Pattern languages in HCI: A critical review

This article presents a critical review of patterns and pattern languages in human-computer interaction (HCI). In recent years, patterns and pattern languages have received considerable attention in HCI for their potential as a means for developing and communicating information and knowledge to support good design. This review examines the background to patterns and pattern languages in HCI, and seeks to locate pattern languages in relation to other approaches to interaction design. The review explores four key issues: What is a pattern? What is a pattern language? How are patterns and pattern languages used? and How are values reflected in the pattern-based approach to design? Following on from the review, a future research agenda is proposed for patterns and pattern languages in HCI

Exploring Design Patterns as Evaluation Tools in Human Computer Interaction Education

In Human Computer Interaction (HCI), interest in design patterns and pattern languages has continued for decades. There are many potential benefits of design patterns and pattern languages described in the literature including reuse of quality solutions, providing a lingua franca, and their application as both design and evaluation tools. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence in this area. Many of the questions and concerns raised in this area have yet to be addressed. Dearden and Finlay in their 2006 critical review provide an agenda that includes exploring appropriate ways to use pattern languages in education and design. This work explores the use of design patterns in HCI education and the use of design patterns as evaluation tools. The results of this exploration suggest that design patterns may be an effective tool to educate novice designers and design patterns may useful in evaluating designs

A Visual Specification Language for Model-to-Model Transformations

Proceedings of: IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2010). Leganés-Madrid, Spain 21-25 Septemeber 2010.While interaction patterns are becoming widespread in the field of interface design, their definitions do not enjoy a common standard yet, as is for software patterns. Moreover, patterns are developed for diverse design aspects, reflecting the complexity of the field. As a consequence, research on formalization of interaction patterns is not developed, and few attempts have been made to extend techniques developed for design pattern formalization. We show here how an extension to our recent approach to pattern formalization can be usefully employed to formalize some classes of interaction patterns, to express relations among them, and to detect conflicts.Work funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through project TIN2008-02081 and mobility grants JC2009-00015 and PR2009-0019; and by the R&D programme of the Madrid Community, project S2009/TIC-1650.Publicad

Using the DiaSpec design language and compiler to develop robotics systems

A Sense/Compute/Control (SCC) application is one that interacts with the physical environment. Such applications are pervasive in domains such as building automation, assisted living, and autonomic computing. Developing an SCC application is complex because: (1) the implementation must address both the interaction with the environment and the application logic; (2) any evolution in the environment must be reflected in the implementation of the application; (3) correctness is essential, as effects on the physical environment can have irreversible consequences. The SCC architectural pattern and the DiaSpec domain-specific design language propose a framework to guide the design of such applications. From a design description in DiaSpec, the DiaSpec compiler is capable of generating a programming framework that guides the developer in implementing the design and that provides runtime support. In this paper, we report on an experiment using DiaSpec (both the design language and compiler) to develop a standard robotics application. We discuss the benefits and problems of using DiaSpec in a robotics setting and present some changes that would make DiaSpec a better framework in this setting.Comment: DSLRob'11: Domain-Specific Languages and models for ROBotic systems (2011

Towards a Formal Notion of Interaction Pattern

Proceedings of: IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2010). Leganés-Madrid, Spain 21-25 Septemeber 2010.While interaction patterns are becoming widespread in the field of interface design, their definitions do not enjoy a common standard yet, as is for software patterns. Moreover, patterns are developed for diverse design aspects, reflecting the complexity of the field. As a consequence, research on formalization of interaction patterns is not developed, and few attempts have been made to extend techniques developed for design pattern formalization. We show here how an extension to our recent approach to pattern formalization can be usefully employed to formalize some classes of interaction patterns, to express relations among them, and to detect conflicts.Work funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through mobility grants JC2009-00015 and PR2009-0019, project TIN2008-02081 (METEORIC) and the R&D programme of the Madrid Community, project S2009/TIC-1650 (e-Madrid).Publicad

