AMBO UNIVERSITY WOLISO CAMPUS

School of Technology and Informatics Department of Information Technology

Course Title: Human-Computer Interaction Course Code: ITec4122; ECTS: 5
Chapter Three: Computer in HCI
2. The Computer
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Text entry devices
2.3 Positioning, pointing and drawing
2.4 Display devices
2.5 Devices for virtual reality and 3D interaction
2.6 Physical controls, sensors and special devices
2.7 Paper: printing and scanning
2.8 Memory
2.9 Processing and Networks
2. The Computer
A computer system comprises various elements, each of which affects the user of the system.
Input devices for interactive use, allowing text entry, drawing and selection from the screen:
– text entry: traditional keyboard, phone text entry, speech and handwriting
– pointing: principally the mouse, but also touchpad, stylus and others
– 3D interaction devices.
Output display devices for interactive use:
– different types of screens mostly using some form of bitmap display
– large displays and situated displays for shared and public use
– digital paper may be usable in the near future.
Virtual reality systems and 3D visualization which have special interaction and display
devices. Various devices in the physical world:
– physical controls and dedicated displays
– sound, smell and haptic feedback
– sensors for nearly everything including movement, temperature, bio-signs.
Paper output and input: the paperless office and the less-paper office:
– different types of printers and their characteristics, character styles and fonts
– scanners and optical character recognition.
Memory:
– short-term memory: RAM
– long-term memory: magnetic and optical disks
– capacity limitations related to document and video storage
– access methods as they limit or help the user.
Processing:
– the effects when systems run too slow or too fast, the myth of the infinitely fast machine
– limitations on processing speed
– networks and their impact on system performance.
2.1 Introduction
In order to understand how humans, interact with computers, we need to have an
understanding of both parties in the interaction.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 1

2.1.1 A typical computer system
The computer data that may have to be entered into and obtained from a system, and there
are also many different types of users, each with their own unique requirements.
2.1.2 Levels of interaction – batch processing
In the early days of computing, information was entered into the computer in a large mass:
batch data entry. There was minimal interaction with the machine: the user would simply
dump a pile of punched cards onto a reader, press the start button, and then return a few hours
later.
This still continues today although now with pre-prepared electronic files or possibly
machine-read forms. It is clearly the most appropriate mode for certain kinds of application,
for example printing paychecks or entering the results from a questionnaire.
With batch processing the interactions take place over hours or days. In contrast the typical
desktop computer system has interactions taking seconds or fractions of a second (or with
slow web pages sometimes minutes!). The field of Human–Computer Interaction largely grew
due to this change in interactive pace.
2.1.3 Richer interaction – everywhere, every when
Computers are coming out of the box! Information appliances are putting internet access
or dedicated systems onto the fridge, microwave and washing machine: to automate shopping,
give you email in your kitchen or simply call for maintenance when needed. We carry with
us WAP phones and smartcards, have security systems that monitor us and web cams that
show our homes to the world.
2.2 Text Entry Devices
The most obvious means of text entry is the plain keyboard, but there are several
variations on this: different keyboard layouts, ‘chord’ keyboards that use combinationns of
fingers to enter letters, and phone key pads. Handwriting and speech recognition offer more
radical alternatives.
2.2.1 The alphanumeric keyboard
The keyboard is still one of the most common input devices in use today. It is used for entering
textual data and commands. The vast majority of keyboards have a standardized layout,
and are known by the first six letters of the top row of alphabetical keys, QWERTY.
2.2.2 Chord keyboards
Chord keyboards are significantly different from normal alphanumeric keyboards. Only
a few keys, four or five, are used and letters are produced by pressing one or more of the
keys at once. For example, in the Micro writer, the pattern of multiple key presses is
chosen to reflect the actual letter shape.
They are extremely compact: simply reducing the size of a conventional keyboard makes
the keys too small and close together, with a correspondingly large increase in the difficulty
of using it.
In particular, courtroom stenographers use a special form of two-handed chord
keyboard and associated shorthand to enter text at full spoken speed.
2.2.3 Phone pad and T9 entry
With mobile phones being used for SMS text messaging and WAP the phone keypad has
become an important form of text input.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 2

