Towards a Humane Graphical User Interface for Live Electronic Music Jamie Bullock Birmingham Conservatoire Birmingham City University UK james.bullock@bcu.ac.uk Lamberto Coccioli Birmingham Conservatoire Birmingham City University UK lamberto.coccioli@bcu.ac.uk Abstract In this paper we describe findings related to user interface requirements for live electronic music arising from research conducted as part of the first three-year phase of the EU- funded Integra project. A survey of existing graphical tools for live electronics is presented along with observations about current usage patterns and cultural trends. From these data a set of requirements are gathered, and resulting design ques- tions are discussed. A number of graphical user interface (GUI) prototypes developed during the Integra project ini- tial phase are described and conclusions drawn about their design and implementation. Finally a proposal is made for a new GUI that takes into account the findings of our research. Keywords: Integra, User Interface, Usability, Design, Live Electronics, Music Technology 1. Introduction According to Raskin[1] in order to be humane, interfaces should meet the following criteria: • modeless: user actions should have the same effect regardless of the application’s state. • monotonous: there should only be one way to accom- plish any given task in the UI. • visible: the ‘right’ features of an application should be visible at any given time and users shouldn’t be forced to memorise that a feature exists. • affordance: UI functions and operation should be ob- vious to most people in the culture for which it was in- tended and make use of already learned human skills. A humane interface is a usable interface designed to be sympathetic to the way humans instinctively interact with computers, and not necessarily designed around the struc- ture of computer hardware and operating systems. Interface usability is closely coupled with the notion of the humane interface and is often defined in the broader context of sys- tem acceptability. Figure 1 shows a diagrammatic represen- tation of an early acceptability graph devised by Nielsen[4]. Consideration of complete system acceptability is beyond the scope of this paper, instead, we will focus on the us- ability branch. Usability is defined by Nielsen as having the following five attributes: Figure 1. Graph of qualities for user interface acceptability.[4] • Learnability: The system should be easy to learn so that the user can rapidly start getting some work done with the system. • Efficiency: The system should be efficient to use, so that once the user has learned the system, a high level of productivity is possible. • Memorability: The system should be easy to remem- ber, so that the casual user is able to return to the sys- tem after some period of not having used it, without having to learn everything all over again. • Errors: The system should have a low error rate, so that users make few errors during the use of the sys- tem, and so that if they do make errors they can easily recover from them. Further, catastrophic errors must not occur. • Satisfaction: The system should be pleasant to use, so that users are subjectively satisfied when using it; they like it. Nielsen argues that usability isn’t just a broad, multi- faceted concept, but something that can be quantified and qualitatively measured. In this paper we will evaluate soft- ware currently used for live electronic music in the context of humane and usable interface considerations. In particular we will discuss the usability evaluation processes employed as part of the Integra project prototyping phase.