User Designer

Every now and then I come across a paper that really sticks in my head. These papers strike a deep chord and often put into words whispy-not-fully-recognised thoughts.

A few years ago I came across “User analysis in HCI: the historical lesson from individual differences research” by Andrew Dillon and Charles Watson, which was published in 1996 in the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 45, 6, pp 619-637. The paper reviews key findings in 100+ years of Differential Psychology (Individual Differences) while discussing the relevance of individual differences research to Human-Computer Interaction.

A quote I particularly like is “One implication of all these analyses and re-analyses is that measures of ability can account for approximately 25% of variance in performance. They are not unduly limited by situation specificity and thus can be used for most selection applications with appropriate caution. ”

For me this paper raises lots of interesting questions, esp. when thinking about cognitive & physiological individual differences applied to users creating and shaping their interfaces and their tools. A few questions that spring to mind are:
1) Will users tend to adopt and create designs that cater to their individual differences?
2) How can we help users to know their individual differences, to know their strenghts and weakness’?
3) Can we guide users towards creating designs that take advantage of their individual differences?

In an attempt to tackle these kinds of questions I’ve spent the last few years focusing in on understanding individual differences in the human eye while trying to tease out how those differences could guide the creation of individual centered information visualisations.