Unfortunately, a phone only has digits 0–9, not a full alphanumeric keyboard.
– Most phones have at least two modes for the numeric buttons:
– One where the keys mean the digits (for example when entering a phone number) and
– One where they mean letters (for example when typing an SMS message).
– Some have additional modes to make entering accented characters easier.
– Also, a special mode or setting is needed for capital letters although many phones
use rules to reduce this, for example automatically capitalizing the initial letter
in a message and letters following full stops, question marks and exclamation marks.
2.2.4 Handwriting recognition
Handwriting is a common and familiar activity, and is therefore attractive as a method of text
entry. If we were able to write as we would when we use paper, but with the computer taking
this form of input and converting it to text, we can see that it is an intuitive and simple way of
interacting with the computer.
Pen-based systems that use handwriting recognition are actively marketed in the mobile
computing market, especially for smaller pocket organizers. Such machines are typically
used for taking notes and jotting down and sketching ideas, as well as acting as a diary,
address book and organizer.
2.2.5 Speech recognition
Speech recognition is a promising area of text entry, but it has been promising for a number
of years and is still only used in very limited situations. There is a natural enthusiasm for being
able to talk to the machine and have it responded to commands, since this form of interaction
is one with which we are very familiar.
Strong accents, a cold or emotion can also cause recognition problems, as can
background noise.
2.3 Positioning, pointing and drawing
Central to most modern computing systems is the ability to point at something on the screen
and thereby manipulate it, or perform some function. There has been a long history of such
devices, in particular in computer-aided design (CAD), where positioning and drawing are the
major activities.
– Pointing devices allow the user to point, position and select items, either directly or by
manipulating a pointer on the screen.
– Many pointing devices can also be used for free-hand drawing although the skill of
drawing with a mouse is very different from using a pencil.
– The mouse is still most common for desktop computers
– The words are being typed on a laptop with a touchpad and no mouse.
2.3.1 The mouse
The mouse has become a major component of the majority of desktop computer systems
sold today, and is the little box with the tail connecting it to the machine in our basic computer
system picture.
– It is a small, palm-sized box housing a weighted ball – as the box is moved over the
tabletop, the ball is rolled by the table and so rotates inside the housing.
– This rotation is detected by small rollers that are in contact with the ball, and these
adjust the values of potentiometers.
– If you remove the ball occasionally to clear dust you may be able to see these rollers.
– The changing values of these potentiometers can be directly related to changes in
position of the ball.
– The potentiometers are aligned in different directions so that they can detect both
horizontal and vertical motion.
– The relative motion information is passed to the computer via a wire attached to the
box, or in some cases using wireless or infrared, and moves a pointer on the screen,

