velden@serc.nl (Pietje van der Velden) (03/25/91)
In the newsgroups: comp.windows.x, comp.windows.x.motif, comp.windows.misc, comp.windows.open-look, comp.misc and comp.graphics we posed some questions concerning UI-designers. We did'nt post the message to this newsgroup however, for we discovered this group only recently. For those interested in the subject: here are the original message and the summary of the responses we received. If you want to reply to our question or react to the summary, please send your reaction to velden@serc.nl. The contents of our message was as follows: | At our institute we are developing an environment supporting the | design and development of graphical user interfaces (UI) for | interactive applications. The environment is called Digis: Direct | Interactive Generation of Interactive Systems. The user of Digis is | to be an interface designer: someone who is not a programmer, but | an expert in ergonomics, "human factors" or design disciplines. | Consequently, one of the main goals of Digis is that it has to be | usable by non-programmers. | | In practice we experienced that UI-designers do not exist, or are | at least very hard to find -- as far as we know the design of the UI | is done by the application programmer. Therefore we want to ask the | following questions: | | 1) Do UI-designers exist in real life (i.e.: specialists in designing, | *not* application programmers). | 2) If they do: what is his or her theoretical background (ergonomics, | industrial design, ...)? | 3) Does the designer use any tools; if so what kind of tools | (e.g. a drawing application, widgets toolkit, ...). | | Any information on these questions is greatly appreciated. | Please reply direct to velden@serc.nl. | We'll summarize the replies if necessary. We received about 30 replies, mainly from the US (28), 2 from the Netherlands and 1 from Denmark. Five of them were merely requests for information on our project or for a summary. One reply got lost due to problems on our system; the only thing we know is that it was sent by somebody at mitre (so if you read this: could you please send it again?) Summarizing the replies is not an easy job, since they are rather varied, but we'll give it a try by summarizing the questions mentioned above one by one and by quoting parts of the typical replies. ---------------------------------------------------------- | 1) Do UI-designers exist in real life (i.e.: specialists | | in designing, *not* application programmers). | ---------------------------------------------------------- The overall answer to this question was: they do exist, but there are not very many of them. The design of the majority of interfaces is still done by application programmers. If UI-designers are being employed they can have a hard time "getting co-workers to understand what value they can add other than create icons." They are no doubt in a small minority: one company said to have exactly one user interface designer out of 5.000 engineers. That person is usually called "when a disaster is discovered." Some companies, like Sun and Apple, form a positive exception though: they possess a separate human interface department where the computer interfaces are being developed by a team of designers. Some quotes from answers to question (1) are: > Yes, user interface designers do exist, but they are a rare breed. > At the present time most user interfaces seem to be designed > by application programmers. > Nope, no one here but us programmers-trying-to-act-like-designers. > In my experience, interface designers are few and far between. > They are slowing emerging though. > ... there are not a lot of them out there. I have also found that > many people (both engineers and management) do not even understand > what these types of people do. > At a former employer this group was called "Human Factors". They were > in charge of designing user interfaces for copiers, printers, > typewriters, etc. Some of the things they did were determine whether > square icons were more appealing than ones with rounded corners, > look-and-feel of displays and controls, etc. > (translation from Dutch:) There is a department Product Ergonomics > at the Faculty Industrial Design of the Technical university Delft, > which trains this sort of people. So they do exist, but it is true you > don't walk into them often. > Just wanted you to know there are some of us out here, trying to make a > difference in the world of user interfaces. I work at Sun Microsystems > in Mountain View, Ca in a group with five people. We're called Human > Interface Technologies. I know there are lots of others like me at Apple, so > you should check with them. > They do exist in two categories that I have run into: software design > engineers and human factors specialists. We have at least one of the > software design