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The Place for Standards in Interaction Design (IxD) and UI Design (UID) - 7 September 2006
by David (Heller) Malouf
Read this article in Chinese (translated by Binghua Xu, proofread by Ryana Chan)
“Standards” – The word strikes fear in designers around the globe, and makes engineers lives so much easier that they bow at its alter. (Yes, this is an exaggeration for affect, but an important one.) But before we can dig a big deeper into standards for designers, we need to do some definition work.
Definitions:
Pattern – is a repeated set of criteria (depending on the medium) that are seen in practice, and then codified for possible re-use within systems. The key here is that patterns are not created, they are discovered and then described. 1
e.g. – a hierarchical navigation using a combination of containers and content objects.
Convention – is a pattern or collection of patterns that are re-used so often and with such acceptance that designers and non-designers both understand the pattern(s) to easily fit a problem’s needs. A single problem can have several conventions that fit to solve it.
e.g. – a cascading tree navigation system
Guideline – is a declaration made to help designers think through recurrent problems with a solution that fit against many desired contexts, but not all of them.
e.g. – When a folder is open /expanded in a tree navigation it is best to denote that by changing the icon to demonstrate that and show a (-) next to the icon to show it can be collapsed again.
Standard – is a collection of criteria used so that interoperability between differing contexts or parts of a single context can meet and interface painlessly. A standard can also be a de facto solution, where variation is scorned upon except at the most superficial presentation layer.
e.g. – build your tree using the windows widgets
By no means are these perfect definitions, but for the rest of this article make a good starting point for discussing standards and design and why designers are a tad reluctant to say the least to give into standards too easily.
Examples of Standards
In the US, Driving on the “right” side
Obviously many countries and not just the US do this, but there are many other countries that don’t share this behavior and their correct side for driving is the left side.
Well, the importance for interoperability must be pretty obvious for this one. I mean if everyone drove the way they wanted, we’d be in a smash up or worse, grid lock, very quickly—instantaneously. But why the right-handed side? Well early wagon drivers (pre-car) realized that in order to see ahead of the wagons/carriages in front of them being dead center didn’t make sense. So people slowly but surely started to develop a habit to lean toward one side. Slowly this became a behavior convention that in more crowded areas they codified into a standard.
Of course, in the shrinking global community when it is easy to go through a tunnel (or Chunnel) and have to instantly switch from the right side to the left side (or off a plane), the concept of the standard is very difficult indeed. Personally, my first and only time facing this as a driver was in Grenada (former British Colony) where they drive on the left side. Let’s just say I lost my left side-view mirror to a bus in a matter of seconds after taking the wheel.
Kitchen counter heights
Well, I don’t know if this is a standard for the world, but definitely in the US there is a standard height that all carpenters try to follow for the bottom of a countertop and also the top of a counter top. This is so that appliances like dishwashers, ovens and stoves either fit neatly under the counter or flush with the countertop itself.
This example is purely about interoperability and not about interaction, but construction of homes couldn’t happen without it and every architect and carpenter knows these and other similar standards like the back of their hands. But if you are a product designer like IKEA you may need to make products in variations as standards like these may different across geo-political regions.
Fire door has push handle that goes full across
Well a good fire door will have a push handle that is clear that you can throw all your force against it if need be.
So What?
Well, let’s bring this back to IxD and UID. Above I used the tree example for all 4 types of regular recurring expressions. Yet there are like a gazillion ways to express the original pattern, no? The original way in DOS was just by text. The way to tell a directory (aka folder) from a file was that when you showed the whole list of a current directory you see literally < DIR > in front of the directories. Otherwise, it was a file. Pretty simple, eh? LINUX (at least Debian LINUX) doesn’t follow this notation and when in command line interface there is no easy way to tell the difference between a directory and a file.
Now you have like 2-3 different graphical representations per OS available let alone how we deal with this in online environments. In my world (financial software), the convention used in Microsoft Windows Explorer of having a tree to the left and then a contents of the selected container item on the right is a de facto convention to the point of almost being a standard.
