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Understanding User Profiles: Designing for Novice to Expert Users

The design process of understanding users is continuous, involving diverse factors such as social background, organizational context, culture, and skill levels. Users are constantly evolving, and it's vital to acknowledge their individuality for successful design. Novice users face challenges due to limited computer knowledge, necessitating user-friendly designs that simplify tasks and provide informative feedback. Knowledgeable intermittent users need robust support for infrequent tasks, while expert users seek efficiency. Employing a layered approach in design accommodates varying user levels, enhancing usability and user experience.

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Understanding User Profiles: Designing for Novice to Expert Users

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  1. Usage Profiles

  2. Usage profiles • Process of “knowing the user” is never-ending • So much to discover (social background, organisational character, culture, age, education, sex etc.) • Users keep changing • “Every step ...in recognizing them as individuals whose outlok is different from the designer’s is likely to be a step closer to successful design” (Shneiderman p.66)

  3. Novice users • “first user” community - no syntactic computer knowledge using the machine) and probably less semantic knowledge of computer systems in general. • distinguish between first-time users (may have high task knowledge) and novices - though both may suffer “technophobia” • overcoming these limitations is a serious challenge to the designer

  4. Novice users - design implications • Restrict interaction vocabulary to small number of constantly used terms • Permit novice to carry out a few simple tasks easily to build confidence • Informative feedback on each task is helpful • Provide specific error messages • Minimise burden of “computer” concepts and jargon • Maximise help (user manuals, on line help etc.)

  5. Knowledgable intermittent users • Maintain semantic knowledge of both task and computers • Unable to maintain syntactic knowledge of system (i.e. how to access, manipulate it) • Protection from danger of failure necessary for relaxed exploration of features

  6. Knowledgable intermittent users - design implications • Lighten burden of memory with simple and consistent structure in command language, menus, terminology etc. • Emphasize “recognition” over “recall” • Provide consistent sequences of actions to assure users they are accomplishing tasks • Provide online help screens, and well-organised reference manuals

  7. Expert frequent users • A.k.a. “power” users • Thoroughly familar with semantic and syntactic aspects of system • Seek rapid completion of tasks • Design implications same as for Computer Experts

  8. Multiple usage classes • Designing for one class of users is easy; satisfying several is hard • When designing for multiple classes use a layered approach to learning: • teach novices a minimal subset of objects and actions; expose experts to wide range, rapid feedback • then progress through “layers” of expertise • design of layers should be governed by progress through task semantics • consider providing user control of layering

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