Assignment 3: Direct Manipulation
Early computer systems relied on command line interfaces to perform all actions. Today, the majority of systems use direct manipulation rather than a command line interface. The goal of designing a direct manipulation interface is to make use of the system intuitive to the end user. One industry that has been extremely successful designing intuitive direct manipulation inputs is the video game industry. Most game players are able to learn controls as they play a game and then apply the same controls to similar games. Rarely do they need to read a user manual.
Describe the three (3) principles of direct manipulation and give examples as to how they are used in video game controls.
Analyze video game-type interfaces and discuss three (3) reasons why video game-type interfaces would not be effective for real-world applications.
Describe at least three (3) advantages of direct manipulation versus command line interfaces.
Evaluate direct manipulation and describe three (3) problems with it.
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Assignment 3: Direct Manipulation
Describe the three (3) principles of direct manipulation and give examples as to how they are used in video game controls.
Direct manipulation interface is designed to make users feel they are in control of the images being displayed in front of them. The system is designed with several features and functional keys such as screen displayed menu, joystick motions, knob rotations, pens, and mice that enable the user to perform control commands (Hutchins, Hollan, and Norman, 1985). The direct manipulation interface has migrated into the video gaming world and has been well established their considering its interaction from dialogue to manipulation through visual language in the computer-user interactive world. There are three main principles of direct manipulation interface that are used in video gaming.
The first principle is the “continuous representations of the objects and actions of interest with meaningful visual metaphors.” The principle means that the user interaction with the system is accomplished by visual feedback that displays what the user is trying to accomplish. An example of this principle is the video screen which provides the user with visual of the game being played and the feedback of the user-system interaction. The second principle of direct manipulation is the “physical actions or presses of labeled buttons, instead of complex syntax.” The system according to this principle of direct manipulation provides the user with an interface that reflects real-life controls (Shneiderman, n.d). Examples of video control for this interface are joystick motions and knob rotations. The last principle of direct manipulation is the “rapid, incremental, reversible actions whose effects on the objects of interest are visible immediately.” The interface in this principle ensures that changes requested by the user should occur in real-time in order to provide the user with maximum control. An example of the video game interface for the immediate action principle is the shooting button in a one-person shooter game that when pressed by the user, the avatar should initiate the shooting action accordingly providing an instantaneous action performance.
Analyze video game-type interfaces and discuss three (3) reasons why video game-type interfaces would not be effective for real-world applications.
There are several reasons that can be provided on why video game-type interfaces would not be effective for real-world applications. This paper discusses three of those reasons. The first reason provides is that there is a limitation to the ability of how video games interface present reality. For instance, the video games interfaces are not capable of creating sensations such as taste, smell, weight, and warmth making them ineffective in reality emulating. The second reason is that video games interface is limited to certain controls such as one thump character used in the video games. The use of one thump video control interface does not provide flexible control as humans operate by different muscles to control activities. Therefore, the one thump control interfaces limit real-life application. The third reason provided is that video games cannot inhabit a narrative environment. The video games only provide the interaction between the player and the avatar through visual, haptic, and audio means which generally represents a fictional world that holds interaction that cannot be presented in the real world. With the existing the imaginary divide created by the fourth wall, the complete immersion cannot be accomplished between the player and the avatar hence the engagement of the real-world experience is impossible.
Describe at least three (3) advantages of direct manipulation versus command line interfaces.
The advantages of direct manipulation versus command line interfaces can be provided an example where direct interface involves the driver providing instructions himself thus can be able to identify a mistake and correct it immediately. However, the command-line interface, the passenger is the one providing the instructions and in the process that he makes a mistake it will be difficult to correct it immediately if the person in control does not identify the mistake as well. This example provides the baseline of the advantages of direct manipulation against command-line interfaces (Heer, and Shneiderman, 2012). The first advantage is that with the use of direct manipulation, there is a high possibility of reversible results due to continuously visible by the user. The user is control of the activities instead of just waiting for the computer to respond to the request as in command-line interfaces. The second advantage of direct manipulation is that is flexible to user specifications through its ability to allow users of the system to customize their functions as compared to command-line interfaces (Javed, Elmqvist, and Yi, 2011). Lastly, direct manipulation is in an interactive nature which provides the paradigm that benefits the user through visual representations that are easy to learn.
Evaluate direct manipulation and describe three (3) problems with it.
Three problems of direct manipulation include those with video content such as access, manipulation of multiple objects and intangible properties. The access problem of the content in the direct manipulation is aligned with difficulties that user go through when trying to access or direct manipulate small content under limited space or high density. The small objects make it hard for the user to grab them for resizing. The access problem normally occurs due to the distant location of the objects, or the objects are the area outside the screen (Bezroukov, 2018). The other challenge associated with direct manipulation is the interaction with multiple objects which becomes cumbersome. The differences in objects values such as font size make it hard for the cumulative attributes of the objects to be correctly presented in the direction which causes ambiguity in visual representation. Lastly, the other challenge associated with direct manipulation is manipulation properties of intangible objects. It becomes difficult to create alignment, layout, or to sort objects in a correct order due to less spacing between objects and if manipulated can induce visual cutter in applications.
References
Hutchins, E., Hollan, J., and Norman, D. (1985). Direct Manipulation Interfaces. Human-Computer Interaction. 1(4):311-338. DOI: 10.1207/s15327051hci0104_2
Bezroukov, N. (2018, April 18). GUI vs. Command line interface. Softpanorama. Retrieved from http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/gui_vs_command_line.shtml
Shneiderman, B. (n.d). Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages. University of Maryland. Retrieved from http://iihm.imag.fr/blanch/ens/2016-2017/M1/TLI/readings/1983-Shneiderman-DirectManipulation.pdf
Heer, J. & Shneiderman, B. (2012). Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis. ACM, Inc. Vol 10, Iss 2. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2146416
Javed, W., Elmqvist, N., and Yi, J. (2011). Direct Manipulation Through Surrogate Objects. Bum Chul Kwon. Retrieved from https://www.bckwon.com/pdf/surrogate_interaction.pdf