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 3

 called the cursor.
– The mouse was developed around 1964 by Douglas C. Engelbart
2.3.2 Touchpad
Touch pads are touch-sensitive tablets usually around 2–3 inches (50–75 mm) square. They
were first used extensively in Apple Power book portable computers but are now used in
many other notebook computers and can be obtained separately to replace the mouse on
the desktop.
They are operated by stroking a finger over their surface, rather like using a simulated
trackball.
The feel is very different from other input devices, but as with all devices users quickly
get used to the action and become proficient.
A light-emitting diode emits a weak red light from the base of the mouse.
This is reflected off a special pad with a metallic grid-like pattern upon which the mouse
has to sit, and the fluctuations in reflected intensity as the mouse is moved over the gridlines
are recorded by a sensor in the base of the mouse and translated into relative x, y motion.
Some optical mice do not require special mats, just an appropriate surface, and use the natural
texture of the surface to detect movement.
2.3.3 Trackball and thumbwheel
The trackball is really just an upside-down mouse! A weighted ball faces upwards and is
rotated inside a static housing, the motion being detected in the same way as for a mechanical
mouse, and the relative motion of the ball moves the cursor.
Because of this, the trackball requires no additional space in which to operate, and is
therefore a very compact device.
It is an indirect device, and requires separate buttons for selection.
It is fairly accurate, but is hard to draw with, as long movements are difficult. Trackballs now
appear in a wide variety of sizes, the most usual being about the same as a golf ball, with a
number of larger and smaller devices available.
Thumbwheels are different in that they have two orthogonal dials to control the cursor
position.
Such a device is very cheap, but slow, and it is difficult to manipulate the cursor in any
way other than horizontally or vertically.
For instance, in CAD the designer is almost always concerned with exact verticals and
horizontals, and a device that provides such constraints is very useful, which accounts for the
appearance of thumbwheels in CAD systems.
2.3.4 Joystick and keyboard nipple
– The joystick is an indirect input device, taking up very little space. Consisting of a
small palm-sized box with a stick or shaped grip sticking up from it, the joystick is a
simple device with which movements of the stick cause a corresponding movement of
the screen cursor.
– There are two types of joysticks: the absolute and the isometric.
– In the absolute joystick, movement is the important characteristic, since the position
of the joystick in the base corresponds to the position of the cursor on the screen.
– In the isometric joystick, the pressure on the stick corresponds to the velocity of the
cursor, and when released, the stick returns to its usual upright centered position.
2.3.5 Touch-sensitive screens (touch screens)
Touch screens are another method of allowing the user to point and select objects on the
screen.
They work in one of a number of different ways: by the finger (or stylus) interrupting a matrix
of light beams, or by capacitance changes on a grid overlaying the screen, or by ultrasonic
reflections. The touch screen is very fast, and requires no specialized pointing device.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 4

It is especially good for selecting items from menus displayed on the screen. Because the screen
acts as an input device as well as an output device, there is no separate hardware to become
damaged or destroyed by dirt; this makes touch screens suitable for use in hostile environment.
2.3.6 Stylus and light pen
For more accurate positioning, systems with touch sensitive surfaces often employ a stylus.
Instead of pointing at the screen directly a small pen-like plastic stick is used to point and draw
on the screen. This is particularly popular in PDAs, but they are also being used in some
laptop computers.
The light pen can therefore address individual pixels and so is much more accurate than the
touch screen. Stylus, light pen and touch screen are all very direct in that the relationship
between the device and the thing selected is immediate.
In contrast, mouse, touchpad, joystick and trackball all have to map movements on the desk to
cursor movement on the screen.
2.3.7 Digitizing tablet
– The digitizing tablet is a more specialized device typically used for freehand drawing, but
may also be used as a mouse substitute.
– Some highly accurate tablets, usually using a puck (a mouse-like device), are used in
special applications such as digitizing information for maps.
– The tablet provides positional information by measuring the position of some device on a
special pad, or tablet, and can work in a number of ways.
– The resistive tablet detects point contact between two separated conducting sheets. It has
advantages in that it can be operated without a specialized stylus – a pen or the user’s
finger is sufficient.
– The magnetic tablet detects current pulses in a magnetic field using a small loop coil
housed in a special pen. There are also capacitated and electrostatic tablets that work in a
similar way.
– The sonic tablet is similar to the above but requires no special surface. An ultrasonic pulse
is emitted by a special pen which is detected by two or more microphones which then
triangulate the pen position.
– This device can be adapted to provide 3D input, if required.
– Digitizing tablets are capable of high resolution, and are available in a range of sizes.
2.3.8 Eye gaze
Eye gaze systems allow you to control the computer by simply looking at it! Some systems
require you to wear special glasses or a small head-mounted box, others are built into the
screen or sit as a small box below the screen.
A low-power laser is shone into the eye and is reflected off the retina. The reflection changes
as the angle of the eye alters, and by tracking the reflected beam the eye gaze system can
determine the direction in which the eye is looking.
The system needs to be calibrated, typically by staring at a series of dots on the screen,
but thereafter can be used to move the screen cursor or for other more specialized uses.
Eye gaze is a very fast and accurate device, but the more accurate versions can be expensive.
Such systems have been used in military applications, notably for guiding air-to air missiles
to their targets, but are starting to find more peaceable uses, for disabled users and for
workers in environments where it is impossible for them to use their hands.
2.3.9 Cursor keys and discrete positioning
For many applications we are only interested in positioning within a sequential list such as
a menu or amongst 2D cells as in a spreadsheet.
Even for moving within text discrete up/down left/right keys can sometimes be preferable
to using a mouse.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 5

