User Interface Design For News-Retrieval System Reflecting Information Structure

Abstract

This paper presents a process of user interface design for information systems that helps to achieve optimal usability reflecting the information structure in a systematical manner. The design problem is recognized to be formed by design constraints from three major sources, which are task, interface, and system functions. In systems with intensive information retrieval tasks, the three sets of design constraints interact with each other through the information structure. This viewpoint leads to a new design process that has three stages. Firstly, information requirements are gathered through task analysis and system function analysis. Secondly, analysis of the information requirements along different levels of abstraction reveals the information structure, which is built of hierarchical or network relations. The relations include part-whole relations, goal-means relations, similarity or counterpart relations, and temporal relations. Thirdly, the informational interface is designed on the basis of the task procedures and the information structure. The information components required on the user interface are identified according to the task procedures and their spatial and temporal locations are determined to reflect the information structure. This design approach can deliver information-heavy interfaces with robust usability since the interfaces are based on the inherent information structure, not only on the task needs. As a result, the designed interfaces can support or reinforce users’ mental models. In this paper, the method was applied to the design of a web-based news-retrieval and monitoring system to illustrate the detailed process and the outcome of the suggested method.