Human Interface Design Document (HIDD)

Definition

Human Interface Design Document (HIDD): the design work product that officially documents the design of all of the human interfaces of a single application

The typical objectives of a human interface design document are to formally document:

The context of an application in terms of the human roles that interface with it.
The major factors that drive the design of the associated human interfaces.
The design of all human interfaces of the application.

The typical benefits of a human interface design document include that it:

Improves the quality (e.g., usability, applicability, functionality) of the human interfaces.
Enables the user experience team to comprehensively and clearly communicate the design of the user interfaces to their stakeholders.

The typical contents of a human interface design document are:

Human Interface Design Overview:
- Application Context
- Human Interface Design Drivers
- Major Design Decisions
- Kinds of Interfaces
Graphical User Interfaces:
- Site Map Details
- Webpage Designs (e.g., wireframes, screen shots)
Command Line Interfaces
E-Mail
Paper Correspondence
Reports
Hardware Interfaces:
- Input Devices
- Output Devices
Appendices:
- Major Issues
- TBDs
- Assumptions

The typical stakeholders of a human interface design document are:

Producer: User Experience Team
Evaluators:
- User Experience Inspection Team
Approvers:
- Endeavor Technical Leader
- Endeavor Manager:
  - Project Manager
  - Program Manager
- Customer Representative
Maintainers:
- User Experience Team
- Maintenance Team
Users:
- User Experience Team, which uses it as an input when producing the:
  - Usability testing work products:
  - Human Interface Prototype
- Software Development Team, which uses it as an input when producing the human interface software components.
- Support Organization, which uses it to understand the user interface prior to its completion.
- Independent Test Team, which uses it as an input when generating functional test cases.

The human interface design document typically can be started if the following preconditions hold:

The initiation phase is started.
The user experience team:
- Is initially staffed.
- Is adequately trained in the documentation of human interfaces.
Relevant sections of the input documents are started.

The human interface design document typically has the following inputs:

Work Products:
- System Requirements Specification
  (e.g., operational requirements, usability requirements, and design constraints)
- System Architecture Document
  (e.g., user interface architecture)
- Software Architecture Document
- Human Interface Prototype
Stakeholders:
- Customer Representative
- Representative Users
- Human Factors Domain Expert

This document is only useful if the application has a human interface.
If the human interface is trivial, its design can be documented as a section in the software design document.
This is a living document that is developed incrementally and iteratively in parallel with other work products.
Different parts of this document may be due at different times (i.e., at different milestones).
Some parts of this document may be mandatory and some parts may be optional.

The human interface design document is typically constrained by the following conventions: