the computer

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
 Interacting with computers

to understand human–computer interaction

… need to understand computers!

what goes in and out

devices, paper,
sensors, etc.

what can it do?

memory, processing,
networks
 A ‘typical’ computer system
?
• screen, or monitor, on which there are windows
• keyboard
• mouse/trackpad
window 1

• variations
window 2
– desktop
– laptop
– PDA

12-37pm

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
 How many …
• computers in your house?
– hands up, …
… none, 1, 2 , 3, more!!

• computers in your pockets?

are you thinking …

… PC, laptop, PDA ??
 How many computers …
in your house? in your pockets?
– PC – PDA
– TV, VCR, DVD, HiFi, – phone, camera
cable/satellite TV – smart card, card with
– microwave, cooker, washing magnetic strip?
machine – electronic car key
– central heating – USB memory
– security system

try your pockets and bags

can you think of more?
 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

sensors
and devices
everywhere
text entry devices
•keyboards (QWERTY et al.)
•chord keyboards,
•phone pads
•handwriting,
• speech
 Keyboards
• Most common text input device.
• Allows rapid entry of text by experienced
users.

• Keypress closes connection, causing a

character code to be sent.
• Usually connected by cable, but can be
wireless.
 layout – QWERTY
• Standardised layout
but …
– non-alphanumeric keys are placed differently
– accented symbols needed for different scripts
– minor differences between UK and USA keyboards

• QWERTY arrangement not optimal for typing

– layout to prevent typewriters jamming!

• Alternative designs allow faster typing but large social base of

QWERTY typists produces reluctance to change.
 QWERTY (ctd)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L
Z X C V B N M , .
SPACE
 alternative keyboard layouts
Alphabetic
– keys arranged in alphabetic order
– not faster for trained typists
– not faster for beginners either!

Dvorak
– common letters under dominant fingers
– biased towards right hand
– common combinations of letters alternate between
hands
– 10-15% improvement in speed and reduction in fatigue
– But - large social base of QWERTY typists produce
market pressures not to change
 special keyboards
• designs to reduce fatigue for RSI
• for one handed use
e.g. the Maltron left-handed keyboard
 Chord keyboards
only a few keys - four or 5
letters typed as combination of keypresses
compact size
– ideal for portable applications
short learning time
– keypresses reflect letter shape
fast
– once you have trained

BUT - social resistance, plus fatigue after extended use

NEW – niche market for some wearables
 phone pad and T9 entry
• use numeric keys with
multiple presses
2–abc 6-mno
3-def 7-pqrs
4-ghi 8-tuv
5-jkl 9-wxyz
hello = 4433555[pause]555666
surprisingly fast!

• T9 predictive entry
– type as if single key for each letter
– use dictionary to ‘guess’ the right word
– hello = 43556 …
– but 26 -> menu ‘am’ or ‘an’
 Handwriting recognition
• Text can be input into the computer, using a pen and a digesting
tablet
– natural interaction

• Technical problems:
– capturing all useful information - stroke path, pressure, etc. in a natural
manner
– segmenting joined up writing into individual letters
– interpreting individual letters
– coping with different styles of handwriting

• Used in PDAs, and tablet computers …

… leave the keyboard on the desk!
 Speech recognition
• Improving rapidly

• Most successful when:

– single user – initial training and learns peculiarities
– limited vocabulary systems

• Problems with
– external noise interfering
– imprecision of pronunciation
– large vocabularies
– different speakers
 Numeric keypads
• for entering numbers quickly:
– calculator, PC keyboard
• for telephones
1 2 3 7 8 9
not the same!! 4 5 6 4 5 6
7 8 9 1 2 3
ATM like phone 0 # 0 . =
*
telephone calculator
positioning, pointing and drawing
•mouse,
•Touchpad
•trackballs,
•joysticks etc.
•touch screens,
•tablets eyegaze,
•cursors
 the Mouse
• Handheld pointing device
– very common
– easy to use

• Two characteristics
– planar movement
– buttons
(usually from 1 to 3 buttons on top, used for making a
selection, indicating an option, or to initiate drawing
etc.)
 the mouse (ctd)
Mouse located on desktop
– requires physical space
– no arm fatigue

Relative movement only is detectable.

