Usability
Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.
In HCI and computer science, usability refers to the elegance and clarity with which an application or web site is designed. The term is also commonly used in the context of the efficient design of consumer electronics products, knowledge transfer objects (such as cookbooks), and a huge range of other mechanical objects such as door handles, hammers, paper clips, can openers, and so on.
The international standard ISO 9241-11 provides guidance on usability, and defines it as:
"The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use."
Use case
A use case is a detailed written description of a sequence of events and interactions between a user and a web site, without specifying the user interface. Simpler, plain-English versions are often called scenarios. Each written use case should capture:
- The actor - who is using the website, system or application?
- The interactionn - what does the actor want to do?
- The goal - what is the actor's goal?
Use cases - because of their origin in software engineering - often encounter difficulty in incorporating user interface (UI) concepts.
Each use case typically provides one or more scenarios that convey how the system should interact with the users - called actors - to achieve a specific business goal or function. Use case actors may be end users, or indeed other systems.
Use cases (which are written specifications) are separate and distinct from use case diagrams (which are diagrams of the relationship between actors and groups of uses cases).
User centred design
- Synonyms and see also - usability engineering; usage centred design
User-centred design (UCD) is a design philosophy in which the needs, wants and aptitudes of real people are the focus of attention at each stage of a design process. Applying UCD principles to a project is a way of ensuring that the usability of a product or system is good.
UCD is characterised by multi-stage problem solving, which requires designers to (a) iteratively analyse and predict how users will use an interface, and (b) test the validity of their assumptions with regard to user behaviour in the real world. Other defining features of UCD include:
- High iteration on solutions
- Active participation of users throughout the process
User experience
User experience - often abbreviated to UE or UX - is the term for the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design.
Originally used wholly in reference to HCI, the term evolved to refer to any significant human/design interaction - ranging from experience of a digital device (e.g. a mobile phone or MP3 player) through to transactional processes.
The term has moved on so quickly that it is now routinely used to describe many other classes of interaction including person-to-person interactions via, for example, call centres.
Wayfinding
As originally coined in the 1960s, wayfinding referred to the ways in which people (and animals) orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place.
In it's more modern interpretation, wayfinding is used in the context of architecture to refer to the user experience of orientation and choosing a path within the built environment, and it also refers to the set of architectural and/or design elements that aids orientation.
In its latest - digital form - the term has come to mean those aspects of a system (website or application) that subliminally and subtly provide visual cues that help users to get to particular destinations.
WIMP
WIMP is an acronym for Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers (or Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pull-down menus, depending upon who you talk to). The WIMP acronym is used to describe the style of graphical user interface (GUI) that uses the above widgets, and that has become the GUI standard of most modern computers. As a concept, WIMP was invented at Xerox PARC.
Wireframe
Wireframes are website page designs - without the graphic design. They should look, without wanting to sounding too obvious, like frames made of wire.
Depending upon their resolution (see below), wireframes can specify the content, position, layout, size, prominence and organisation of a web page.
A wireframe is typically created in a drawing application like Visio or Illustrator. As the name suggests, a wireframe is (usually) a black and white, "boxes and arrows" diagram akin to an architect's plans for a building.
Wireframes climb in resolution (qua accuracy or verisimilitude) as a project matures, and as the graphic design process gets underway: from low through mid to high resolution is a typical progression, but this is not always the case.
- High resolution wireframes - only a whisker away from a finished web page, complete with highly accurate renditions of palette, font, use of real estate and imagery, text, provocation and so on.
- Mid resolution wireframes - where imagery and palette particularly are not included to any significant degree
- Low-resolution wireframes - little more than a "thumbnail" sketch
Wireframing - along with process modelling - is the information architect's technique of choice for capturing the various elements that need to appear on an interactive service. Wireframes can also be used for early user evaluation - in fact, the higher the resolution of the wireframe, the easier the testing will be to conduct (and the better the results).
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