piece of information that was in the unconscious part it automatically moves to the conscious compartment and is then in your locus of attention. He then also focus on the rapid decay property of our mind and the impact that has in designing good interfaces. Finally, another interesting topic the author covered was on how to provide interfaces to address users resuming tasks which I found quit interesting.
Chris Thompson - Feb 11, 2009 10:31:19 am
There are two states of mind -- the counscious and the unconscious. The conscious consists of whatever you are currently focusing on: this sentence, and maybe a few other minor details your mind is focused on. The unconscious contains everything else. When you need to think about something, it's moved from the unconscious to the conscious (although if there's an error of some kind in this transfer, you'll be stuck with that "tip-of-the-tongue" feeling), although often in doing so something must be moved from the conscious back to the unconscious. Ironically, sometimes this process happens unconsciously, such as when there is a loud noise and you get distracted, then find you've lost your train of thought.
Andrew Chen - Feb 11, 2009 10:26:14 am
The article states that the ideal human interface would reduce the interface part of a user's work to habituation, and bad interface often overlooks the habit-formation tendency of humans. It also cites having many ways of doing the same thing on a computer as an example. Speaking just by personal experience, I cannot agree more: one of the most annoying things I find about the Windows interface is that there are so many ways to say, get a file to another folder, that at times I need to stop and plan my actions so that I could move the file as efficiently as possible. Otherwise, if I do not shift my locus of attention onto the decision making, I would simply open the two folders and drag and drop out of habit, even if that takes a lot more clicks and mouse movements then another action. Also, often I find myself discovering a simpler way to do things and painfully training myself to change, or eventually deciding that it wasn't worth it. I did not realize that this was a part of poor interface design, but now this article has illuminated the issue. Eliminating aspects that would require the user to shift his locus of attention onto the interface instead of the task at hand will not be one of my principles in designing the interface.
Alexei Baboulevitch - Feb 11, 2009 8:45:40 am
I thought the discussion of habituation was particularly interesting. Windows applications have a lot of features in common - keyboard shortcuts like copy and paste, scroll bars, minimize/maximize/close buttons, menu bars, etc. After using Windows for a while, these features become habitual. When an application fails to include one or more of these features, the effect is jarring, and brings the task into your slow cognitive conscious immediately. I can't stand using Emacs because of this. (And I see I'm not alone! Notepad++ all the way!)
The comment about how "a designer can lay... a... trap by permitting to run... two or more heavily used applications that differ only in a handful of often-used details" is EXACTLY the situation with Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady. Both interfaces are nearly identical, but it's obvious that the revisions are out of date. A lot of details that are immensely useful in Photoshop - zooming with a single button push, brush selection with the right-click menu, button placement - are missing in ImageReady for no apparent reason. This creates a lot of frustration if you're transferring your Photoshop methodology to ImageReady.
By the way, the timestamp was incorrect, so I edited it. (10:45:40 am -> 8:45:40 am)
Szu-Chun Mao - Feb 11, 2009 10:47:43 am
This reading starts off by explaining ergonomics and cognetics. “We must master an ergonomics of the mind if we want to design interfaces that are likely to work well.” I thought this idea is pretty interesting and helpful for UI design. We often pay particular attention to our physical restriction, however are blind to our mental limitation. The author then discuss about cognitive conscious and cognitive unconscious and their relation to habits. “With repetition, or practice, your competence becomes habitual, and you can do the task without having to think about it.” Getting to commend prompt in Vista is my personal example. I always goto “run” then type in “cmd” to get into the command prompt; however that’s not an option in Vista. Therefore, I waste valuable time to figure out “command prompt” is hiding in “accessories” and try to adapt this new habit.
David Jiang - Feb 11, 2009 10:56:19 am
I found this article extremely useful. I talks about things that we all take for granted and the things that we just do so often that we just tend to click the same combinations over and over again without even realizing it. How we just automatically skip over the EULA statements and just agree with everything. And how we use shortcut combinations to make it easier to do certain tasks but later regret doing without having a way to undo what I did. Luckily new software are coming up with ways to combat these bad habits by the user. But even things like warning messages and autosaves isn't enough, for users are used to those as well and in the case of warning messages, users tend to click on the same thing again and again when they do come up.