Movement of mouse moves screen cursor
Screen cursor oriented in (x, y) plane,
mouse movement in (x, z) plane …
… an indirect manipulation device.
– device itself doesn’t obscure screen, is accurate and fast.
– hand-eye coordination problems for novice users
 How does it work?
Two methods for detecting motion

• Mechanical
– Ball on underside of mouse turns as mouse is moved
– Rotates orthogonal potentiometers
– Can be used on almost any flat surface

• Optical
– light emitting diode on underside of mouse
– may use special grid-like pad or just on desk
– less susceptible to dust and dirt
– detects fluctuating alterations in reflected light intensity to calculate
relative motion in (x, z) plane
 Even by foot …
• some experiments with the footmouse
– controlling mouse movement with feet …
– not very common :-)

• but foot controls are common elsewhere:

– car pedals
– sewing machine speed control
– organ and piano pedals
 Touchpad
• small touch sensitive tablets
• ‘stroke’ to move mouse pointer
• used mainly in laptop computers

• good ‘acceleration’ settings important

– fast stroke
• lots of pixels per inch moved
• initial movement to the target
– slow stroke
• less pixels per inch
• for accurate positioning
 Trackball and thumbwheels
Trackball
– ball is rotated inside static housing
• like an upsdie down mouse!
– relative motion moves cursor
– indirect device, fairly accurate
– separate buttons for picking
– very fast for gaming
– used in some portable and notebook computers.

Thumbwheels …
– for accurate CAD – two dials for X-Y cursor position
– for fast scrolling – single dial on mouse
 Joystick and keyboard nipple
Joystick
– indirect
pressure of stick = velocity of movement
– buttons for selection
on top or on front like a trigger
– often used for computer games
aircraft controls and 3D navigation

Keyboard nipple
– for laptop computers
– miniature joystick in the middle of the keyboard
 Touch-sensitive screen
• Detect the presence of finger or stylus on the screen.
– works by interrupting matrix of light beams, capacitance changes or
ultrasonic reflections
– direct pointing device

• Advantages:
– fast, and requires no specialised pointer
– good for menu selection
– suitable for use in hostile environment: clean and safe from damage.

• Disadvantages:
– finger can mark screen
– imprecise (finger is a fairly blunt instrument!)
• difficult to select small regions or perform accurate
drawing
– lifting arm can be tiring
 Stylus and light pen
Stylus
– small pen-like pointer to draw directly on screen
– may use touch sensitive surface or magnetic detection
– used in PDA, tablets PCs and drawing tables

Light Pen
– now rarely used
– uses light from screen to detect location

BOTH …
– very direct and obvious to use
– but can obscure screen
 Digitizing tablet
• Mouse like-device with cross hairs

• used on special surface

- rather like stylus

• very accurate
- used for digitizing maps
•
Eyegaze
control interface by eye gaze direction
– e.g. look at a menu item to select it

• uses laser beam reflected off retina

– … a very low power laser!

• mainly used for evaluation (ch x)

• potential for hands-free control

• high accuracy requires headset

• cheaper and lower accuracy devices available

sit under the screen like a small webcam
 Cursor keys
• Four keys (up, down, left, right) on keyboard.
• Very, very cheap, but slow.
• Useful for not much more than basic motion for text-editing
tasks.
• No standardised layout, but inverted “T”, most common
 Discrete positioning controls
• in phones, TV controls etc.
– cursor pads or mini-joysticks
– discrete left-right, up-down
– mainly for menu selection
 display devices

bitmap screens (CRT & LCD)

large & situated displays
digital paper
 bitmap displays
• screen is vast number of coloured dots
 resolution and colour depth
• Resolution … used (inconsistently) for
– number of pixels on screen (width x height)
• e.g. SVGA 1024 x 768, PDA perhaps 240x400
– density of pixels (in pixels or dots per inch - dpi)
• typically between 72 and 96 dpi
• Aspect ratio
– ration between width and height
– 4:3 for most screens, 16:9 for wide-screen TV
• Colour depth:
– how many different colours for each pixel?
– black/white or greys only
– 256 from a palette
– 8 bits each for red/green/blue = millions of colours
 anti-aliasing
Jaggies
– diagonal lines that have discontinuities in due to horizontal
raster scan process(most common method of displaying images on the CRT
screen)

Anti-aliasing
– softens edges by using shades of line colour
– also used for text
 Cathode ray tube
• Stream of electrons emitted from electron gun, focused and
directed by magnetic fields, hit phosphor-coated screen which
glows.

• used in TVs and computer monitors.

electron beam

electron gun

focussing and
deflection

phosphor-
coated screen
•
Health hazards of CRT
X-rays: largely absorbed by screen (but not at rear!)
!
• UV- and IR-radiation from phosphors: insignificant levels

• Radio frequency emissions, plus ultrasound (~16kHz)

• Electrostatic field - leaks out through tube to user. Intensity dependant on

distance and humidity.

• Can cause rashes.

• Electromagnetic fields (50Hz-0.5MHz).

• Create induction currents in conductive materials, including the human body.

