Abstract

The success of interactive software systems can be attributed to many technical and human factors working in harmony. Designing a new interactive system is a complex undertaking that must carefully consider this 'harmony'. Because this harmony is hard to predict before a system is actually put to work, extensive design experience and collaboration are crucial. For additional support, interaction design patterns have been proposed as a means to discover, encapsulate, and disseminate user interface design knowledge and best practices, hence improving the chances of success of new interactive systems. Despite the obvious and acclaimed potential to support the design process, and the rich variety of pattern collections we have today, the reuse of HCI patterns has not achieved the acceptance and widespread applicability foreseen by pattern advocates. It has been recently identified in the research community that patterns are greatly underused by mainstream interface designers. Within the scope of this thesis, we conducted an empirical study and a survey to gain better understanding of the problem of pattern underutilization. Accordingly, we point out and demonstrate the lack of suitable representation as a major cause. This thesis explores two different avenues in solving the problem: On designer's side, we demonstrate the potential of patterns in enhancing user interface design in two investigations. (i) We explore the important but often neglected interaction between interfaces and the underlying system. We provide several examples and show how patterns can support this interaction for better interfaces design. (ii) We look at current approaches of user interface design processes and the commonly used models. Then we show potential improvements attainable through informed application of patterns. In the second avenue, we conclude that a new pattern representation can help improve HCI pattern dissemination and reuse. We provide a model for the current pattern lifecycle and propose an additional layer to it, and a new pattern representation model. A dissemination method is provided to collect and organize all relevant activities and models within a comprehensive and structured approach. This addition is supplemented with the needed infrastructure in terms of supporting software as well as human activities.