engineer variety here. > We, at Westinghouse Baltimore, have one full time "user interface" > designer out of 5,000 engineers and 22,000 employees... > He uses a programming group, some times mine, to implement his ideas. > This is the situation in the U.S.: there are indeed such designers. > Some are consultants; most work for the major computer companies, > places like IBM, Digital, Apple, Hewlett Packard, NCR, etc. or for > the telecommunications companies.... > Undoubtedly the majority of interfaces are still done by applications > programmers, with input from marketing people and so on. ---------------------------------------------------------- | 2) If they do: what is his or her theoretical background | | (ergonomics, industrial design, ...)? | ---------------------------------------------------------- The UI-designers that do exist stem from very different disciplines. The backgrounds mentioned most often (and in all possible combinations) are: ergonomics, (cognitive) psychology, industrial design, art, graphic design, electrical engineering and "human factors". Not all UI-designers are true non-programmers: some of them *do* have programming knowledge but either specialized in User Interfaces through training or have an "excellent self developed aesthetic". > ... two types of non-programmers may get involved > with the development of a user interface. They are Human > Factors Engineers and Graphic Designers. > A Human Factors Engineer is usually experienced in ergonomics > and cognitive psychology. Graphic designers are basically > computer artists. > Everyone I know who does this sort of work is either an engineer or > (unfortunately) a marketing-type. > My educational training was in computers (programming, design and analysis), > Sociology (workplace development, user interfaces to systems (non-computer > based - like filing systems and desk organization), Psychology, .... > physics and anatomy and phsyology (understanding the human and how the > environmental perceptions are developed, methods of sensory input and > processing of that input) and the humaities (specifically art and how art is > perceived). > My background is varied. I am an EE (which helps me understand what > can be done) and I have done actual design work. I have limited > software experience. And I have an MBA with about 7 years marketing > experience. > The one here specialized in User Interfaces in the Computer Science > department Brown University. > They tend to have knowledge of graphic arts, psychology (especially psychology > of human computer interaction), and usually some knowledge of CS, at least > from the point of view of what is possible. > Usually UI design in all but the smallest projects is done by an > interdisciplinary team that includes specialists in all these fields. > Most of the "user interface specialists" in these large companies are > trained in psychology or human factors. The skills that they learn are > more directed toward the "evaluation" side than the creative or graphic > design side. There are graphic artists and graphic designers now getting > involved in software design. Up until recently they have worked in the > computer companies designing the "boxes," the hardware packaging -- > keyboards, monitors, computer casing, etc. With bitmapped displays they > are moving more into software. ----------------------------------------------------------- | 3) Does the designer use any tools; if so what kind of | | tools (e.g. a drawing application, widgets toolkit ..)?| ----------------------------------------------------------- Quite a few UI-designers complained that there are no good tools available. The ones they use vary from paper and pencil to prototyping tools. Roughly three categories can be distinguished: graphic programs, desktop publishing tools and prototyping tools. Mentioned are: PixelPaint, SuperPaint, Aldus Freehand, Aldus Pagemaker, Supercard, Hypercard, ToolBook, Devguide, Garnet. > My favorite tools are a piece of paper and a pen. I'm not kidding. I will > draw out a sample of the screen and sit down with the user and ask questions > like "If this screen were infront of youm, what key would you press to get > from this screen to this function?" > There are very few good design tools that these sorts of > people can use. What they need are good GUI editors. > The problem with most GUI builders is that they require > the user to know too much about the specifics of widgets. > I wish that I could use a tool set in this environment to draft > prototypes... Where I am currently working, I must work with our corporate > set of library routines. I set up a blank shell with the routines > defined as stubs. Other programmers come back and fill in the detail. > Most use paper (including desktop publishing and graphics tools) for > producing designs. Many use prototyping