• Two types of effects attributed to this: visual system - high incidence of

cataracts in VDU operators, and concern over reproductive disorders
(miscarriages and birth defects).
 Health hints …
• do not sit too close to the screen

• do not use very small fonts

• do not look at the screen for long periods without a break

• do not place the screen directly in front of a bright window

• work in well-lit surroundings

 Take extra care if pregnant.

but also posture, ergonomics, stress
 Liquid crystal displays
• Smaller, lighter, and … no radiation problems.

• Found on PDAs, portables and notebooks,

… and increasingly on desktop and even for home TV

• also used in dedicated displays:

digital watches, mobile phones, HiFi controls

• How it works …
– Top plate transparent and polarised, bottom plate reflecting.
– Light passes through top plate and crystal, and reflects back to eye.
– Voltage applied to crystal changes polarisation and hence colour
– N.B. light reflected not emitted => less eye strain
 special displays
Random Scan (Directed-beam refresh, vector display)
– draw the lines to be displayed directly
– no jaggies
– lines need to be constantly redrawn
– rarely used except in special instruments

Direct view storage tube (DVST)

– Similar to random scan but persistent => no flicker
– Can be incrementally updated but not selectively
erased
– Used in analogue storage oscilloscopes
 large displays
• used for meetings, lectures, etc.
• technology
plasma – usually wide screen
video walls – lots of small screens together
projected– RGB lights or LCD projector
– hand/body obscures screen
– may be solved by 2 projectors + clever software
back-projected
– frosted glass + projector behind
 situated displays
• displays in ‘public’ places
– large or small
– very public or for small group
• display only
– for information relevant to location
• or interactive
– use stylus, touch sensitive screen
• in all cases … the location matters
– meaning of information or interaction is related
to the location
 Hermes a situated display
• small displays beside office doors
• handwritten notes left using stylus
• office
small owner reads notes using web interface
displays
beside
office doors

handwritten office owner

notes left reads notes
using stylus using web interface
 Digital paper
• what? appearance

– thin flexible sheets

– updated electronically
cross
– but retain display section

• how?
– small spheres turned
– or channels with coloured liquid
and contrasting spheres
– rapidly developing area
virtual reality and 3D interaction

positioning in 3D space
moving and grasping
seeing 3D (helmets and caves)
 positioning in 3D space
• cockpit and virtual controls
– steering wheels, knobs and dials … just like real!
• the 3D mouse
– six-degrees of movement: x, y, z + roll, pitch, yaw
• data glove
– fibre optics used to detect finger position
• VR helmets
– detect head motion and possibly eye gaze
• whole body tracking
– accelerometers strapped to limbs or reflective
dots and video processing
 pitch, yaw and roll

yaw

roll
pitch
 3D displays
• desktop VR
– ordinary screen, mouse or keyboard control
– perspective and motion give 3D effect
• seeing in 3D
– use stereoscopic vision
– VR helmets
– screen plus shuttered specs, etc.

also see extra slides on 3D vision

 VR headsets
• small TV screen for each eye
• slightly different angles
• 3D effect
 VR motion sickness
• time delay
– move head … lag … display moves
– conflict: head movement vs. eyes
• depth perception
– headset gives different stereo distance
– but all focused in same plane
– conflict: eye angle vs. focus
• conflicting cues => sickness
– helps motivate improvements in technology
 simulators and VR caves
• scenes projected on walls
• realistic environment
• hydraulic rams!
• real controls
• other people
physical controls, sensors etc.
special displays and gauges
sound, touch, feel, smell
physical controls
environmental and bio-sensing
 dedicated displays
• analogue representations:
– dials, gauges, lights, etc.

• digital displays:
– small LCD screens, LED lights, etc.

• head-up displays
– found in aircraft cockpits
– show most important controls
… depending on context
 Sounds
• beeps, bongs, clonks, whistles and whirrs

• used for error indications

• confirmation of actions e.g. Keyclick

 Touch, feel, smell
• touch and feeling important
– in games … vibration, force feedback
– in simulation … feel of surgical instruments
– called haptic devices

• texture, smell, taste

– current technology very limited
 BMW iDrive
• for controlling menus
• feel small ‘bumps’ for each item
• makes it easier to select options by feel
• uses haptic technology from Immersion Corp.
 physical controls
• specialist controls needed …
– industrial controls, consumer products, etc.

easy-clean
smooth buttons

multi-function
control
large buttons
clear dials

tiny buttons
Environment and bio-sensing
• sensors all around us
– car courtesy light – small switch on door
– ultrasound detectors – security, washbasins
– RFID security tags in shops
– temperature, weight, location

