Abstract: We propose an interface design process compatible with scenario-based design methods, but specifically intended to facilitate three primary goals: design knowledge reuse, comparison of design products, and long-term research growth within HCI. This effort describes a computer-aided design tool suite, LINK-UP, which supports the design process for specific genre of systems that cross many domains—notification systems. We describe the vision for LINK-UP, contrasting underlying concepts with typical task-based modeling approaches. To achieve its stated goals, the design process is organized and guided by critical parameters, presenting several challenges that we reflect on through the results of a design simulation study. The possibilities envisioned through this approach have important implications for the integration of reusable design knowledge, HCI processes, and design support tools.

We elaborate a proposal for capturing, extending, and reusing design knowledge gleaned through usability testing. The proposal is specifically targeted to address interface design for notification systems, but its themes can be generalized to any constrained and well-defined genre of interactive system design. We reiterate arguments for and against using critical parameters to characterize user goals and usability artifacts. Responding to residual arguments, we suggest that clear advantages for research cohesion, design knowledge reuse, and HCI education are possible if several challenges are overcome. As a first step, we recommend a slight variation to the concept of a critical parameter, which would allow both abstract and concrete knowledge representation. With this concept, we demonstrate a feasible approach by introducing equations that elaborate and allow evolution of notification system critical parameters, which is made operational with a variety of usability evaluation instruments. A case study illustrates how one general instrument allowed system designs to be meaningfully compared and resulted in valuable inferences for interface reengineering. Broad implications and conclusions about this approach will be of interest to others concerned with using critical parameters in interface design, development of notification systems interfaces, or approaches to design rationale and knowledge reuse.

We discuss our research into the development and testing of a notification system claims library for assisting designers in interface development. Our research focuses on achieving consistent values among multiple users when adding and searching claims. We discuss the methods used for redesigning the application, techniques used for testing, and reengineering goals for the Claims Library. This work extends previous efforts on design knowledge reuse in the HCI research community, as such our methods and techniques should be reusable by others. We designed the interface to the library for users entering claims, ensuring usability and understandability. Since we noted problems with a particular feature (the IRC input method) through an internal round of testing, we conducted a lab-based test to isolate specific breakdowns. Our results validated portions of claim classification indices, suggest key reengineering changes that should inform ongoing and future development of the claims library—of broad interest of notification systems developers.

Design is an inherently multidisciplinary endeavor. This raises the question of how to develop systems in ways that can best leverage the perspectives, practices, and knowledge bases of these different areas. Agile software development and usability engineering both address important aspects of system design, but there are tensions between the methods that make them difficult to integrate. This work presents a development approach that draws from extreme programming (XP), a widely practiced agile software development process, and scenariobased design (SBD), an established usability engineering process. It describes three key questions that need to be addressed for agile software development methods and usability engineering practices to work together effectively, and it introduces interface architectures and design representations that can address these questions.

Based on extensive empirical observation of design activities that might be supported by a knowledge repository, we report conclusions from three case studies. Seeking to improve research infrastructure necessary to cultivate a “science of design ” within human-computer interaction, we focus on identifying essential activities that help proceduralize the key requirements of knowledge management within a software development effort. From related literature, we selected five focus points for our analyses, which in turn, guided development of our repository in terms of how design knowledge is used, reused, and harvested through system tools. The case studies successively validate potential activities, while exposing breakdowns in process or practice that show promise of being resolved with additional tool features highlighted in other cases. Emerging largely from our case studies, we present general guidelines and tradeoffs for developing a design knowledge repository, as well as directions for further empirical study. 1.

Within the software development process, reuse at the requirements level has become an increasingly more compelling notion. Following a human-centric approach, this work focuses on both requirements and design solution reuse using a design knowledge repository. In recent years, many improvements have been made to increase reuse through design knowledge repositories, but retrieval of knowledge in the context of design activities continues to be a formidable challenge. We propose a new system, called CERVi, to browse a repository through visualization by exploiting relationships between units of knowledge (in our case, claims). These relationships are key to finding the most appropriate reusable knowledge based on design conditions. Testing shows that CERVi enhances the design knowledge selection process and helps users proceed through structured design decision making. Our approach will be most useful to those interested in unlocking the potential of design knowledge reuse.

Abstract: Through an examination of the emerging domain of cognitive systems, with a focus on attention-centric cognitive systems used for notification, this document explores the human-computer interaction challenges that must be addressed for successful interface design. This document asserts that with compatible tools and methods, user notification requirements and interface usability can be abstracted, expressed, and compared with critical parameter ratings; that is, even novice designers can assess attention cost factors to determine target parameter levels for new system development. With a general understanding of the user tasks supported by the notification system, a designer can access the repository of design knowledge for appropriate information and interaction design techniques (e.g., use of color, audio features, animation, screen size, transition of states, etc), which have analytically and empirically derived ratings. Furthermore, usability evaluation methods, provided to designers as part of the integrated system, are adaptable to specific combinations of targeted parameter levels. User testing results can be conveniently added back into the design knowledge repository and compared to target parameter levels to determine design success and build reusable HCI

One of the problem that plagues Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) software is its development cost. Many software companies forego the usability engineering aspect of their projects due to the time required to design and test user interfaces. Unfortunately, there is no “silver bullet ” for user interface design and implementation because they are inherently difficult tasks. As computers are moving off the desktop, the greatest challenge for designers will be integrating these systems seamlessly into our everyday lives. The potential for reuse in user interfaces lies in reducing the time and effort required for this task, without sacrificing design quality. In this work we begin with an iterative development cycle for a claims library based on prominent literature within the HCI and software engineering fields. We constructed the Claims Library to be a repository of potentially reusable notification system claims. We examine the library through theoretical and practical perspectives. The theoretical perspective reveals tradeoffs in the initial implementation that relate to Krueger’s taxonomy of reuse. The practical perspective stems from experience in designing and conducting usability testing for an in-vehicle input device using the Claims Library. While valuable, these examinations did not provide a distinct method of improving

As the field of human-computer interaction matures, the need for proven, dependable engineering processes for interface development becomes apparent. Our continuing work in developing LINK-UP, an integrated design and reuse environment, suggests that a better understanding of the system image is key to the successful evaluation of design prototypes, and an aide in applying knowledge from the repository. This paper describes our ongoing work to enhance LINK-UP by developing and augmenting the system image to make it the central communication point between different stages of design and between different stakeholders. We report on a study of the new task flow that demonstrated the value of the system image within a broader design context. Overall, our findings indicate that the effective creation and use of knowledge repositories by novice HCI designers hinges on successful application of existing HCI design concepts within a practical integrated design environment.

Abstract. Storyboarding offers designers the opportunity to illustrate a visual narrative of use. Because designers often refer to past ideas, we argue storyboards can be constructed by reusing shared artifacts. We present a study in which we explore how designers reuse artifacts consisting of images and rationale during storyboard construction. We find images can aid in accessing rationale and that connections among features aid in deciding what to reuse, creating new artifacts, and constructing. Based on requirements derived from our findings, we present a storyboarding tool, PIC-UP, to facilitate artifact sharing and reuse and evaluate its use in an exploratory study. We conclude with remarks on facilitating reuse and future work.