Cursor keys are available on most keyboards. Four keys on the keyboard are used to control
the cursor, one each for up, down, left and right.
Cursor keys used to be more heavily used in character-based systems before windows and mice
were the norm.
However, when logging into remote machines such as web servers, the interface is often a
virtual character-based terminal within a telnet window.
Small devices such as mobile phones, personal entertainment and television remote controls
often require discrete control, either dedicated to a particular function such as volume, or for
use as general menu selection.
2.4 Display devices
In this section, we discuss the standard computer display in detail, looking at the properties
of bitmap screens, at different screen technologies, at large and situated displays, and at a
new technology, ‘digital paper’.
2.4.1 Bitmap displays – resolution and color
– Virtually all computer displays are based on some sort of bitmap.
– That is the display is made of vast numbers of colored dots or pixels in a rectangular grid.
– These pixels may be limited to black and white (for example, the small display on many
TV remote controls), in grayscale, or full color.
– The color or, for monochrome screens, the intensity at each pixel is held by the
computer’s video card.
– One bit per pixel can store on/off information, and hence only black and white. ➢
More bits per pixel give rise to more color or intensity possibilities.
– The density of pixels: this is measured in pixels per inch.
– In the case of a cathode ray tube (CRT) this typically will mean that the image is
stretched over the screen surface giving a lower density of 64 pixels per inch.
– An LCD screen cannot change its pixel size so it would keep 96 pixels per inch.
2.4.2 Technologies - Cathode ray tube
– The cathode ray tube is the television-like computer screen.
– Rapidly being displaced by flat LCD screens.
– It works in a similar way to a standard television screen.
A stream of electrons is emitted from an electron gun, which is then focused and directed
by magnetic fields. As the beam hits the phosphor-coated screen, the phosphor is excited
by the electrons and glows.
The electron beam is scanned from left to right, and then flicked back to rescan the next
line, from top to bottom. This is repeated, at about 30 Hz (that is, 30 times a second), per
frame, although higher scan rates are sometimes used to reduce the flicker on the screen.
Black and white screens are able to display grayscale by varying the intensity of the electron
beam; color is achieved using more complex means.
Three electron guns are used, one each to hit red, green and blue phosphors. Combining
these colors can produce many others, including white, when they are all fully on. There have
also been many concerns relating to the emission of radiation from screens.
These can be categorized as follows:
– X-rays which are largely absorbed by the screen (but not at the rear!)
ultraviolet and infrared radiation from phosphors in insignificant levels
– radio frequency emissions, plus ultrasound (approximately 16 kHz)
– electrostatic field which leaks out through the tube to the user. The intensity is
dependent on distance and humidity.
– electromagnetic fields (50 Hz to 0.5 MHz) which create induction currents in
conductive materials, including the human body.
Liquid crystal display

