Human-Computer Interaction

October 25, 2005 | Intelligent System Design, IT-university | Maria Håkansson

 Overview of lecture
• Introduction to human-computer
interaction (HCI)
– What it is
– Brief history
• Fundamental (design) principles
in HCI
• New challenges when designing and
building intelligent products
based on ubiquitous computing
• Two common reasons when a project
fails are the lack of:
– user input during the design and
development process
– requirements that the final
product/system should meet in the
end
• A successful (intelligent)
product is more than the
development of and the knowledge
about the latest technology
 Technology-driven vs
user-centred design
• You can have different
starting points:
– The technology runs the design
of the interface which give the
user the functionality of the
system
– Users put demands on the
functionality of the interface
which runs the design of the
technology
 Human-Computer
Interaction
“Human-computer interaction
is a discipline concerned
with the design, evaluation
and implementation of
interactive computing systems
for human use and with the
study of major phenomena
surrounding them.”
(ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p. 6)
Disciplines contributing to
and benefiting from HCI
• Computer science
• Cognitive psychology
• Social and organizational psychology
• Ergonomics or human factors
• Interaction design
• Linguistics
• Artificial intelligence
• Philosophy, sociology and anthropology
• Engineering
• Design
 HCI History
• 1970s: user interface, Man-machine
Interface (MMI)
• mid-1980s: HCI (definition)
• From the PC explosion with the design
of menu names etc and of hardware
(terminal, keyboard) to a wider
context, ex social (integration of
technology in workplaces), and
development of theories and methods of
design
• From ”good intentions” to a rich
challenge
 HCI
• The fundamental goals of HCI: “to
develop or improve the safety, utility,
effectiveness, efficiency, and
usability of systems that include
computers” (Interacting with Computers, 1989, p. 3)

Safety (design of safety-critical

systems), utility (the functionality of
a system), usability (making systems
easy to learn and easy to use)
 Usability
• Key concept in HCI
• Can be broken down into the
following goals:
– Effective to use (effectiveness)
– Efficient to use (efficiency)
– Safe to use (safety)
– Have good utility (utility,
functionality)
– Easy to learn (learnability)
– Easy to remember how to use
(memorability)
 Interaction design
• “Designing interactive products to
support people in their everyday and
working lives”
• Creating user experiences that enhance
and extend the way people work,
communicate and interact
• Entertainment, education, home, public
areas etc
• Same fundamentals as HCI in terms of
usability goals and design methodology,
but is also concerned with other goals
 User experience
• Interaction design is also concerned
with creating systems that are:
– Satisfying
– Enjoyable
– Fun
– Entertaining
– Helpful
– Motivating
– Aesthetically pleasing
– Supportive of creativity
– Rewarding
– Emotionally fulfilling
 Why is HCI important?
• In order to achieve efficient,
effective and safe products/systems:
– Productivity (introducing technology that
does not support the work may cause reduced
productivity)
– Safety (crashed air planes and nuclear power
plant disasters have led to an understanding
why HCI is important!)

Computers should be designed for the

needs and capabilities of the people for
whom they are intended!
 More reasons
• The interface is not a “later problem”
• Products and systems cannot be
developed and designed using the
developers/designers themselves as the
norm
• Users might not have a great interest
in technology
• Users rarely read manuals and
instructions
“Human-computer interaction is the kind of
discipline which is neither the study of
humans, nor the study of technology, but
rather the bridging between those two. So
you always have to have one eye open to
the question: what can the technology do?
How can you build it? What are the
possibilities? And one eye open to the
question: what are people doing and how
would this fit in? What would they do with
it? If you lose sight of either of those,
you fail to design well.”
(Terry Winograd, Professor of computing, Stanford University)
 Design principles
• Know your user
• Reduce cognitive load
• Engineer for errors
• Maintain consistency and clarity
 Know your user
• Cognitive and perception psychology
– General knowledge about humans
– Sara will give an introduction today
• User analysis
– Specific knowledge about a group
• Reasons:
– Minimize cognitive load
– Use resources efficiently (system and
user)
 Reduce cognitive load
• Make functions, objects and information
visible
– The human brain is limited in its
capacity: memory, attention…
– PC-specific example: UNIX (cat, grep,
mv, lpr) vs GUI (icons); which ones
are easiest to recognize/remember?
 Reduce cognitive load
Mental model:
“The model people have of themselves,
others, the environment, and the things
with which they interact. People form
mental models through experience,
training and instruction.”

• Provide clear conceptual models

– Help the user getting a clear mental
model of the system!
• Metaphors (e.g. the desktop
metaphor)
 Engineer for errors
• Make it difficult for the user to make
errors
– E.g. menus give the user the possible
alternatives (prevents errors but not
mistakes), sound can indicate
right/wrong
• Provide good error messages
– Less user frustration
 Engineer for errors
• Reversible actions
– Allow users to correct their own
errors
• Provide feedback
– The user need to know the state of
the system
 Maintain consistency
and clarity
• Standard operations and representations
• Appropriate metaphors help building and
maintaining a user’s mental model
• Easier for users to learn, recognize
and to foresee what is going to happen
 Designing ubicomp systems

• The fundamental HCI principles also

apply to the design of ubicomp systems,
but…
• Ubicomp means new design challenges!
• Smaller, tangible and “invisible”
• E.g. a user interface in a ubicomp
system might not even have a display…
– How to inform the user if he/she has done
something wrong?
– How to give the user feedback?
 PC (GUI based) vs
ubicomp systems
• PC: familiar mechanisms such as
cursors, windows, icons, menus,
drag&drop and cut&paste
• Ubicomp: wide range of input (and
output) such as sound, speech, haptics,
gestures, camera, sensor input/output
(activity, light, accelerometer…)
• E.g. How provide users with an undo
function in ubicomp systems? Not like
ctrl + Z. Many questions and not as
many answers yet.
 Still…
• Know who the users are
– How do humans function?
– What do humans do (work, home,
mobile…)?
• Know what your system or product
should support to match the
users’ needs and requirements
– E.g. context-aware computing where
you model user activity and features
of the environment. E.g. what sensors
do you need?
 Further reading
• Bellotti et al. 2002.”Making
Sense of Sensing Systems: Five
Questions for Designers and
Researchers”
• Tolmie et al. 2002. ”Unremarkable
Computing”
• Will be available from the course
website soon, but temporarily
here:
www.viktoria.se/~mariah/isd/
 Reading assignment
Thursday 27 Oct
• Similar to Furby
• Read article on ActiMates Barney!
• www.viktoria.se/~mariah/isd/barney.pdf
 Further reading
• Human-Computer Interaction by Jenny
Preece, Addison-Wesley, 1994
• Interaction Design Beyond Human-
Computer Interaction by Preece, Rogers
and Sharp, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
2002
• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald
Norman