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Human Factors in Design

SYDE162 - John Edison Muñoz

Spring 2022

Week 9

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Course Content

Unit

Content

Examples

Human Factors Methods

Analysis Methods

  • Risk, Activity , Error

Design Guidance

  • Flow, Task, Decision

Evaluation Methods

  • Fault tree, Simulation, Sequence Analysis

User Modeling

  • Contextual inquiry, user personas, scenarios, UX metrics & Biometrics

Design with human abilities and constraints

Cognition

  • Brain myths, Perception, memory and Attention.

Physical

  • Visual, auditory systems, other senses (tactile, proprioception, vestibular)

Ethics

  • Research with human subjects
  • Usability testing

Inclusive Design

  • Design with accessibility in mind
  • Inclusive design research

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Ethics and TCPS

Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (Tri-Council Policy Statement)

01

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Scope of the TCPS

All research involving humans conducted under the auspices of institutions eligible for funding by one or more of the agencies.

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Why?

“To promote high ethical standards of conduct in research involving humans through the development, evolution, interpretation, and implementation of the TCPS”

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What is NOT covered?

  • Any research not associated with an eligible institution
    • Independent community-based research
    • Completely independent research conducted in the industry (e.g., product design).
    • Research funded by the private sector that is conducted in physician’s office.
    • Non-research activities (e.g., quality assurance, performance review)

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Three Core Principles

Respect for persons

Autonomy, judgment, consent, trust, decision making.

Justice

Fair, equal, respect, concern. Vulnerability, recruitment, abuse prevention.

Concern for welfare

Physical, mental, spiritual, economic, social. Privacy, risk prevention, stigma.

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Content

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Ethics Use Case

Problem

Efforts towards automating knowledge assessment tasks using AI are biased towards underperformed schools.

Importance

Performance in National exams are important to define the educational future of teenagers in the UK.

TCPS2

Module 5: Fairness and equity. AI biased towards certain schools.

Overcoming

-Removing the AI agent for this task

-Re-training the agent with a different database.

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Ethics Rubric

  1. TCPS2 Certificate (link)
  2. Ethics use case
    • Check use cases here and pick one
    • Groups of three (max)
    • Come to the board and put your names and students ID to the case you just selected. If there are two groups already, pick another one.
    • Create a video explaining: i) the problem, ii) why is this important, iii) connection with TCPS2, iv) potential ways to overcome.
      1. Max 5 min
      2. 10 groups will be randomly selected to present on Wednesday.

Submit the youtube link of your video and TCPS2 PDF certificate to LEARN before July 6, 9am (individually).

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Usability Testing

Testing how easy a design is to use with a group of representative users

02

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Today’s Lecture

Usability Testing

  • Usability assessment (Ch. 10, Nemeth)

Inclusive design

  • Design with accessibility in mind (Ch. 1, Gilbert)
  • Inclusive design research (Ch. 6, Gilbert)

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Definition

Usability assessment is the approach that is used to ensure that a product, system or service is useful.

Early and continuous focus on users

Integrate considerations of all aspects of usability

Test and iterate continuously with users

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User Research Methods

  • 20 popular methods used for user research
  • Usability methods are used to assess the usefulness of a product/system.
  • Once combined with other methods, usability testing can be used to improve the final design.

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Usability Assessment Methods

Many of the methods were used in design and human factors work long before the notion of usability emerged as a practice

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Usability Assessment Methods

  1. Paper and pencil

A test subject is shown an aspect of product on paper (e.g., paper prototype) and is asked questions about how to operate it based on task requirement.

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Usability Assessment Methods

  • Paper and pencil

Paper prototypes can be used to conduct usability testing of any type of user interface

5+

Real Users

5 users should be able to identify about 85% of all usability problems

Facilitators

Usability professional that record issues raised during the meeting. Act as a mediator.

1

Human-Computer

Typically the lead developer manipulates the paper prototype so that it can provide the feedback based on the user’s interaction

1

Observers

Their role to observe and interpret the users’ interactions with the paper prototype.

2+

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Usability Assessment Methods

2. Alpha and beta tests

Early release of a product to a small group of users. The purpose for alpha and beta tests is to detect difficulties just before the release of a product.

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Usability Assessment Methods

There is no one way to start a beta program, but here some ideas to start with:

2. Alpha and beta tests

Define the goals and rules of the beta testing

Why

Create a recruitment strategy

How

Invite People and keep them engaged

Whom

Beta test, observe and record

Do

Receive feedback and be critic

What’s wrong

Iterate the cycle until “good enough”

Improve

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Usability Assessment Methods

3. Usability test

Informal series of studies performed early, midway through and at the final stages of development to discover product problems or opportunities for product improvements or new concepts

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Usability Assessment Methods

3. Usability test

Users

  • Demographic information
  • Primary skills
  • Secondary skills
  • Previous experience
  • Other task-related human factors

Materials

  • Screening questionnaire
  • Background questionnaire
  • Consent form
  • Pre-questionnaire
  • Logs
  • Orientation script
  • Task scenarios
  • Testing materials
  • Debriefing guide

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Tools

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Inclusive Design

Methodologies to create products that understand and enable people of all backgrounds and abilities

03

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Inclusive Design

Describe inclusive design in 3 words

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Designing with Accessibility in Mind

What does it mean to design inclusive and accessible experiences?

People with visual disabilities and braille displays

People with auditory disabilities and captions

People with motor disabilities and speech-to-text

Easily used or accessed by people with disabilities: adapted for use by people with disabilities.

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Areas of Focus

  1. Visual blindness, low vision, color blindness
  2. Hearing: deaf and hard of hearing
  3. Motor: inability to use a mouse, slow response time, limited motor control
  4. Cognitive: learning disabilities, distractibility, inability to focus on large amounts of information.

Persona Spectrum

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Inclusive Design Research

Disability: mismatch interaction between the features of a person’s body and the features of the environment in which they live (WHO).

Ms. Montserrat Vilarrasa, Secretary of the Assembly of Human Rights Montserrat Trueta and Member for Intellectual Disability at the City Council of Barcelona, speaking during a High-Level Meeting of Women with Disabilities in Political and Public Leadership (UN Women Headquarters, New York, June 2019). UN Women.

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Best Practices

  1. Design with accessibility in mind
  2. Simplicity
  3. Perceivability
  4. Support personalization

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More Best Practices

Surname Inputs for Global Audiences

Diverse Illustrations

Inclusive Facets

Inclusive design may address a variety of topics, including accessibility, age, culture, economic situation, education, gender, geographic location, language, or race (link).

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Final Test Content

Unit

Content

Examples

Human Factors Methods

Analysis Methods

  • Risk, Activity , Error

Design Guidance

  • Flow, Task, Decision

Evaluation Methods

  • Fault tree, Simulation, Sequence Analysis

User Modeling

  • Contextual inquiry, user personas, scenarios

Design with human abilities and constraints

Cognition

  • Brain myths, Perception, memory and Attention.

Physical

  • Visual, auditory systems, other senses (tactile, proprioception, vestibular)

Ethics

  • Research with human subjects
  • Usability testing

Inclusive Design

  • Design with accessibility in mind
  • Inclusive design research

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Thanks

Do you have any questions?

Please Email TA’s first:

{ebru.emir, ajar.sharma, m2fouda}@uwaterloo.ca

john.munoz.hci@uwaterloo.ca

EC1(1312A), Games Institute

Office Hours: Tuesdays 14:30-16:30

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