Chapter 6 - The Design Specification Phase of MUSE

Summary

The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and the secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible.

Francis Bacon, 1627, New Atlantis

Following the derivation of a conceptual design of the target system, user interface specification is undertaken in the Design Specification Phase of the method. Presently, the design stages comprising the phase, namely the Interaction Task Model, Interface Model and Display Design Stages, are described in the sequence performed during design (i.e. in the given order). As before, human factors design activities and products of each of the stages are summarised using a block diagram, and case-study examples are provided where appropriate.

The Interaction Task Model (ITM) Stage

Having defined the on-line task conceptually in a Target System Task Model, the high-level cycles of human-computer interaction may be decomposed further. The human factors description derived at this stage is termed a Target Interaction Task Model (or ITM(y)). Note that the model is concerned primarily with the description of error-free user-computer interaction. Potential user errors are addressed at later stages of the method (see later). Figure 6-1 shows the location of the Interaction Task Model Stage relative to other stages of the method.

The objective of deriving a Target Interaction Task Model is to specify the device level interactions required to achieve on-line task goals on the computer. The model is described in terms of expected user interactions with the designated hardware, and with bespoke, variant and standard objects and actions of the chosen user interface environment.