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 6

– If you have used a personal organizer or notebook computer, you will have seen the light,
flat plastic screens.
– These displays utilize liquid crystal technology and are smaller, lighter and consume far
less power than traditional CRTs.
– These are also commonly referred to as flat-panel displays.
– They have no radiation problems associated with them, and are matrix addressable, which
means that individual pixels can be accessed without the need for scanning.
– Similar in principle to the digital watch, a thin layer of liquid crystal is sandwiched
between two glass plates.
– The top plate is transparent and polarized, whilst the bottom plate is reflective.
Special displays
There are a number of other display technologies used in niche markets.
The one you are most likely to see is the gas plasma display, which is used in large screens.
The random scan display, also known as the directed beam refresh, or vector display, works
differently from the bitmap display, also known as raster scan.
Instead of scanning the whole screen sequentially and horizontally, the random scan draws
the lines to be displayed directly.
The direct view storage tube is used extensively as the display for an analog storage
oscilloscope, which is probably the only place that these displays are used in any great numbers.
2.4.3 Large displays and situated displays
There are several types of large screen display. Some use gas plasma technology to create
large flat bitmap displays. These behave just like a normal screen except they are big and
usually have the HDTV (high- d e f i n i t i o n television) wide screen format which has an
aspect ratio of 16:9 instead of the 4:3 on traditional TV and monitors.
2.4.4 Digital paper
– A new form of ‘display’ that is still in its infancy is the various forms of digital paper.
– These are thin flexible materials that can be written to electronically, just like a
computer screen, but which keep their contents even when removed from any
electrical supply.
– In each tube is light-absorbing liquid and a small reflective sphere.
– The sphere can be made to move to the top surface or away from it making the pixel white
or black.
– As the technology matures, the aim is to have programmable sheets of paper that you attach
to your computer to get a ‘soft’ printout that can later be changed.
2.5 Devices for virtual reality and 3D interaction
The Virtual reality (VR) systems and various forms of 3D visualization. These require you to
navigate and interact in a three-dimensional space. Sometimes these use the ordinary controls
and displays of a desktop computer system, but there are also special devices used both to
move and interact with 3Dobjects and to enable you to see a 3D environment.
2.5.1 Positioning in 3D space
Virtual reality systems present a 3D virtual world. Users need to navigate through these spaces
and manipulate the virtual objects they find there. Navigation is not simply a matter of
moving to a particular location, but also of choosing a particular orientation.
In addition, when you grab an object in real space, you don’t simply move it around, but
also twist and turn it, for example when opening a door.

Cockpit and virtual controls

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 7

Helicopter and aircraft pilots already have to navigate in real space. Many arcade games
and also more serious applications use controls modeled on an aircraft cockpit to ‘fly’ through
virtual space. However, helicopter pilots are very skilled and it takes a lot of practice for users
to be able to work easily in such environments.
The 3D mouses
There are a variety of devices that act as 3D versions of a mouse.
Rather than just moving the mouse on a tabletop, you can pick it up, move it in three
dimensions, rotate the mouse and tip it forward and backward.
The 3D mouse has a full six degrees of freedom as its position can be tracked (three degrees),
and also its up/down angle (called pitch), its left/right orientation (called yaw) and the
amount it is twisted about its own axis (called roll).
Various sensors are used to track the mouse position and orientation: magnetic coils,
ultrasound or even mechanical joints where the mouse is mounted rather like an angle-
poise lamp. With the 3D mouse, and indeed most 3D positioning devices, users may
experience train from having to hold the mouse in the air for a long period.
Data glove
The data glove is a 3D input device consisting of a Lyra glove with optical fibers laid along
the fingers, it detects the joint angles of the fingers and thumb.
As the fingers are bent, the fiber optic cable bends too; increasing bend causes more light to
leak from the fiber, and the reduction in intensity is detected by the glove and related to the
degree of bend in the joint.
Attached to the top of the glove are two sensors that use ultrasound to determine 3D positional
information as well as the angle of roll, that is the degree of wrist rotation. There are a number
of potentials uses for this technology to assist disabled people, but cost remains the limiting
factor at present.
The data glove has the advantage that it is very easy to use, and is potentially very powerful
and expressive (it can provide 10 joint angles, plus the 3D spatial information and
degree of wrist rotation, 50 times a second).
Virtual reality helmets
The helmets or goggles worn in some VR systems have two purposes:
– they display the 3D world to each eye and
– they allow the user’s head position to be tracked.
The head tracking is used primarily to feed into the output side. As the user’s head moves around
the user ought to see different parts of the scene.
Whole-body tracking
If you are driving down the road and glance at something on the roadside you do not want the
car to do a sudden 90-degree turn! Some VR systems therefore attempt to track different kinds
of body movement. Some arcade games have a motorbike body on which you can lean into
curves.
2.5.2 3D displays
Different techniques are then used to ensure that each eye sees the appropriate image. One
method is to have two small screens fitted to a pair of goggles.
A different image is then shown to each eye. These devices are currently still quite
cumbersome and the popular image of VR is of a user with head encased in a helmet with
something like a pair of inverted binoculars sticking out in front.
An alternative method is to have a pair of special spectacles connected so that each eye can