Towards a Pattern Language for the Design of Collaborative Interactive Systems

Nowadays, the design of interactive systems addresses diverse communities of end users, each belonging to a certain culture, having a role in the context/domain and using a specific digital platform. More than often, they come together and collaborate in performing their work tasks and need to be supported by virtual interactive systems. This brings a set of challenges and design problems to be faced by interaction designers focused on the design of collaborative interactive systems. The present paper focuses on one approach to overcome these challenges – by making available the knowledge and wisdom within a team of designers to each and every designer in the team by the definition of pattern languages, organized as sets of multimedia, multimodal documents accessible and manageable in the Web. A design pattern language comprises a set of inter-related design patterns able to address interaction design problems and to allow the accumulation and use of knowledge within a team of designers. This paper identifies and describes a set of design patterns addressing the design of collaborative interactive systems together with the possible relationships among them and the operations made available to designers for managing and using the patterns

Examining the impact of an information retrieval pattern language on the design of information retrieval interfaces

For more than two decades much of the pattern language literature, within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), has focused on the possible benefits pattern languages may provide, but there has been very little empirical work to support these claims. It has been suggested that interaction patterns or pattern languages in HCI may address some of the problems inherent in designing interactive systems by supporting reuse, capturing design knowledge, enabling the sharing of design knowledge, and facilitating communication among designers and users. This study examined the impact of a pattern language on the design of information retrieval interfaces, in terms of the quality of the interfaces and the time to design the interfaces. Participants created paper and pencil interfaces based on the given design task. Participants were exposed to either a pattern language, guidelines, or no structuring technique. There were no statistically significant differences between the three groups in terms of the quality of the interfaces and time to design the interfaces.The results of this study suggest that the value of pattern languages in HCI may not be in reuse, at the early stages of design, or in terms of the quality of the resulting designs, in domains familiar to designers. Although there was no apparent impact of the pattern language on the early stage designs, the results of a follow-up study suggest there is a significant correlation between the existence of patterns in commercial systems and the overall usability of those systems. Therefore, we suggest that we, as a community, very closely examine the current state of pattern languages in HCI before continuing to move forward. As a community, we need to shift our focus away from discussing the possible benefits of pattern languages and trying to build pattern collections. And instead, focus on trying to fully understand the value of pattern languages in HCI. In doing so, the HCI community, will then begin to see the benefits from all the great efforts in this area.Ph.D., Information Studies -- Drexel University, 200

aIRPLane: An information retrieval pattern language

Interaction patterns and pattern languages have been discussed for years in HCI literature yet there have been few empirical studies conducted. We describe aIRPLane: An Information Retrieval Pattern Language, its discovery, and the experimental design we use to examine its impact on the design of information retrieval interfaces. The results of a pattern sorting exercise are the focus of this poster

Intercultural Dialectic in Communication among Local Transmigrant Employees in Manggarai-Indonesia

This research mainly focused on describing the intercultural dialectic in the interaction among local transmigrant employees in manggarai-NTT. The employees have multicultural background since they come from different regions in indonesia. A descriptive qualitative research design was used to understand the pattern of interaction among mother tongue of each employees, indonesian language, and other local languages that emerge the variation of language in their daily communication. In order to shed light on this issue, the factors that influence the use of the language variations were also significant to be considered. The research findings indicated that dialect maintenance, dialect adaptation, the occurrence of other languages, and the emergence of a unique dialect evolved. These patterns occurred due to some factors such as speech situation and topic, keeping the intimacy among the employers, language pride and as a marketing strategy.   Keywords: intercultural dialectic, language variation, local transmigrant employee

Patterns and Pattern Sites in HCI: An Analysis

Interest in patterns and pattern languages in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) continues. However, many of the questions and concerns in this area have yet to be addressed. These questions and concerns include lack of empirical evidence to support the claimed benefits, lack of a standard pattern format, and lack of an organizing principle. This paper describes an analysis of the design of pattern websites and their respective patterns. A systematic online search using multiple search engines and multiple search phrases was conducted in attempt to further understand the current state of affairs, including pattern format and organizing principles. The results suggest that the community has yet to adopt a standard pattern format. Although, the essence of Alexander’s patterns was found in most patterns. The findings highlight the progress that we, as a community, have made in some areas, but remind us that there is work to do in other areas