Secure Interaction Design (Mozilla Firefox Browser)

Mozilla Firefox contains several security features that protect the user and help in secure web interactions. 

Design of secure interactions, would require the designer to think from the user's perspective. The user would like to be protected from cookies, browsing history,  phishing attacks, malware and so on.

Here is an interesting powerpoint presentation by Kami Vaniea: 

cups.cs.cmu.edu/courses/ups-sp06/slides/060214vaniea.ppt

Drop down menus and Usability

Best practices and bad practices in use of drop-down menus with reference to a recent study by Jacob Nielsen, the usability expert.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/24/designing-drop-down-menus-examples-and-best-practices

Here is the link to the Nielsen report on usability of menus
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mega-dropdown-menus.html

And more information on Jacob Nielsen, the king of usability
http://www.useit.com/jakob/


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Design of Future Things: 2007- Don Norman

Here is the you tube video of the lecture delivered by Don Norman in February 2007 at Stanford University on the topic 'Design of Future Things'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQmwEjL6K1U

He introduces the concept of 'trust' in interactions where safety is involved, as in driving a car.

He also explains how 'user controls' are required.  He divides the controls into three categories: reflective, behavioral and visceral (machine level).  He discusses  'unexpected events'  situations and how to deal with them.

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Donald Norman- Design of Everyday Things.

Design problems are there everywhere around us.

Dr. Donald Norman is  a popular design and usability engineeer.

'The Design of Everyday things' is his most popular book.

He focuses on design aspects of usability. His major contribution is in combining engineering and psychology. 

His Ph.D. was in Mathematical Psychology from University of Pennsylvania. 

His 'magic moment' came when he was a member of the task force that investigated the  Three Mile Island Nuclear Reactor Accident in 1979.  It dawned on him that the people who use technology are as important as the technology itself and good or bad design has a lot to do with use of technology. This concept is applicable to every day things, ranging from computers to aviation technology and washing machines, VCRs, mobile phones  or the automobile. 

He places importance on 'emotional design' of objects.

He says his laboratory is every day life. He walks around and observes how people use every day things or how they interact with machines and technology, and how the usage and interaction could be improved for people.

He received the 2006 Benjamin Franklin award in Computer & Cognitive Science for user-centered design.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4745201520328193897

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Designing Web Interfaces- Bill Scott & Theresa O'Neil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW4MwvgW_ww&eurl=http://designingwebinterfaces.com/&feature=player_embedded

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Kindle 2

Kindle 2 is the new generation wireless reading device from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI?tag=useitcomusablein

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Muti-touch in Windows 7

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=multi-touch+in+windows+7&www_google_domain=www.google.com&emb=0&aq=2&oq=Multi-touch+in#

Evaluation in HCI- Joseph Kaye

In this Stanford University HCI Seminar, Joseph Kaye, a Cornell University research student discusses the challenges of validating HCI contributions because of the nature of HCI problems.  HCI has technological and social practice components.  The presentor gives a historical perspective.

The questions to be considered are: Who are the users, who are the evaluators and what are the limiting factors.  Some of the limiting factors which engineers or programmers consider are reliability or speed of machine.  Experimental psychologists and cognitive scientists consider the limiting factor as what humans can do with the machine (computer). 

In evaluating a text editor, objectivity, thoroughness and ease of use were considered as evaluation criteria.

Usability professionals (mostly non-IT professionals)  are more focused on efficiency factors--time taken by the user to complete a job.  Usability evaluation methods include Nielsen's heuristics, or GOMS. 

Gray & Salzman published experimental comparisons of usability evaluation methods.   Experience focused HCI professionals believe in experience and expertise, as against experimental psychologists and cognitive scientists relying on experiments for proof. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgoPtM5xELY&feature=channel

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Designing Interactions- Bill Moggridge

Designing Interactions:

Microsoft Surface: Computer on a Tabletop

Please read the Inc Technology report on Surface Computing technology:
http://technology.inc.com/hardware/articles/200804/surface.html

Surface computing will be the new wave of computing, where computing with Natural User Interfaces (NUI) will replace GUI (graphical user interfaces). After the transition from command line DOS to GUI with use of graphics and mouse clicks, touches and gestures will make computing more intuitive and natural.

Five cameras with bluetooth/Wireless capability will interpret human touch and gestures.
Commercial exploitation may be confined to hotels and entertainment sectors, until the technology matures.

Joseph Ponnoly

Second generation Surface coming

BBC News on second generation Surface:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7945154.stm



Everything will be touch and multi-touch. There will also be infrared cameras to interpret gestures and movements.


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Web Design Tools

The top five web design tools:

http://sixrevisions.com/tools/top-five-web-design-tools/

Firebug was voted the best design tool by SixRevisions readers. The runner up was PhotoShop.

The others in the top five list were PhotoShop, Dream Weaver and Fireworks.

Firebug is an open source tool for the Firefox web browser. It enables in-browser web development.

Some of the features are:

• HTML and CSS editing 
• Console for logging
• Analyzing and debugging JavaScript
• A Document Object Model (DOM) inspection tool

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A PayPal Phishing mail

Email security & SenderID Framework

SenderID framework is designed and implemented by Microsoft to prevent email spams and phishing attacks.

Read more at:

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/overview.mspx

(SenderID Framework Overview)

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Virtual Keyboards

Virtual keyboard is designed to protect passwords from malicious 'spyware' and 'trojan programs' such as keyboard loggers. Virtual keyboard reduces the risk of password theft.

iPod Shuffle 2009

http://i.gizmodo.com/5169174/ipod-shuffle-3rd-gen-review

-Joseph Ponnoly

User Controllable Privacy & Security

An interview with Prof. Norman Sadeh of CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) on

user-controllable privacy and security and the relevance of this topic in a web-mediated human to human interaction.

http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/research/chronicles/sadeh.html

More on user-controllable privacy and security research at CMU:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sadeh/user_controllable_security_and_privacy.htm

-Joseph Ponnoly

New Visualization- HCI Prototype

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/198212/1074965

Usability Characteristics/Heuristics- Nielsen

Nielsen's Usability Heuristics

http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface

http://www.microsoft.com/SURFACE/Default.aspx

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Security

Usability and security--- are they compatible?
Why have a password at all to access computers?
Ease of use and privacy: are they also compatible?

It appears there has to be a trade off between usabilility on the one hand and security and privacy protection on the other hand.

At the same time, security and privacy protection technologies have become so cumbersome for the user. It is time we made security and privacy technologies usable too.

Two stalwarts who have worked in these areas are Dr Simon Garfinkel of MIT and Dr.Lorie Craner of Carnegie Mellon University.

Here is a link to CUPS (Carnegie Mellon University Usable Privacy & Security) website :  http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/

Joseph Ponnoly