• … and even our own bodies …

– iris scanners, body temperature, heart rate,
galvanic skin response, blink rate
paper: printing and scanning

print technology
fonts, page description, WYSIWYG
scanning, OCR
 Printing
• image made from small dots
– allows any character set or graphic to be printed,
• critical features:
– resolution
• size and spacing of the dots
• measured in dots per inch (dpi)
– speed
• usually measured in pages per minute
– cost!!
 Types of dot-based printers
• dot-matrix printers
– use inked ribbon (like a typewriter
– line of pins that can strike the ribbon, dotting the paper.
– typical resolution 80-120 dpi

• ink-jet and bubble-jet printers

– tiny blobs of ink sent from print head to paper
– typically 300 dpi or better .

• laser printer
– like photocopier: dots of electrostatic charge deposited on drum,
which picks up toner (black powder form of ink) rolled onto paper
which is then fixed with heat
– typically 600 dpi or better.
 Printing in the workplace
• shop tills
– dot matrix
– same print head used for several paper rolls
– may also print cheques

• thermal printers
– special heat-sensitive paper
– paper heated by pins makes a dot
– poor quality, but simple & low maintenance
– used in some fax machines
 Fonts
• Font – the particular style of text
Courier font
Helvetica font
Palatino font
Times Roman font
•  (special symbol)

• Size of a font measured in points (1 pt about 1/72”)

(vaguely) related to its height
This is ten point Helvetica
This is twelve point
This is fourteen point
This is eighteen point
and this is twenty-four point
 Fonts (ctd)
Pitch
– fixed-pitch – every character has the same width
e.g. Courier
– variable-pitched – some characters wider
e.g. Times Roman – compare the ‘i’ and the “m”
Serif or Sans-serif
– sans-serif – square-ended strokes
e.g. Helvetica
– serif – with splayed ends (such as)
e.g. Times Roman or Palatino
 Readability of text
• lowercase
– easy to read shape of words
• UPPERCASE
– better for individual letters and non-words
e.g. flight numbers: BA793 vs. ba793

• serif fonts
– helps your eye on long lines of printed text
– but sans serif often better on screen
 Page Description Languages
• Pages very complex
– different fonts, bitmaps, lines, digitised photos, etc.

• Can convert it all into a bitmap and send to the printer

… but often huge !

• Alternatively Use a page description language

– sends a description of the page can be sent,
– instructions for curves, lines, text in different styles, etc.
– like a programming language for printing!

• PostScript is the most common

 Screen and page
• WYSIWYG
– what you see is what you get
– aim of word processing, etc.
• but …
– screen: 72 dpi, landscape image
– print: 600+ dpi, portrait
• can try to make them similar
but never quite the same
• so … need different designs, graphics etc, for
screen and print
 Scanners
• Take paper and convert it into a bitmap

• Two sorts of scanner

– flat-bed: paper placed on a glass plate, whole page
converted into bitmap
– hand-held: scanner passed over paper, digitising
strip typically 3-4” wide

• Shines light at paper and note intensity of reflection

– colour or greyscale

• Typical resolutions from 600–2400 dpi

 Scanners (ctd)
Used in
– desktop publishing for incorporating
photographs and other images
– document storage and retrieval systems, doing
away with paper storage
+ special scanners for slides and photographic
negatives
 Optical character recognition
• OCR converts bitmap back into text
• different fonts
– create problems for simple “template matching”
algorithms
– more complex systems segment text,
decompose it into lines and arcs, and decipher
characters that way
• page format
– columns, pictures, headers and footers
 Paper-based interaction
• paper usually regarded as output only

• can be input too – OCR, scanning, etc.

• Xerox PaperWorks
– glyphs – small patterns of /\\//\\\
• used to identify forms etc.
• used with scanner and fax to control applications

• more recently
– papers micro printed - like watermarks
• identify which sheet and where you are
– special ‘pen’ can read locations
• know where they are writing
 memory

short term and long term

speed, capacity, compression
formats, access
 Short-term Memory - RAM
• Random access memory (RAM)
– on silicon chips
– 100 nano-second access time
– usually volatile (lose information if power turned
off)
– data transferred at around 100 Mbytes/sec

• Some non-volatile RAM used to store basic set-up

information

• Typical desktop computers:

64 to 256 Mbytes RAM
 Long-term Memory - disks
• magnetic disks
– floppy disks store around 1.4 Mbytes
– hard disks typically 40 Gbytes to 100s of Gbytes
access time ~10ms, transfer rate 100kbytes/s

• optical disks
– use lasers to read and sometimes write
– more robust than magnetic media
– CD-ROM
- same technology as home audio, ~ 600
Gbytes
– DVD - for AV applications, or very large files
 Blurring boundaries
• PDAs
– often use RAM for their main memory

• Flash-Memory
– used in PDAs, cameras etc.
– silicon based but persistent
– plug-in USB devices for data transfer
 speed and capacity
• what do the numbers mean?

