Topics for Prelim Period

INTRODUCTION
TO HCI:
HUMAN COMPUTER
INTERACTION

Dr. Earl Marquez Albina

Class Goals
 Motivate the field of HCI
 Learn
 Basics of interface design
 Evaluation of interfaces
 HCI research problems
 HCI community (conferences and people)
Why take this course?
 Build your portfolio
 Work on a project you’ve always wanted
 Study a unique topic
 A computer science course focused on users
 Skill building
 Important in most research
 Burgeoning job field
Definition of HCI
 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 Curricula for HCI (Hewett et al.

1992)
 http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html
Definition of HCI

It involves the study,

planning, and design of
the interaction between
people and computers.
Interaction

The act or process

of interacting.
Levels of Interaction

1. task
2. semantic
3. syntactic
4. lexical
 System

A set of detailed methods,

procedures, and routines
established or formulated to carry
out a specific activity, perform a
duty, or solve a problem.
Why HCI is Important
 The study of our interface with information.
 It is not just ‘how big should I make buttons’ or ‘how to
layout menu choices’
 It can affect
 Effectiveness
 Productivity
 Morale
 Safety
 Example: a car with poor HCI
 Take 5 minutes for everyone to write down one common
device with substantial HCI design choices and discuss with
the neighbor the pros and cons. How does it affect you or
other users?
My Choice
 iPod by Apple
Computers
 Pros:
 portable
 power
 ease of use
 # of controls
 Cons:
 scratches easily
 no speech for car use
 proprietary
What fields does HCI cover?
 Computer Science
 Psychology (cognitive)
 Communication
 Education
 Anthropology
 Design (e.g. graphic and industrial)
HCI Community
 Academics/Industry Research
 Taxonomies
 Theories
 Predictive models
 Experimenters
 Empirical data
 Product design
 Other areas (Sociologists,
anthropologists, managers)
 Motor
 Perceptual
 Cognitive
 Social, economic, ethics
HCI Tools
 Sound
 3D
 Animation
 Video
 Devices
 Size (small->very large)
 Portable (PDA, phone)
 Plasticity
 Context sensitive/aware
 Personalizable
 Ubiquitous
Usability Requirements
 Goals:
 Usability
 Universality
 Usefulness
 Achieved by:
 Planning
 Sensitivity to user needs
 Devotion to requirements
analysis
 Testing
Bad Interfaces
 Encumbering
 Confusing
 Slow
 Trust (ex. windows
crashing)
 What makes it hard?
 Varies by culture
 Multiple platforms
 Variety of users
 What’s wrong with each?
 Type of error
 Who is affected
 Impact
 What’s a redesign solution?
Requirements Analysis
1. Ascertain users’ needs
2. Ensure proper reliability
3. Promote appropriate standardization, integration,
consistency, and portability
4. Complete projects on schedule and within budget
Ascertain User’s Needs
 Define tasks
 Tasks
 Subtasks
 Frequency
 Frequent
 Occasional
 Exceptional
 Repair
 Ex. difference between a space satellite,
car engine, and fighter jet
Reliability
 Actions function as specified
 Data displayed must be correct
 Updates done correctly
 Leads to trust! (software,
hardware, information) – case:
Pentium floating point bug
 Privacy, security, access, data
destruction, tampering
Standardization, Integration,
Consistency, Portability
 Standardization – common user-interface features across
multiple applications
 Apple
 Web
 Windows
 Integration – across application packages
 file formats
 Consistency – common action sequences, terms, units,
layouts, color, typography within an application
 Portability – convert data and interfaces across multiple
hardware and software environments
 Word/HTML/PDF/ASCII
Case Study: Library of Congress
Database Design
 http://catalog.loc.gov/
 Two interfaces
 Catalog New Books
 3-6 hour training course - staffers
 Search Catalog of Books
 General public – too complex, command language and complex cataloging
rules
 Solution
 Touch screen
 Reduced functionality
 Better information presentation
 Eventually Web based interface
 Same database and services, different interfaces
Usability Measures
 How can we measure the ‘goodness’ of
an interface?
 What are good metrics?
 ISO 9241
 Effectiveness
 Efficiency
 Satisfaction
 Schneiderman
 Time to learn
 Speed of performance
 Rate of errors
 Retention over time
 Subjective satisfaction
 •Time to learn
•Speed of performance
Usability Motivations •Rate of errors
•Retention over time
•Subjective satisfaction
 Life-Critical systems
 Applications: air traffic, nuclear reactors, military, emergency dispatch
 Requirements: reliability and effective (even under stress)
 Not as important: cost, long training, satisfaction, retention
 Industrial and Commercial Use
 Applications: banking, insurance, inventory, reservations
 Requirements: short training, ease of use/learning, multiple languages,
adapt to local cultures, multiplatform, speed
 Office, Home, and Entertainment
 Applications: E-mail, ATMs, games, education, search engines, cell
phones/PDA
 Requirements: Ease of learning/use/retention, error rates, satisfaction
 Difficulties: cost, size
 •Time to learn
•Speed of performance
Usability Motivations •Rate of errors
•Retention over time
•Subjective satisfaction
 Exploratory, Creative, Collaborative
 Applications: Web browsing, search engines, simulations,