techniques of one sort or > another (HyperCard is a favorite), mostly to mock-up the appearance of > screens, or to create storyboards. They really appreciate a way to get > simple behavior (e.g., putting up menus and pop-up windows) as well as > appearance from a UI design tool. Extremely lucky designers work with > an assigned programmer to develop full-fledged prototypes. > No. But that is not for lack of wanting. The tools for rapid > prototyping of user interfaces that we can get are too crude to be > useful, especially considering the time constraints on our project. > I'm using Garnet, a lisp based graphical user interface builder. It > provides all kinds of widgets and behaviors, and also provides a way > to record user protocols. ... but it is still being developed here at > cmu (email: garnet@cs.cmu.edu), so parts of it I have to add, or ask > the developers to add. > As far as toolkits, I use DevGuide from Sun. But all that does > is allow me to position pieces of the interface without recompiling > all the time --so I'd say the *real* tool that I find useful is > Sun's OpenLook Style Guide. It's a *very* well written book on > the various design elements and do's and don't's of user interface > design with OpenLook. ***** Some final suggestions from respondents: > If you want to meet lots of UI designers attend CHI 91 in New Orleans. > One excellent resource that may answer some of your questions is a > book titled "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design" by Brenda Laurel > and published by Addison Wesley here in the United States. > This book contains many diverse articles directly and indirectly > relating to "interface design". > If you can get access to the Proc. of the annual ACM SIGCHI Conferences > they would probably be of some interest and help. That's all. We thank everybody who responded for their replies. A list of all respondents is given below: 1) Anne Dolce <adolce@BBN.COM> BBN Software Products, Cambridge, MA 2) eyu@umd5.umd.edu (Ellen Yu) University of Maryland, College Park, MD 3) pax@megasys.com (Garry M. Paxinos) USNail:Megasystems, Delray Beach , FL 4) jcj@rlgvax.reston.icl.com (Jeff Jones) International Computers Limited, Reston, VA 5) mark@cs.UAlberta.CA (Mark Green) University of Alberta, Canada 6) Michael B. Johnson <wave@media-lab.media.mit.edu> MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA 7) dprrhb@Arco.COM (Reginald H. Beardsley) ARCO Information Services 8) sanjay@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Sanjay Keshava) UT Austin B-School, TX 9) Kees de Graaf <kees@cv.ruu.nl> Computer Vision Research Group,Utrecht University Hospital,The Netherlands 10) JMIvler DAC-LB/CSSL/SOFTECH/SUPPORT <JMI%DEVSIM@uunet.UU.NET> 11) andyk@stepstone.com (Andy Klapper) The Stepstone Corporation, Sandy Hook, CT 06482 12) graham@Inference.COM (Karen Graham) Inference Corporation, LA CA USA 13) Mark Sherman <mss+@andrew.cmu.edu> Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, PA 14) micki@valid.com (Micki Stone) 15) Scott Korcz <ARCH1L@jetson.uh.edu> University of Houston,College of Architecture, TX 16) rcarter@isis.cs.du.edu (Ron Carter) Center for the Study of Creative Intelligence, Denver, CO 17) rosenber@vijnana.Eng.Sun.COM (Jarrett Rosenberg) Human Interface Technologies, Sun Microsytems, CA 18) don@zardoz.coral.com (Don Dewar) Coral Network Corporation, Marlborough, MA 19) Frank Ritter <fr07+@andrew.cmu.edu> Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 20) squire@as3.WEC.COM (Jon Squire MS 1638 X 5-3748) Westinghouse, Baltimore, MD 21) Jim Rudolf <rudolf@turing.ac.uk> The Turing Institute 22) kalman@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Laura Kalman) Illinois (IL) 23) isaacs@Eng.Sun.COM (Ellen Isaacs) Human Interface Technologies, Sun Microsystems, CA 24) gary@ism.isc.com (Gary Swift) INTERACTIVE Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA 25) Vartan Piroumian <vartan@erg.sri.com> 26) henri@log-sv.se (Henri L~bke) 27) ssi!ssiwest!young@uunet.UU.NET (indi) (Cathy Young) Supercomputer Systems, Inc, Livermore, CA 28) Stephen Masiclat <GAXY@CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu> The Interactive Multimedia Group, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 29) somebody at mitre (?) 30) hammy@ctt.bellcore.com (John G. Smith) 31) jgrudin@daimi.aau.dk (Jonathan Grudin) Many people where interested in a summary: apparently we are not alone in our involvement with this topic. We wonder whether a new newsgroup with the subject UI-design -- or maybe more general: Human Computer Interaction -- would be appreciated by more newsreaders .... -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pietje van der Velden | Email: velden@serc.nl Software Engineering Research Centre (SERC) | Fax: +31 30 34 12 49 P.box 424 | Tel: +31 30 32 26 40 3500 AK Utrecht | The Netherlands |