Interaction Style is the design strategies that cohesively organize a system’s functionality, managing user’s input and presenting information.
Types of Interaction Style
- Direct Manipulation
o Continues representation of the objects and actions of interest. Physical actions or presses of labeled buttons instead of complex syntax. Rapid incremental reversible operations whose effect on the object of interest is immediately visible.
§ Design Principles to consider
· Visibility: Make relevant parts visible.
· Affordance: Make what has to be done obvious.
· Constraints: Restricting the possible actions that can be performed and help user from selecting incorrect options.
· Feedback: Provide visual, auditory and tactile feedback compatible with the principle of direct manipulation.
§ Benefits
· Novice User Learn quickly.
· Expert User work rapidly.
§ Problems
· Spatial or visual representation can be too spread out.
· The visual representation may be misleading.
- Menu Selection, Form filling and Dialog Boxes
o Task-Related Organization
§ Single Menu: Binary Menus
§ Single Selection: Multiple Item Menus
§ Multiple Selection: Menus or Check Boxes
§ Pull Down / Pop Up Menus
- Command and Natural Languages
o Commands provide a way of expressing instructions to the computer directly.
§ Benefits
· A fast and powerful interaction style only suitable for experience user.
o Natural Language is a highly desirable mean of communication with a computer system.
§ Problems
· Need to cope with speech recognition problem such as vagueness, ambiguity and ungrammatical construction.
· Usage limited to well-defined domains with a limited vocabulary.
Consideration for choosing an interaction style
- Functionality of the system
- Usability of the system
- Cost of the system
Poor Feedback Message
- Ambiguous Message
- Useless Message
- Incorrect Message
Online User Support
Types of Online Support
- Online Manual
- Context-Sensitive Help
- System-Initiated Help
- Online Tutorial
- Animated Demonstration
- Guides
- FAQs
- Online Communities, newsgroup, email, chat and instant messaging