Designing Better Computer Interfaces

Cynics dismiss them as the “dashboard designers of the Information Age.” Idealists swear that they offer the last, best and only real hope of making computers accessible.

For pragmatists, however, the 2,500 attendees here at the Computer-Human Interaction conference collectively define the disappointing state-of-the-art in computer interface design. They’re here from Apple Computer, Sony, IBM, NEC, Philips and elite university labs from around the world to swap their ideas and horror stories. If you touch a keyboard, a VCR, a PC, a photocopier or an ATM, these people touch you.

So, depending on your perspective, these folks are either the interface artistes struggling to make your computers easier to use or the arrogant jerks who design the computer interfaces you love to hate.

In fact, this 10th anniversary conference reveals a creative community filled as much with self-doubt as brilliant ideas. That’s not to say there haven’t been significant improvements in designing “digital dashboards,” but there’s no question that the interface elite feel frustrated with both their lack of progress and influence.

“Based on what we’ve been able to deliver to date in interface design, we have no credibility whatsoever,” asserts University of Toronto professor Bill Buxton, a leader in office systems interface research.

Buxton argues that interface designers have relentlessly attacked the wrong problem. The purpose of interface design “shouldn’t be to make things easy to use,” he insists, “but rather, to accelerate the process by which novices can perform like experts.”

Indeed, the very purpose of user-interface design is subject to hundreds of different--and conflicting--interpretations, and the result has been a discipline that is an awkward mutant of art, craft, science and technology.

“I want to put my personality in my interface designs, not my ego,” says Bruce Tognazzini, a top Apple interface designer who recently moved to Sun Microsystems.

Thus, some of the designers think of themselves as the Le Corbusiers and Frank Lloyd Wrights of interface, while others actually describe their field as “cognitive ergonomics.” Consequently, interface design issues frequently degenerate into turf wars between engineers who believe that they understand people and designers who believe that they understand the technology. Their high-tech interfaces too often embody the organization’s tensions and schizophrenia instead of any coherent design philosophy.

“There’s really no push toward integration right now,” asserts John Rheinfrank, an industrial designer with FitchRichardsonSmith, a leading industrial design firm, who worries about the “factionalization” of the field.

“We have evolved into two cultures,” agrees interface researcher Marilyn Mantei. “The computer scientists and the psychologists, who aren’t talking to each other any more. . . . Why? We got lazy and the problems got too hard.”

Of course, some companies have built a strong interface design ethic into the core of their culture. Apple Computer’s success, for example, has been built around its excellent Macintosh interfaces. As global electronics companies, both Sony and Xerox have also paid special attention to interface design.

By contrast, companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems are now aggressively trying to become more interface-aware in their new technologies. The challenge: Do you address interface issues from the very beginning of a new product design? Or do you deal with them as the product evolves?

The way companies answer those questions inevitably shapes the quality of their interface designs. Increasingly, some companies are now exploring “participatory design” and bringing their customers in to talk to the engineers and play with prototypes long before the product moves into manufacture. Other companies are designing their products in ways that make it easier for their customers to “customize” them.

But the perception here is that effective interface design is still regarded as something that’s more desirable than necessary. “I’m afraid that we’re destined to become nothing more than an advertising slogan,” observes Donald Norman, chairman of the psychology department at UC San Diego and a noted critic of interface design.

Interestingly, more than 40% of the conference leadership is female, a huge percentage increase over previous years. Clearly, there’s a feeling that it will take a more diverse and empathetic community of designers to create the interfaces that are easier to learn, easier to use and more empowering.

“This community has an awareness of the importance of diversity, and picks up on that,” observes Beth Adelson, a Rutgers University professor of psychology and computer science.

The question now facing the interface designers is whether that awareness can successfully translate into innovations that can capture market share.