Designing human-computer interaction in a user-friendly way
The design of human-computer or, more generally, human-machine interfaces is called interaction design. This design discipline is primarily concerned with the design of the dialogue between humans and interactive systems, such as smartphones, information terminals, navigation devices or websites.
In many cases, interaction design also includes interface design (screen design) and is also frequently associated with usability and user experience design, although these activities are difficult to distinguish from each other. Interface is the English term for user interface, usability stands for usability or user-friendliness and user experience (UX) for user or user experience.
At the iZT, we work in the field of interaction or interface design with the methodology of user-oriented design. The advantages and necessity of this approach to developing successful solutions from the user's point of view is generally recognised today, but it is still regularly neglected in practice for reasons of lack of competence and (not fully thought through) cost considerations.
User-centred design comprises the sub-steps of analysis of the context of use (users, tasks, equipment, social environment, physical environment), requirements specification, application development and evaluation. As a rule, several such cycles are run through in order to approach the final solution step by step (iteratively). The background to this approach is that experience has shown that no "optimal" result can be achieved with only one run. Instead, the relevant requirements can only be sufficiently fully developed through evaluation with the later users.
In order to proceed in a focused and effective manner in the individual iterations and to avoid unnecessary development efforts, we usually start with simple prototypes that are gradually expanded, technically implemented and refined.
We would be happy to support you in designing your system, your product or your service with regard to the human-computer interaction involved. We look forward to hearing from you.
Research projects
Since almost all research projects at the iZT also involve the design and prototypical implementation of one or more interactive systems, extensive knowledge of interaction design is available.
Corresponding projects from recent years are listed below:
| Project title | Content | Further information |
|---|---|---|
| ProGesture - Tool Support for Rapid Prototyping of 3D-Gesture Interaction | Development of a software tool for the rapid prototyping of 3D gesture interaction, for consistent support in gesture development, interaction design and evaluation | at the Department of Applied Computer Science www.progesture.org |
| inBEF - Inclusion-promoting, interactive explanatory elements in barrier-free e-forms | Development and testing of barrier-free e-forms (BEF) enriched with interactive explanatory elements to facilitate access for people with cognitive language problems | at the Department of Applied Computer Science |
| ITP@BEF | Development of a software tool for the engineering realisation of barrier-free e-forms using interactive explanatory elements | at the Department of Applied Computer Science |
| WeBewIn - Tool-supported design of motion-based human-computer interactions | Development and testing of a prototype for an innovative software tool for rapid prototyping of touchless/3D gesture interaction. | at the Department of Applied Computer Science |
| Design, prototypical implementation and evaluation of an interface for gesture-based control of applications on the open source system platform "universAAL". | Development of a universal interface for gesture interaction for the system platform "universAAL - universal open platform and reference specification for Ambient Assist Living"); testing and demonstration by means of an example application. |