AP3299 – Human-Computer Interaction

People and Technology Research Group - PATLAB

Human Computer Interaction

User experience

Cognitive aspects of driving

http://patlab.ucc.ie/

A brief history of HCI

Origins of HCI

• Information processing theories of cognition: thinking is ordered; follows defined processes.

• Psychologists developed models and theories of human thought processes to improve work life.

• Advancement of information processing theories coincides with important work-related developments:• Large-scale post-war industrialisation lead to rapid

industrial automation and the race to dominate space.• Advancements in warfare technology showed humans

beings prone to failure in highly stressful (war) situations.

Origins of HCI

• Introduction of computing systems in the late 1960s and1970s culminated in the introduction of PC.

• Until late 70s, only people who interacted with computers were professionals and computer hobbyists.

• A number of things happened in late 1970s to make usability an achievable target: • developments in computer graphics and information

retrieval that led to the graphical user interface• focus on the issue of usability by both computer scientists

and psychologists who saw it as an area in which they could work together

Early interactions in HCI – Sutherland & Sketchpad, 1963

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57wj8diYpgY

Early interactions in HCI – Engelbart & the mouse, 1964

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7totFRh4g

Early interactions in HCI – Kay & the GUI

What is HCI?

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Human

This is the end-user of program or technology, as well as the other

people the end-user interacts with, such as friends, colleagues, etc.

Computer

This is the machine the program runs on. This can include a desktop,

laptop or mobile device. This is not just a single device anymore, but a

collection of devices split between clients and servers.

Interaction

This is the dialogue between the machine and the end-user: user tells

the computer what he wants, the computer communicates the result.

User Interfaces (UIs) - Software

The user interface allows a human-computer dialogue to take place. They are part of the application that allows the dialogue happen, and can include:

• Menus• Widgets• Toolbars• Pop-up dialogues

User Interfaces (UIs) - Hardware

User interfaces are not only pieces of software, they can also be hardware.

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

HCI is an interdisciplinary field, with two primary strands:

Computer Science

Applied Psychology

What does it have to do with psychology?

• A variety of areas of psychology impact directly on our use of

technology:

• Attention and perception

• Group decision making

• Individual differences

Why is it important?

Think of everything you use technologies for...

Think of all the other activities and interactions this device supports...

HCI tries to understand these activities and these interactions in the

hopes of improving future technologies.

Note how many devices you interact with each day. What is the

longest period you go without this interaction?

How many times are you aware of this interaction – how many times do

you use a piece of technology without consciously knowing?

The idea that computing is everywhere is called ‘ubiquitous computing’.

Quick activity

Now think about how usable these technologies were.

How many have been easy and even enjoyable to use? How many

require a bit of effort but are worth it?

How many are more trouble than they are worth? Each time you use

them you feel like you are reinventing the wheel. They involve you

remembering a complex sequence of steps that are not intuitive.

We have all used devices – maybe the photocopier in college or an old

DVD player – where we must consult the manual or ask for help to use.

This kind of interaction isn’t fun, is it? In fact, it is extremely frustrating.

Note how many times a day you use a device that is:

• Easy to use

• Difficult and frustrating to use

Think about how you dealt with this inferior interaction – kick the

machine, check the manual, stumble on the solution by trial and error,

etc.

Quick activity

What is the point of having a piece of hardware which is

designed for use by people, that is unusable by people?

HCI can help design devices and products that are useful and

useable.

Functionality, usability & experience – McNamara & Kirakowski, 2006

Perspectives in HCI

Human Factors

Human factors research looks at the limitations and capabilities of the individual user to improve the interaction between users and machines.

Studies the interaction between different factors like individuals, environments, equipment, products and services & how we behave within this interaction.

Has primarily centred on the safety of workplaces and design of physical objects.

Human Factors

Cognitive Ergonomics

• Ergonomics - the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system

• Cognitive ergonomics – specialises in studying the relations between people and their work, workplace and technology

• Specialises particularly in studying relations between people and their work, workplace and technology

• Also – study of ways in which people and environment interact and communicate with one another

Cognitive Ergonomics

User-centred design

User-centred design

• User-centred design (UCD) emphasises, at each stage of the design process, the wants, needs, capabilities, and limitations of people as they interact with interfaces, products, and documents

• First proposed by Donald Norman

• UCD aims for a good fit between user and product, through simplified tasks, making interaction and design features visible, making use of people’s natural tendencies to approach objects in particular ways, and designing for the mistakes we make

Experience-Centred Design – what is experience?

The whole of people acting, sensing, thinking, feeling, and meaning making in a setting, including their perception and sensation of their own actions.

The threads of experience - ECD

The compositional thread is concerned with relationships betweenthe parts and the whole of an experience.

The sensual thread is concerned with our sensory engagement witha situation, which orients us to the concrete, palpable, and visceralcharacter of experience, or the immediate sense of a situation.

This emotional thread refers to judgments that ascribe to otherpeople and things importance with respect to our needs and desires.

The spatio-temporal thread refers to the way in which experience isalways embedded in a particular space-time quality.

(McCarthy & Wright, 2004)

Why study HCI?

Why should students study HCI?

1. Companies can gain from understanding customers’ and

their workers experiences with IT.

The implication of bad design for businesses are many – low

productivity, poor employee satisfaction, low customer loyalty, etc.

Why should students study HCI?

2. We can improve our own and other people’s lives by

understanding people’s experiences of technology.

Imagine what you could do with a form video-conferencing that made

you feel like you were there? – Families spread across the world could

be together again, doctors could consult from 1,000km away, meetings

would be alive, e-learning could provide students with the same

experience of engagement as a real class, etc.

Why should students study HCI?

3. Technology is everywhere. Think about it.

We live surrounded by technology. It behoves us to pay more attention

to it, to the things that are left unsaid in our interaction with them, to

the power they hold over us, and us over it. We all have mobile phones,

and most of us have smartphones.

What are the implication of this pervasiveness of computing? Are there

health implications or social issues? What does it mean that Google can

access our e-mails and chats, or the NSA has access to a variety of

Americans’ (and others’) data?

It is important to understand what technology can do and is doing for

us, and how easily we let it.

Think about how often everyday you interact with a technological device or product. Think about how much our lives are subsumed by this use of technology.

Try to list some positives and negatives of this technologically dominated world.

For example, is it a good thing we are always ‘online’, always reachable?

Quick activity

Module overview

• Review of approaches to People and Technology • Experience-centred design • Participatory Design• Usability, standards, and heuristics• Usability Measurement, Evaluation, and Reporting• Forms of online participation (hanging out, messing around,

geeking out)• Mediated communication and community• Social inclusion, development, aging, etc• Health 2.0• The Role of Research in Designing Technology

Learning outcomes

• Evaluate HCI theories, models and methods.

• Appreciate the values entailed in different perspectives on experience-centred design and evaluation.

• Carry out a usability evaluation.

• Appreciate the ethics of human factors research and intervention.

• Discuss psychological research on life online.

• Evaluate the evidence of appropriation and experience of technologies in a variety of settings.