Week 02-Course Packet 01:

THE HUMAN, COMPUTER AND INTERACTION

Presented by:
Janice Christian M. Sacdalan, MIT
Understanding Nature of
Human and Computers
• 2 species:
Human vs. Computers
Humans (aka Homo Sapiens)
❖ Complex
Most
❖ Intelligent
interesting
❖ Animate and
❖ Free will fascinating
❖ Range of emotions specie on
❖ Make mistakes
planet!
Computer Species
❖ Dumb

❖ Unintelligent

❖ Inanimate

❖ Only do what they are told to do

❖ Don’t make mistakes

 Learning Outcomes
• Understand the concepts of the Human, Computer and
Interaction.
• Create an ideation for the group project and groupings.
Human
– the end-user of a program
– the others they work or
communicate with

Computer
– the machine the program
runs on
– split between clients &
servers

Interaction
– user tells the computer
what they want
– computer communicates
results
THE HUMAN
Understand Human Users
⚫ Users are humans
⚫ A human is a very complex system
⚫ Different humans have different
⚫ Capabilities
⚫ Cultures
⚫ Backgrounds
⚫ Usage contexts

TASK
 The Human
• Information i/o …
– visual, auditory, haptic, movement
• Information stored in memory
– sensory, short-term, long-term
• Information processed and applied
– reasoning, problem solving, skill, error
• Emotion influences human capabilities
• Each person is different
 Human Capabilities
• Want to improve user performance

• Know the user!

– Senses
– Information processing systems
 Senses
• Sight, hearing, touch important for
current HCI

– smell, taste ???

 Sight
• Visual System workings
• Color - color blindness: 8% males,
1% females
• Much done by context & grouping
(words, optical illusions, …)
 Eyes
Eye
• Retina receives image
• Light sensitive cells
• Two types: Light
– Rods Optic Nerve
• Monochrome
• Sensitive to entire visible spectrum
• Small
• Fast-acting
• Distributed throughout Retina
 Eyes-Retina
• Retina Cells: Cones
– Three types
• Red, Green, Blue
• Each type sensitive to limited range of visible light
• Cones are larger cells than rods
• Cones are less sensitive
• Strongly concentrated in Fovea
• Relatively few cones outside fovea
 Fovea
• High-resolution area of Retina
– It’s what you point your eyes at to get good image
– About 2 degrees visual angle
– Densely packed with Rods + Cones
 Hearing
• Often taken for granted how good it is
– Pitch - frequency
– Loudness - amplitude
– Timbre - type of sound (instrument)
• Sensitive to range 20Hz - 22000Hz
• Limited spatially, good temporal performance
 Hearing
• Sounds can be perceived as coming from a location
– Not terribly accurate
– Cone of confusion
 3D Audio Perception
• 3D Audio cues:
– Interaural Time Difference
– Interaural Intensity Difference
– Pinnae filtering
– Body filtering
 Touch
• Three main sensations handled by different types of
receptors:
– Pressure (normal)
– Intense pressure (heat/pain)
– Temperature (hot/cold)
Accommodating Human Diversity

Personality
Differences
Physical Users
Abilities with
and Disabilities
Workplaces

Cognitive Elderly
and Users
Perceptual Cultural
Abilities and
International
Diversity
 Physical Variation
• Ability
– Disabled (elderly, handicapped, vision,
ambidexterity, ability to see in stereo
[SUTHERLAND])
– Speed
– Color deficiency
• Workspace (science of ergonomics)
– Size
– Design
• Lots of prior research
 Physical Variation
• Field of anthropometry
– Measures of what is 5-95% for weight, height, etc. (static and dynamic)
– Large variance reminds us there is great ‘variety’
– Name some devices that this would affect.
• note most keyboards are the same
• screen brightness varies considerably
• Multi-modal interfaces
• Audio
• Touch screens
 Cognitive and Perceptual Variation
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
– knowledge, comprehension, analysis, application,
synthesis, evaluation
• Memory
– short-term and working
– long-term and semantic
• Problem solving and reasoning
• Decision making
• Language and communication
 Cognitive and Perceptual Variation
• Language and communication
• Search, imagery, sensory memory
• Learning, skill development, knowledge acquisition
• Confounding factors:
– Fatigue
– Cognitive load
– Background
– Boredom
– Fear
 Personality
• Computer anxiety
• Gender
• No simple taxonomy of user personality types.
– Ex. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Extrovert vs. introvert
• Sensing vs. intuition
• Perceptive vs. judging
• Feeling vs. thinking
• Weak link between personality types and interfaces
 THE
COMPUTER
 Understand the “Computer Part”
⚫ “User-friendly” goes beyond buttons and colors.
⚫ The “computer-part” (the “solution”) partners with
humans to accomplish a task.
⚫ It has two parts:
⚫ The user interface, i.e., the frontier of the software
⚫ The device (hardware and software), limited by input and
output modalities, power resources, form factors, and
other.

