A crucial step in designing a user interface for a software application is to design a coherent, task-focused conceptual model (CM). With a CM, designers design better, developers develop better, and users learn and use better. Unfortunately, this step is often skipped, resulting in incoherent, arbitrary, inconsistent, overly-complex applications that impede design, development, learning, understanding, and use. This course covers what CMs are, how they help, how to develop them, and provides hands-on experience.
- Our attention is limited and our memory is imperfect
- Short-term memory (STM, WM)
- Long-term memory (LTM)
- We have two minds
- Old brain + midbrain
- can run many processes in parallel
- fast but approximate, “satisfying”
- des not use working memory
- unconscious, governs most of our behavior
- Cerebral Cortex
- slow but precise
- uses working memory
- one serial processor
- cannot multi-task
- conscious, self-aware, believes it governs our behavior
- Example: A ball and a bat cost $110, the bat costs $100 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost? 1 wrong, 2 reject
- Old brain + midbrain
- Conceptual Model
- Functionality
- Scenarios
- UI (Interaction)
- Implementation
- Documentation
- Support
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