My thoughts after reading Chapters 10 and 11 are that forms and interfaces have a significant impact on how effective users think a system is and how well it performs as well. You can have a perfect database on the back end, but if it’s too hard to input information then it won’t be used to its potential. The success of forms, reports, interfaces, etc. really comes down to usability. I liked how the book discussed usability. First, it broke usability down into five factors: 1. consistency, 2. organization, 3. clarity, 4. format, and 5. flexibility. It also talked about measuring usability in terms of learnability, efficiency, error rate, memorability, and satisfaction and aesthetics.
It seems to me that multiple iterations of prototyping can be an effective way to develop forms, reports, and interfaces.
I was surprised, though, that accessibility wasn’t emphasized more within the chapters. I think you need to strongly consider how accessible your application or system is. For instance, having alt text for images and how easily it is to navigate with a screen reader.
Priyanka Ranu says
The section that stood out to me was the formatting forms and reports. Some of the general formatting guidelines are meaningful titles, meaningful titles, meaningful information, balancing the layout, designing an easy navigation system. Meaningful titles include clear and specific titles describing content of the form or report. It should also include revision date, current date, and valid date. Meaningful information should include only the information that is needed. For balancing the layout, information must be balanced on the page paying attention to adequate spacing and margins and accurate labeling of data and entry fields. Designing an easy navigation system should clearly show the movement forward and backward, basically showing which page you are on.
Jonathan Mettus says
One thing that’s important when designing these types of things is user review (probably through prototyping) and taking a step back. The designers, programmers, etc. can get so engrossed in the project that they all know what they want and what they mean. But if the user comes in to test the software and doesn’t intuitively know what button does what, then there can probably be label and design improvements made.
Elias Harake says
After reading Chapter 10, I thought it was interesting to learn about disabilities such as visual impairment or hand movement restrictions and how operating systems such as Windows are attempting to help users with these disabilities use Windows 10. Visual impairment refers to a decreased ability to see that cannot be fixed by usual means or due to total blindness. For instance, if a person has difficulty with reading the screen on the monitor Windows can provide that person with plenty of tools to help with reading. Some of the tools available are a magnifier to get a close look at the text or a high contrast theme with bigger text and darker and brighter colors. Windows 10 can even provide a narrator to read some text depending on the type of coding format. Windows will not be able to read out loud text in picture forms such as jpeg or png. The speech recognition function tool can help users navigate through applications by inputting voice commands into the computer to open certain programs.
Richard Hertz says
Elias – this is an extremely important and often over-looked field. I met someone the other day who has written a software tool that can scan an organization’s User interfaces (web apps etc) and generate a score of how well they do for Accessibility. The next thing their tool does is generate a Risk Factor of each failure point on their assessment that it could result in a legal claim against the organization based on the ADA statutes (Accommodations for Disabled Americans). It means that organizations are being sued for their systems not being Accessible enough as defined in the ADA!
Priyanka Ranu says
Windows has some great features for people with disabilities such as visual impairment or hand movement restrictions. It includes narrator which is a screen reader that reads the contents of the screen. It also has speech recognition feature that lets you control the whole interface with a plethora of commands. They also have a changing DPI feature which helps in increasing the interface’s DPI if it’s difficult to read. This can help in increasing the size of text, apps, and more. Magnifier is another tool which lets you zoom into the interface to view text or elements more easily.
Shaneil Wilson says
Chapter 10 focuses in forms and reports. Form and report design is very import for successful systems because users often equate the quality of a system with the quality of its input and output methods. Designing forms and reports is a user-centered activity that typically follows a prototyping approach. The contents of a form or report should correspond to the data elements contained in the associated data flow. Further, the data on all forms and reports must consist of data elements in data stores and on the E-R data model for the application or must be computed from these data elements. The basis of these documents is to transform the information obtained in the analysis phase into a coherent design. Design specifications are the major deliverables and are inputs to the system implementation phase.
Chapter 11, the focus is placed on the design of dialogues and interfaces, which are how users interact with systems. This process is also user-centric which mean that it follows the prototyping methodology of iteratively collecting information, constructing a prototype, assessing usability, and making refinements.
Taylor Trench says
One component of this unit’s reading that stood out to me was the process of designing interfaces and dialogues. Intuitively, this is a highly iterative process that involves the repeated collection of information, creation of prototypes, assessment of prototypes, and refinement. This, of course, aggressively focuses on the user and the overall user experience. The deliverables of this process include the narrative overview, sample design, testing and usability assessment, and design specification outline. The creation of user interfaces specifically depends on the methods in which the user can interact with the system. Given the seemingly infinite number of ways to design an interface, it is important to identify how a user will interact with a system. This is both dependent on the way in which the designer believes the system should function, as well as the wants and needs of the user. For example, there are several ways to design the menu of an interface, such as drop-down menus, pop-up menus, and menu hierarchies. Something that stood out to me about designing user interfaces is the various rules that designers should follow that may not seem obvious at first glance. For example, designers should never require users to input information that can be easily computed by the system. For example, users should never input the current date and time, since this can be easily calculated by the system. This increases simplicity and the overall user experience.
Cami Chen says
The one of key points in Chapter 10 that I am interested in is how to create a meaningful report. I think that it is important to record meaningful information. It refers to what information is needed to be displayed. For example, what happened, what time, who is the main character, and where is the location. If it is possible, it should include the value of purchase and payment. Sometimes the highlighting information helps internal users to identify what they need to solve the issues. Additionally, organizations should have a unified format to record the same category issue, so they can increase the information quality. The organizations can reduce some modification of report issues.
Jason Burwell says
What stood out to me was the importance of Usability. The system can be solid on the back end but if users are finding it difficult to use that will cause an issue. I take away that the key factors in usability are
1. Ease of learning. The system must be easy to learn for both novices and users with experience from similar systems.
2. Task efficiency. The system must be efficient for the frequent user.
3. Ease of remembering. The system must be easy to remember for the casual user.
4. Understandability: The user must understand what the system does.
5. Subjective satisfaction. The user must feel satisfied with the system