• some sizes (all uncompressed) …

– this book, text only ~ 320,000 words, 2Mb
– the Bible ~ 4.5 Mbytes
– scanned page ~ 128 Mbytes
• (11x8 inches, 1200 dpi, 8bit greyscale)
– digital photo ~ 10 Mbytes
• (2–4 mega pixels, 24 bit colour)
– video ~ 10 Mbytes per second
• (512x512, 12 bit colour, 25 frames per sec)
 virtual memory
• Problem:
– running lots of programs + each program large
– not enough RAM

• Solution - Virtual memory :

– store some programs temporarily on disk
– makes RAM appear bigger

• But … swapping
– program on disk needs to run again
– copied from disk to RAM
–slows t h i n g s d o w n
 Compression
• reduce amount of storage required
• lossless
– recover exact text or image – e.g. GIF, ZIP
– look for commonalities:
• text: AAAAAAAAAABBBBBCCCCCCCC 10A5B8C
• video: compare successive frames and store change
• lossy
– recover something like original – e.g. JPEG, MP3
– exploit perception
• JPEG: lose rapid changes and some colour
• MP3: reduce accuracy of drowned out notes
 Storage formats - text
• ASCII - 7-bit binary code for to each letter and
character
• UTF-8 - 8-bit encoding of 16 bit character set
• RTF (rich text format)
- text plus formatting and layout information
• SGML (standardized generalised markup language)
- documents regarded as structured objects
• XML (extended markup language)
- simpler version of SGML for web
applications
 Storage formats - media
• Images:
– many storage formats :
(PostScript, GIFF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT, etc.)
– plus different compression techniques
(to reduce their storage requirements)

• Audio/Video
– again lots of formats :
(QuickTime, MPEG, WAV, etc.)
– compression even more important
– also ‘streaming’ formats for network delivery
 methods of access
• large information store
– long time to search => use index
– what you index -> what you can access

• simple index needs exact match

• forgiving systems:
– Xerox “do what I mean” (DWIM)
– SOUNDEX – McCloud ~ MacCleod
• access without structure …
– free text indexing (all the words in a document)
– needs lots of space!!
processing and networks
finite speed (but also Moore’s law)
limits of interaction
networked computing
 Finite processing speed
• Designers tend to assume fast processors, and make interfaces
more and more complicated.

• But problems occur, because processing cannot keep up with all

the tasks it needs to do
– cursor overshooting because system has buffered
keypresses
– icon wars - user clicks on icon, nothing happens,
clicks on another, then system responds and
windows fly everywhere

• Also problems if system is too fast - e.g. help screens may scroll
through text much too rapidly to be read
 Moore’s law
• computers get faster and faster!
• 1965 …
– Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, noticed a pattern
– processor speed doubles every 18 months
– PC … 1987: 1.5 Mhz, 2002: 1.5 GHz
• similar pattern for memory
– but doubles every 12 months!!
– hard disk … 1991: 20Mbyte : 2002: 30 Gbyte
• baby born today
– record all sound and vision
– by 70 all life’s memories stored in a grain of dust!

/e3/online/moores-law/
 the myth of the infinitely
fast machine

• implicit assumption … no delays

an infinitely fast machine
• what is good design for real machines?
• good example … the telephone :
– type keys too fast
– hear tones as numbers sent down the line
– actually an accident of implementation
– emulate in deisgn
 Limitations on interactive performance
Computation bound
– Computation takes ages, causing frustration for the user
Storage channel bound
– Bottleneck in transference of data from disk to memory
Graphics bound
– Common bottleneck: updating displays requires a lot of
effort - sometimes helped by adding a graphics co-
processor optimised to take on the burden
Network capacity
– Many computers networked - shared resources and files,
access to printers etc. - but interactive performance can
be reduced by slow network speed
 Networked computing
Networks allow access to …
– large memory and processing
– other people (groupware, email)
– shared resources – esp. the web

Issues
– network delays – slow feedback
– conflicts - many people update data
– unpredictability
 The internet
• history …
– 1969: ARPANET US DoD, 4 sites
– 1971: 23; 1984: 1000; 1989: 10000
• common language (protocols):
– TCP – Transmission Control protocol
• lower level, packets (like letters) between machines
– IP – Internet Protocol
• reliable channel (like phone call) between programs
on machines
– email, HTTP, all build on top of these