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 8

be blanked out by timed electrical signals.
2.6 Physical Controls, Sensors & Special Devices
As we have discussed, computers are coming out of the box. The mouse key board and
screen of the traditional computer system are not relevant or possible in applications that now
employ computers such as interactive TV, in-car navigation systems or personal
entertainment. These devices may have special displays, may use sound, touch and smell as
well as visual displays, may have dedicated controls and may sense the environment or your
own bio-signs.
2.6.1 Special displays
One visual display that has found a specialized niche is the head-up display that is used in
aircraft. The pilot is fully occupied looking forward and finds it difficult to look around the
cockpit to get information.
There are many different things that need to be known, ranging from data from tactical
systems to navigational information and aircraft status indicators.
2.6.2 Sound output
Another mode of output that we should consider is that of auditory signals.
Often designed to be used in conjunction with screen displays, auditory outputs are poorly
understood: we do not yet know how to utilize sound in a sensible way to achieve maximum
effect and information transference.
We have discussed speech previously, but other sounds such as beeps, bongs, clanks, whistles
and whirrs are all used to varying effect.
As well as conveying system output, sounds offer an important level of feedback in
interactive systems.
2.6.3 Touch, feel and smell
Our other senses are used less in normal computer applications, but you may have played
computer games where the joystick or artificial steering wheel vibrated, perhaps when a car
was about to go off the track.
In some VR applications, such as the use in medical domains to ‘practice’ surgical
procedures, the feel of an instrument moving through different tissue types is very important.
The devices used to emulate these procedures have force feedback, giving different amounts
of resistance depending on the state of the virtual operation.
These various forms of force, resistance and texture that influence our physical senses are called
haptic devices. Smell is a complex multi-dimensional sense and has a peculiar ability to
trigger memory, but cannot be changed rapidly. These qualities may prove valuable in areas
where a general sense of location and awareness is desirable.
2.6.4 Physical controls
A desktop computer system has to serve many functions and so has generic keys and controls
that can be used for a variety of purposes. In contrast, these dedicated control panels have been
designed for a particular device and for a single use. Looking first at the microwave, it has a
flat plastic control panel. The buttons on the panel are pressed and ‘give’ slightly.
The microwave is used in the kitchen whilst cooking, with hands that may be greasy or
have food on them. The smooth controls have no gaps where food can accumulate and clog
buttons, so it can easily be kept clean and hygienic.
2.6.5 Environment and bio-sensing
In a public washroom there are often no controls for the wash basins, you simply put your
hands underneath and (hope that) the water flows. Similarly, when you open the door of a car,
the courtesy light turns on. The washbasin is controlled by a small infrared sensor that is
triggered when your hands are in the basin.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 9