TASK
 The Computer
-a computer system is made up of various elements

each of these elements affects the interaction

– input devices – text entry and pointing
– output devices – screen (small & large), digital paper
– virtual reality – special interaction and display devices
– physical interaction – e.g. sound, haptic, bio-sensing
– paper – as output (print) and input (scan)
– memory – RAM & permanent media, capacity & access
– processing – speed of processing, networks
 A ‘typical’ computer system
• screen, or monitor, on which there are windows
• keyboard
window 1
• mouse/trackpad
window 2

• variations
– desktop
– laptop
12-37pm
– PDA

the devices dictate the styles of interaction that the system supports
If we use different devices, then the interface will support a different style of
interaction
 Interacting with computers
to understand human–computer interaction
… need to understand computers!
 Interactivity?
Long ago in a galaxy far away … batch processing
– punched card stacks or large data files prepared
– long wait ….
– line printer output
… and if it is not right …

Now most computing is interactive

– rapid feedback
– the user in control (most of the time)
– doing rather than thinking …

Is faster always better?

Richer Interaction
 THE
INTERACTION
 Understand the interaction
⚫ The dialog between the user and the solution (both the UI and
the device).
⚫ The design decisions that pertain to how human(s) and
computing solution(s) collaborate to achieve a goal:
⚫ How input is provided to the solution (computer “device”
or “product”)?
⚫ How output is provided to the user?
⚫ How the user discovers available/unavailable functions?
⚫ How the solution behaves when things go wrong?
⚫ … and more

TASK
 The Interaction
• interaction models
– translations between user and system
• ergonomics
– physical characteristics of interaction
• interaction styles
– the nature of user/system dialog
• context
– social, organizational, motivational
 Some terms of interaction
domain – the area of work under study
e.g. graphic design
goal – what you want to achieve
e.g. create a solid red triangle
task – how you go about doing it
– ultimately in terms of operations or actions
e.g. … select fill tool, click over triangle
Note …
– traditional interaction …
– use of terms differs a lot especially task/goal !!!
 Donald Norman’s model
• Seven stages
– user establishes the goal
– formulates intention
– specifies actions at interface
– executes action
– perceives system state
– interprets system state
– evaluates system state with respect to goal
• Norman’s model concentrates on user’s view of the
interface.
execution/evaluation loop
goal

execution evaluation
system

• user establishes the goal

• formulates intention
• specifies actions at interface
• executes action
• perceives system state
• interprets system state
• evaluates system state with respect to goal
 Using Norman’s model
Some systems are harder to use than others:

Gulf of Execution
user’s formulation of actions
≠ actions allowed by the system
Gulf of Evaluation
user’s expectation of changed system state

≠ actual presentation of this state

 Human error - slips and mistakes
slip
-understand system and goal
-correct formulation of action
-incorrect action
mistake
-may not even have right goal!
Fixing things?
slip – better interface design
mistake – better understanding of system
 Ergonomics
• Study of the physical characteristics of interaction

• Also known as human factors – but this can also be used

to mean much of HCI!

• Ergonomics good at defining standards and guidelines for

constraining the way we design certain aspects of
systems
 Ergonomics - examples
• arrangement of controls and displays
e.g. controls grouped according to function or frequency of use, or
sequentially
• surrounding environment
• e.g. seating arrangements adaptable to cope with all sizes of user
• health issues
e.g. physical position, environmental conditions (temperature,
humidity, lighting, noise)
• use of colour
e.g. use of red for warning, green for okay,
awareness of colour-blindness etc.
 Common interaction styles
• command line interface
• menus
• natural language
• question/answer and query dialogue
• form-fills and spreadsheets
• WIMP
• point and click
• three–dimensional interfaces
 Context
Interaction affected by social and organizational context

• other people
– desire to impress, competition, fear of failure
• motivation
– fear, allegiance, ambition, self-satisfaction
• inadequate systems
– cause frustration and lack of motivation
Non-Traditional Interaction
• Auditory Interaction
• Vision-Based Interaction
• Multimodal Interaction
• Ubiquitous Computing
• Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
• Mobile Computing
*Not Covered: Olfactory Interface,
Taste Interface
Auditory Interaction
Vision-Based Interaction
Multimodal Interaction
Ubiquitous Computing
Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality
Mobile Computing
Olfactory+Taste Interface
General lesson …
❖ If you want someone
to do something …
– make it easy for them!
– understand their values
Activity Sheet 02
Activity Instructions:
• For a team, make sure to have 4-5
members in a group and create a cool
group name that suitable for your team.
• For an ideation, to understand the
problem and come up with your own
group idea for a project.
• Save your file and submit it to our Google
Classroom.
Assessment 01
• Answer the Multiple Type of
Test via Google Form.
 References
• David Benyon, Phil Turner, Susan Turner Designing Interactive Systems: People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies, Addison Wesley, 2005,
2010, 2014
• Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rogers, Jenny Preece Interaction Design: Beyond Human Computer Interaction John Wiley & Sons, 2002 (20 egz.)
2007, 2011.
• Schneiderman, B., Plaisant C. Designing the user interface. Addison-Wesley. 2004, 2010, 2012
• Holleis, P.,etal (2007) Keystroke-Level Model for Advanced Mobile Phone Interaction, SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems, San Jose, CA, April/May 2007
• Saffer, D. (2006) "Interaction Design Basics" Chapter 3 in Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices
Peachpit Press
• Human Computer Interface Quick Guide. Retrieved from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/human_computer_interface/quick_guide.htm
• Human Computer Interface. Retrieved from http://hcibook.com/
• Having a Bad Day. Retrieved from http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zib2jAuMw_0
 Thank you
and
See you again in
our next Synchronous
Meeting!