What makes it a standard is that deviation at too deep of a level from the convention in new contexts confuses people about how to use it. When using a convention that is so well grounded it is difficult for users to begin to imagine how they might use something, even with the simplest alterations. They have become accustom to the cues and signals that are learned from previous use and if there is too much similarity between the convention in the new context with that of the old context, there is little to help them to adjust to where the convention is not held to. This makes it hard for a designer to determine even through testing which parts of a convention are modifiable and which parts aren’t.
A great example of this is the way that Nokia tried to break the mobile phone dial pad convention by going back to the rotary-pulse dialing using a round number layout. It fell short of having a user use their finger and swing the number all the way around and it didn’t have the pulse sounds either. It did, though use a round layout.
While the phone did sell enough probably to break more than even, the concept did not catch on with mainstream mobile phone users. One thing they may not have realized is that most mobile phone users are under 30 years old and have probably never lived with a rotary phone in their lifetimes and definitely not while adults.
One of the requirements of a mobile phone (any phone) is that people need to easily be able to dial without looking at the phone. This problem is only amplified when we think about text messaging. A round dial-pad like the one in figure 1 is much hard to use.
Going back to the “tree” navigation scheme of windows. When watching new Mac users (switchers) try to browser for files in Mac OS X I notice that they have a very hard time understanding the different interaction metaphors for navigating through hierarchies. They fumble through them and it becomes a steep learning curve.
Conventions for users are very hard to re-learn so breaking them is a cautious task.
But what about this superficial piece?
When it comes to the use of standards, many designers cringe because it adds limits to their otherwise free-form universe. However, a great designer takes conventions and standards and turns them to his advantage creating something spectacular. Contrary to popular opinion there is more here than just aesthetic superficiality though.
Looking at the steering wheel
It has to be on a specific side of the car; It has to turn in a direction or two; AND it has to have a turn signal on the left side of the wheel where up means turn right and down means turn left.
What have people done to shake this puppy up?
- Put the gear shift on the right side of the wheel (old style American)
- Put light and wiper controls on sides of the steering column.
- Put cruise control interface on either the column or on the wheel itself
- Radio/CD/iPod controls on the steering wheel
But have you ever rented a car (even in the same country) and spent 5 min. trying to figure out the lights and wiper controls let alone the music controls? When car designers mess with this stuff it affects the overall experience. Of course, most of us don’t check this stuff out before leaving the rental car parking lot, so it isn’t until it is dark and pouring out that we start fussing with the controls when it is pretty darn dangerous to do such fussing about.
Even if controls are in the same place, which for most non-US makes is pretty true—lights on the turn signal bar on the left side of the column and wipers on its own bar on the right side of the steering column, there are a different types of interaction models that are used, especially on the wipers. There does tend to be a limited number of options as the design space is small, but again, we can be in a dangerous space/time for “learning” something which may be new to us.
Lights tend to be the more repeated option. Either on the turn signal bar, or on the dashboard on the left under the air vent. When on the turn signal, it is usually a knob going from off > parking lights > headlights. Pulling the bar turns on the high beams.
But wipers have all kinds of funky interaction models, even if always on the steering column in its own attached bar on the right. Moving the bar up/down, pushing/pulling, turning the knob, and sometimes there is even a button on the end of the bar. What really gets me is where there is an inside knob and an outside knob. One for speed of intermittent and one for choosing general speed of the wipers: off > intermittent > slow > fast. Other cars take this inner knob and make it the up/down movement of the bar itself, where up is on a spring for “mist” (one time wipe), and then down moves through the different levels.
What is interesting is that there still are only a limited number of patterns turned conventions that are used in total across all the current car industry.
- Why aren’t wiper controls ON the steering wheel?
- Or volume controls on the column via a new bar?
- Maybe put cruise controls near your feet?