 There are many different sensors available to measure virtually anything: temperature,
movement (ultrasound, infrared, etc.), location (GPS i.e., global positioning in mobile
devices), weight (pressure sensors). In addition, audio and video information can be
analyzed to identify individuals and to detect what they are doing.
Sensors can also be used to capture physiological signs such as body temperature,
unconscious reactions such as blink rate, or unconscious aspects of activities such as typing
rate, vocabulary shifts (e.g., modal verbs).
2.7 Paper: printing and scanning
2.7.1 Printing
All of the popular printing technologies, like screens, build the image on the paper as a series
of dots. This enables, in theory, any character set or graphic to be printed, Common types of
dot-based printers.
Dot-matrix printers
These use an inked ribbon, like a typewriter, but instead of a single character-shaped head
striking the paper, a line of pins is used, each of which can strike the ribbon and hence dot
the paper. Horizontal resolution can be varied by altering the speed of the head across the paper,
and vertical resolution can be improved by sending the head twice across the paper at a
slightly different position.
Ink-jet and bubble-jet printers
These operate by sending tiny blobs of ink from the print head to the paper. The ink is squirted
at pressure from an ink-jet, whereas bubble-jets use heat to create a bubble.
The ink from the bubble-jet (being a bubble rather than a droplet) dries more quickly than
the ink-jet and so is less likely to smear.
Laser printer
This uses similar technology to a photocopier: ‘dots’ of electrostatic charge are
deposited on a drum, which then picks up toner (black powder). This is then rolled onto the
paper and cured by heat. The curing is why laser printed documents come out warm, and the
electrostatic charge is why they smell of ozone!
Laser printers give nearly typeset-quality output, with top-end printers used by desktop
publishing firms.
The most common types of dot-based printers are dot-matrix printers, ink-jet printers and
laser printers. These are listed roughly in order of increasing resolution and quality, where
dot-matrix printers typically have a resolution of 80–120 dpi rising to about 300–600 dpi for
ink-jet printers and 600–2400 dpi for laser printers.
2.7.2 Fonts and page description languages
Some printers can act in a mode whereby any characters sent to them (encoded in ASCII,
are printed, typewriter style, in a single font. Another case, simple in theory, is when you have
a bitmap picture and want to print it. The dots to print are sent to the printer, and no further
interpretation is needed.
More sophisticated printers can accept a page description language, the most common
of which is PostScript. This is a form of programming language for printing. It includes
some standard programming constructs, but also some special ones: paths for drawing
lines and curves, sophisticated character and font handling and scaled bitmaps.
Text is printed in a font with a particular size and shape. The size of a font is
measured in points (pt.). The point is a printer’s measure and is about 1/72 of an inch.
The point size of the font is related to its height: a 12-point font has about six lines per inch.
The shape of a font is determined by its font name.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 10

2.7.3 Screen and page
A common requirement of word processors and desktop publishing software is that
what you see is what you get. This means that the appearance of the document on the
screen should be the same as its eventual appearance on the printed page.
The differences between screen and printer mean that different forms of graphic design
are needed for each. For example, headings and changes in emphasis are made using font
style and size on paper, but using color, brightness and line boxes onscreen.
2.7.4 Scanners and optical character recognition
Printers take electronic documents and put them on paper – scanners reverse this
process. They start by turning the image into a bitmap, but with the aid of optical character
recognition can convert the page right back into text. The image to be converted may
be printed, but may also be a photograph or hand-drawn picture.
There are two main kinds of scanner: flat-bed and hand-held. With a flat-bed scanner, the
page is placed on a flat glass plate and the whole page is converted into a bitmap. A
variant of the flat-bed is where sheets to be scanned are pulled through the machine,
common in multi-function devices (printer/fax/copier).
Many flat-bed scanners allow a small pile of sheets to be placed in a feed tray so that
they can all be scanned without user intervention.
Hand-held scanners are pulled over the image by hand. As the head passes over an
area it is read in, yielding a bitmap strip. A roller at the ends ensures that the scanner
knows how fast it is being pulled and thus how big the image is.
The scanner is typically only 3 or 4 inches (80 or 100 mm) wide and may even be the
size of a large pen (mainly used for scanning individual lines of text).
Optical character recognition (OCR) is the process whereby the computer can ‘read’ the
characters on the page. It is only comparatively recently that print could be reliably read,
since the wide variety of typefaces and print sizes makes this more difficult than one
would imagine – it is not simply a matter of matching a character shape to the image on the
page.
The importance of electronic publishing and also the ease of electronically
manipulating images for printing have made the digital camera increasingly popular.
Rather than capturing an image on film, a digital camera has a small light-sensitive chip
that can directly record an image into memory.
2.8 MEMORY
2.8.1 RAM and short-term memory (STM)
Most currently active information is held in silicon-chip random access memory
(RAM). Different forms of RAM differ as to their precise access times, power
consumption and characteristics.
Typical access times are of the order of 10 nanoseconds, that is a hundred-millionth of a
second, and information can be accessed at a rate of around 100 Mbytes (million bytes)
per second.
Typical storage in modern personal computers is between 64 and 256 Mbytes. Most RAM
is volatile, that is its contents are lost when the power is turned off.
2.8.2 Disks and long-term memory (LTM)
For most computer users the LTM consists of disks, possibly with small tapes for
backup.
There are two main kinds of technology used in disks: magnetic disks and optical disks.
The most common storage media, floppy disks and hard (or fixed) disks, are coated with
magnetic material, like that found on an audio tape, on which the information is stored.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 11

