Interaction Design
Session 12
LBSC 790 / INFM 718B
Building the Human-Computer Interface
Agenda
•	Questions

•	Interaction design

•	Some examples

•	Project presentations
Interaction Design
•	Play to the strengths of machine and human

•	Place the locus of control with the user

•	Make it easy to do the right thing

•	Support multiple interaction styles
Strengths
•	Machine
–	Speed
–	Storage
–	Repeatability

•	Human
–	Initiative
–	Flexibility
–	Recognition
Putting the User in Control
•	Familiar metaphor
•	Visible objects
–	Non-modal design
•	Predictable behavior
•	Feedback on progress
•	Explicit user models
–	Basic and expert modes
•	Optional “wizards”
Making it Easy
•	Visible context

•	Understandable icons and messages
–	Tool tips and drill-down

•	Atomic actions

•	Obvious results

•	Previews and reversability
Multiple Interaction Styles
•	Point-and-click

•	Keyboard shortcuts

•	Command line

•	Spoken dialog
Interactive Voice Response Systems
•	Operate without graphical interfaces
–	Hands-free operation (e.g., driving)
–	Telephone access

•	Built on three technologies
–	Speech recognition (input)
–	Text-to-speech (output)
–	Dialog management (control)

•	Example: TellMe (1-800-555-TELL)
Speech Recognition
•	Isolated words recognition is easy
–	Specialized dictation and telephone applications
•	Continuous speech  is slow and error prone
–	Hands-free tasks, dictation, speech retrieval
•	Performs best when trained for one speaker
•	Limited vocabulary and language coverage
•	Does not work well in noisy environments
Speech Recognition
Speech Recognition Lattice
Dialogue Management
•	Turn-taking
–	User initiative
–	System initiative (allows smaller vocabulary)
–	Mixed initiative (e.g., barge in)

•	Interaction style
–	Direct answers
•	Achieving conversational goals
System Initiative
•	Finite state control automates scripts
–	Restaurant, airline reservation, …

•	A “state” encodes everything you know
–	What prompt to offer
–	What to do for each possible answer

•	Loops allow for compact representations
Finite State Control Example
Cooperative Responses
•	I want to fly to Tysons Corner on Friday
–	Completion
•	All of the flights are sold out
–	Correction
•	There is no airport in Tyson’s Corner
–	Suggestion
•	Dulles is the closest airport
–	Conditional answer
•	The only flight is on Tuesday
–	Summary answer
•	I have flights on US carriers or KLM
The CSLU Toolkit
•	IVRS development environment

•	Graphical finite state dialog editor

•	Text-to-speech, plus an animated face

•	Isolated-word speech recognition

•	Available at http://cslu.cse.ogi.edu/toolkit/
Supporting Information Access

Thesaurus-Based Search

Design Critique
•	Select any 3 GUI’s you know and can use here
–	e.g., Windows XP, Google, USMAI catalog

•	Work in in groups of 3 to critique each
–	Using IBM design guidelines 
•	http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/6
–	What are the 3 best features of each?
–	What are the 3 principal weaknesses of each?
An Example
•	http://www.philipglass.com/