I’m sure there are good answers for the above, but the variety of new possible interaction models is infinite. But we have developed quite a bit of learned behavior in drivers who basically can figure out (maybe the bell curve of us) quickly enough that if it is not option 1 it might be option 3 and something like volume controls is superfluous to the total safety of driving so it doesn’t need to be standardized or limited the same way.
Conclusions
For me it comes down to the why of “standards”. Standards are specifically to make sure that interoperability between systems or between users and repeated systems across vendors is easy. A great example is the controls for music and video where the symbols for play, stop, pause, skip, fast-forward, etc. are very standard. A user can look at a VCR, DVD, CD, Cassette and know exactly what to do for the basic commands. These same standards are even translated into the equivalent virtual controls on software media players. The order of these symbols, and the style of the buttons, and their interaction models (i.e. how does the button demonstrate that it has been depressed) can be very different across physical and virtual devices. Volume control is a great example of how even the controls can be quite different with knobs, buttons, sliders (virtual), different labels (speaker with waves vs. elevating triangle), but still each is a convention in its own right if not a standard like the play and stop buttons.
One new pattern in media players is the use of a single button that does two things. I’m not sure if the iPod started this or not, but its Play/Pause (and hold to power off) is a clear example of this. In the physical device’s case, there is a single button to start play and then to pause play (there is no stop). When triggered a separate screen area not directly linked to the button displays the state with the appropriate icon.
When Apple decided to use the same single button for Play/Pause on iTunes’ media player that they did for the iPod device they made the button its own indicator. The button itself displays the action that would occur the next time you click it. It is slightly problematic as it assumes that you always have the music available to you. 2
After all this great work though, the MP3 player came in and brought with it a completely new problem set in media (now also in video players)—how do I navigate large numbers (1000’s) of song titles in a very small non-WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing-device). So every new MP3 player has a completely new interaction pattern. The iPod’s success has forced vendors to try and match that patterns (with various levels of success) turning the iPod’s pattern into a growing convention. 3
New problem sets emerge even in relatively standard arenas of play. The dashboard of a car has changed with the advent of navigation systems. MP3 players mentioned above added navigational components not previously necessary in media players. PDAs began adding keyboards which dramatically changed the ways people interacted with them.
In total, standards are created over time. Use them based on your interpretation of their ubiquity and deconstruct which aspects of the system are truly standardized and which are variations on the theme around the standard. Conventions are to be respected, but use them within contexts and realize that using conventions outside their originating contexts can be troublesome for users who are expecting too much of the convention, but that convention may not work precisely in the new context you are designing in^4^. Patterns and guidelines are tools to bring organization to the overwhelming infinite possibility of solutions. Don’t get caught laying on your laurels though and forgetting that our greatest asset as designers is creative discovery towards innovation through empathy.
Footnote
- Please refer to the works of Christopher Alexander (http://www.patternlanguage.org/ ) for more information on patterns in their original meaning for Architecture. Jennifer Tidwell (http://designinginterfaces.com/ ) is probably the best source of information on patterns for IxD.
- I wrote an article on my blog, Synaptic Burn, dissecting many of the IxD problems like the one above that an iPod has: http://synapticburn.com/comments.php?id=13_0_1_0_C
- I don’t want to dismiss the issue of patents that have also made the creation of cross-company standardization difficult if not impossible for long stretches of time. Created patterns that are successful can be a gold mine to companies like Apple.
- Conventions basically share the same limitations as metaphors.
David (Heller) Malouf : Principal Product Designer, at Intralinks, Inc. David has been active in Web application design for over ten years. Domains in which he has experience include business-to-business exchanges, corporate information portals, complex collaborative business process engines, logistics systems, securities trading applications, and retail operations. David is a Founder, Vice President, and on the Board of Directors of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), a member of the Executive Council of the User Experience Network (UXnet), and for the second year running, a member of the IA Summit planning committee. For David’s blog thoughts and photos, go to Synaptic Burn .
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