scientific visualization, CAD, computer graphics, music
composition/artist, photo arranger (email photos)
 Requirements: remove the ‘computer’ from the
experience,
 Difficulties: user tech savvy-ness (apply this to application
examples)
 Socio-technical systems
 Applications: health care, voting, police
 Requirements: Trust, security, accuracy, veracity, error
handling, user tech-savy-ness
Universal Usability
 Interface should handle diversity of users
 Backgrounds
 Abilities
 Motivation
 Personalities
 Cultures
 Question, how would you design an
interface to a database differently for:
 A. right-handed female, Indian, software
engineer, technology savvy, wants rapid
interaction
 B. left-handed male, French, artist
Universal Usability
 Does not mean ‘dumbing down’
 Ex. Helping disabled has helped others
(parents w/ strollers, elderly)
 Ex. Door handles
 Goal: Address the needs of more
users - unlike yourself!
 Everyone is often not at full faculties
at all times
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
 chair height, back height, display angle
 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
 Drugs/alcohol
Personality
 Computer anxiety
 Gender
 Which games do women like?
 Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Tetris
 Why? (Hypotheses: less violent, quieter
soundtracks, fully visible playing fields,
softer colors, personality,
closure/completeness)
 Can we measure this?
 What current games are for women?
 Style, pace, top-down/bottom-up,
visual/audio learners, dense vs.
sparse data
Personality
 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
 Think about your application, and
see if user personality is important!
 Fighter jets vs. search engines
Cultural and International Diversity
 Language
 Date / Time conventions
 Weights and Measures
 Left-to-right
 Directions (!)
 Telephone #s and addresses
 Names, titles, salutations
 SSN, ID, passport
 Sorting
 Icons, buttons, colors
 Etiquette
 Evaluation:
 Local experts/usability studies
 Users with Disabilities
 Federal law to ensure access to IT, including computers and web
sites. (1998 Amendment to Rehabilitation Act)
 Disabilities
 Vision
 Blind (bill-reader)
 low-vision
 color-blind
 Hearing
 Deaf
 Limited hearing
 Mobility
 Learning
 Dyslexia
 Attention deficient, hemisphere specific, etc.
 Keyboard and mouse alternatives
 Color coding
 Font-size
Users with Disabilities
 Contrast
 Text descriptors for web
images
 Screen magnification
 Text to Speech (TTS) – JAWS
(web pages)
 Check email on the road, in
bright sunshine, riding a bike
 Speech Recognition
 Head mounted optical mice
Users with Disabilities
 Eye Gaze control
 Learning what helps those with
disabilities affects everyone
 Present procedures, directions, and
instructions accessible to even poor
readers
 Design feedback sequences that
explain the reason for error and help
put users on the right track
 Reinforcement techniques with other
devices
 Good target area for a final project!
Elderly
 Reduced
 Motor skills
 Perception
 Vision, hearing, touch, mobility
 Speed
 Memory
 Other needs
 Technology experience is varied (How
many grandmothers use email? mothers?)
 Uninformed on how technology could help
them
 Practice skills (hand-eye, problem solving,
etc.)
 Touch screens, larger fonts, louder
sounds
Children
 Technology saviness?
 Age changes much:
 Physical dexterity
 (double-clicking, click and drag, and small targets)
 Attention span
 (vaguely) Intelligence
 Varied backgrounds (socio-economic)
 Goals
 Educational acceleration
 Socialization with peers
 Psychological - improve self-image, self-confidence
 Creativity – art, music, etc. exploration
Children
 Teenagers are a special group
 Next generation
 Beta test new interfaces, trends
 Cell phones, text messages, simulations, fantasy games,
virtual worlds
 Requires Safety
 They
 Like exploring (easy to reset state)
 Don’t mind making mistakes
 Like familiar characters and repetition (ever had to babysit a
kid with an Ice Age DVD?)
 Don’t like patronizing comments, inappropriate humor
 Design: Focus groups
Accommodating Hardware and
Software Diversity
 Support a wide range of hardware and software
platforms
 Software and hardware evolution
 OS, application, browsers, capabilities
 backward compatibility is a good goal
 Three major technical challenges are:
 Producing satisfying and effective Internet interaction
(broadband vs. dial-up & wireless)
 Enabling web services from large to small (size and
resolution)
 Support easy maintenance of or automatic conversion to
multiple languages
 HCI Goals
 Influence academic and industrial researchers
 Understand a problem and related theory
 Hypothesis and testing
 Study design (we’ll do this!)
 Interpret results
 Provide tools, techniques and knowledge for commercial
developers
 competitive advantage (think ipod)
 Raising the computer consciousness of the general public
 Reduce computer anxiety (error messages)
 Common fears:
 I’ll break it
 I’ll make a mistake
 The computer is smarter than me
 HCI contributes to this!
Near & Future Interfaces
•Time to learn

•Speed of performance

 Let’s review •Rate of errors

 Minority Report
•Retention over time
 Steel Battalion
 Eye Toy •Subjective satisfaction
 Dance Dance Revolution
 Nintendo Wii