Typical capacities of floppy disks lie between 300 Kbytes and1.4 Mbytes, but as they are
removable.
Hard disks may store from under 40 Mbytes to several gigabytes (Gbytes), that is
several thousand million bytes. Optical disks use laser light to read and (sometimes) write
the information on the disk. There are various high-capacity specialist optical devices, but
the most common is the CD-ROM, using the same technology as audio compact discs.
Recordable CDs are a form of WORM device (write-once read-many) and are more
flexible in that information can be written, but (as the name suggests) only once at any
location – more like a piece of paper than a blackboard.
Media: RAM Hard disk
Capacity: 256 Mbytes 100 Gbytes
Access time: 10 ns 7 ms
Transfer rate: 100 Mbyte/s 30 Mbyte/s
2.9 Processing and networks
2.9.1 Effects of finite processor speed
These effects must be taken into account when designing an interactive system. There are
two sorts of faults due to processing speed: those when it is too slow, and those when it is
too fast!
This was a functional fault, in that the program did the wrong thing. The system is
supposed to draw lines from where the mouse button is depressed to where it is released.
However, the program gets it wrong – after realizing the button is down, it does not check
the position of the mouse fast enough, and so the user may have moved the mouse
before the start position is registered.
But a rate which is acceptable for a CRT screen is too fast for an LCD screen, which is
more persistent, and the cursor may become invisible or a slight gray color.
2.9.2 Limitations on interactive performance
There are several factors that can limit the speed of an interactive system:
Computation bound This is rare for an interactive program, but possible, for
example when using find/replace in a large document. For a very long process try to give
an indication of duration before it starts; and during processing an indication of the stage
that the process has reached is helpful.
Storage channel bound If there is plenty of raw computation power and the system is
held up solely by memory, it is possible to trade off memory against processing speed. For
example, compressed data take less space to store, and is faster to read in and out, but
must be compressed before storage and decompressed when retrieved. Thus, faster memory
access leads to increased processing time. If data is written more often than it is read,
one can choose a technique that is expensive to compress but fairly simple to decompress.
Graphics bound Most computers include a special-purpose graphics card to handle
many of the most common graphics operations. This is optimized for graphics operations
and allows the main processor to do other work such as manipulating documents and
other user data.
Network capacity Most computers are linked by networks. At the simplest this can
mean using shared files on a remote machine. When accessing such files, it can be the
speed of the network rather than that of the memory which limits performance.
2.9.3 Networked computing
It is often the case that we use computers not in their standalone mode of operation, but
linked together in networks.
This brings added benefits in allowing communication between different parties,
provided they are connected into the same network, as well as allowing the desktop
computer to access resources remote from itself.

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 12

Such networks are inherently much more powerful than the individual computers that make
up the network: increased computing power and memory are only part of the story, since
the effects of allowing people much more extensive, faster and easier access to
information are highly significant to individuals, groups and institutions.
TYPES OF NETWORKS
– LAN: Local Area Network (Inside one Room)
– WAN: Wide Area Network (One Building to another Building)
– MAN: Metropolitan Area Network (City to City)
– Intranet: Inside the particular Organization
– Extranet: Part of an organization's intranet
– Internet: Inter networking (Network of Network)
In 1971 From ARPANET (Advanced Research Project Agency) first Countrywide
network is designed by US Military Department. The Protocol used in networking is
Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
There are different Topology is used in designing Network.
– Bus, Ring, Star, Complete Connected, Tree and Discrete
There are number of Internet Browsers to open a web page.
– Internet Explorer – Microsoft Edge – Safari
– Mozilla Firefox – Opera mini – Navigator
– Chrome – Chedot

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 13

Human-Computer Interaction Lecture notes by: Jerusalem F., 2014 E.C 14