This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Emphasis added for the concentration-impaired web generation :-P.
Practitioners of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) have a wide range of techniques and methodologies at their disposal, but few avenues for reusing successful design solutions. A mature discipline of HCI requires a systematic approach to learning from past results. This thesis proposes a number of techniques for improving design reuse in HCI. Some apply specifically to high-level design while others also consider detailed software design.
The major focus is the adaptation of the pattern language concept which originated in building architecture and town planning. It is argued that the properties of pattern languages suit many concerns for HCI. This motivates an investigation concerning how pattern languages for HCI might be documented and used.
This thesis is especially concerned with highly-constrained pattern languages. Rather than producing a universal HCI pattern language, several languages are developed, each with a strong focus on a particular area. A tight scope, it is argued, provides a coherent language structure and therefore provides a strong degree of assistance to practitioners. Three such languages are documented: (a) The Safety-Usability Patterns language focuses on safety-critical systems and demonstrates how a pattern language can provide guidance for high-level design; (b) Multiple Model-View-Controller (MMVC) focuses on implementing a small set of tasks within the model-view-controller architecture, demonstrating how a pattern language can provide guidance on detailed software design and still address usability; (c) Planet focuses on internationalised systems and combines the previous approaches to mix high-level design guidance with detailed design guidance, demonstrating the interdisciplinary capability of pattern languages. Several other forms of reuse are also considered: (a) online repositories, which store knowledge about user characteristics; (b) generic tasks, which capture activities recurring across many applications; (c) reusable software components, which can be documented via design patterns.
Results of this work have been validated in several ways. An experiment with designers using generic tasks indicated that they are useful for rapid brainstorming of software functionality. A second experiment with designers using Safety-Usability patterns led to a set of guidelines for developers and pattern authors. The Online Repository concept has been demonstrated with a prototype website developed in conjunction with this project. Three programs have also been developed which exemplify most of the MMVC and Planet patterns. The results of this work are largely favourable for the techniques which have been proposed. They indicate that pattern languages can facilitate reuse of high-level design, detailed software design, and a style of interdisciplinary design that bridges the various levels of abstraction which HCI must address.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.