What is HCI and where does GUI design fit in?

1. What is HCI and where does GUI design fit in? Lecture 1 CSE3030

2. Outcomes of the lecture • Be able to describe the field of HCI • Be able to argue whether or not specific subjects should fall within the field • Understand how the design of graphical interfaces fit within the broader field of HCI

3. HCI defined • 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 • This is a ‘working definition’ • From the ACM SIGCHI (Association of Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group for Human-Computer Interaction)

4. What is and isn’t HCI? • On the H side? • On the C side?

5. Three Mile Island

6. The Control Panel

7. Palm Beach Ballot

9. Beyond intuition • Human-machine system designers cannot just rely on intuition – too many complex factors are operating. • Instead, need to look to: • High level theories/models/principles • Middle level principles • Specific & practical guidelines

10. HCI principles • General design principles involve being aware of, and catering to, human abilities, skills and differences (human factors). These apply to design of any human-machine system e.g. cars, playgrounds, lifts, phones, computers. • Designing human-computer interaction is a particular area of human factors design with specific principles and guidelines. • Designing user interfaces is specific area of HCI and concerns general principles & low level concerns.

11. HCI: Three basic principles • People want ease of use – usually provided by simplicity and transfer of existing experience. • The user view is different to the system engineers view. Often engineers design systems to perform a set of functions rather than with the user in mind. • Computers and people are both better at some tasks than others – however they are better at different tasks.

12. Human factors • Invention of machines (cars, airplanes, electronic devices ...) taxed people’s sensorimotor abilities to control them. • Even after high degree of training, frequent errors (often fatal) occurred. • Result: human factors became critically important.

13. Human factors • However, designers still often consider cost and appearance over human factors design. • People tend to blame themselves when errors occur: • “I was never very good with machines” • “I knew I should have read the manual!” • “Look at what I did! Do I feel stupid!” • Bad design not always visible, but sometimes it is very obvious!

14. Human factors • How many of you can program or use all aspects of your: • digital watch? Fax machines? • VCR? • stereo system (especially car stereos) • unfamiliar water taps? • “..no need to understand the underlying physics ..(or code) of everything …simply the relationship between the controls and the outcomes” - Donald Norman – “The design of everyday things”

15. Related Fields • Computer science • application design and engineering of human interfaces • Psychology • the application of theories of cognitive processes and the empirical analysis of user behavior • Sociology and anthropology • interactions between technology, work, and organization • Industrial design • interactive products

16. Design process • Important to consider the What, Why and How of design process for an application before you even begin to think about the interface, coding, etc. • User needs and usability goals must be addressed at the beginning of the design process. Designers can make incorrect assumptions about the requirements.

17. WAP mobile phone example • People want to be kept informed of up-to-date news wherever they are - reasonable • People want to interact with information on the move - reasonable • People are happy using a very small display and using an extremely restricted interface - unreasonable • People will be happy doing things on a cell phone that they normally do on their PCs (e.g. surf the web, read email, shop, bet, play video games) - reasonable only for a very select bunch of users • See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001210.html

18. User needs & usability • 63% of large software projects go over cost • Managers gave four usability-related reasons • users requested changes • overlooked tasks • users did not understand their own requirements • insufficient user-developer communication and understanding (Greenberg, 2001)

19. Human factors Norman – “Design of everyday things” • Most failures of human-machine system are due to poor designs that don’t recognize peoples’ capabilities and fallibility's • This leads to apparent machine misuse and “human error” • Good design always accounts for human capabilities.

20. Darn these hooves! I hit the wrong switch again!Who designs these instrument panels, raccoons?

21. Human characteristics Designer must take into account variations in human senses and motor abilities: • Vision – e.g. depth, contrast, colour blindness, and motion sensitivity. • Hearing - e.g. audio cues must be distinct. • Touch: e.g. keyboard and touchscreen sensitivity. • Motor control/ hand-eye coordination e.g use of pointing devices. • Physical strength, coordination.

22. Cognitive and perceptual abilities There are many aspects to human cognitive abilities. For example: • short-term memory • long-term memory and learning • problem solving, decision making • attention and set (scope of concern) • perception & recognition

23. from Science magazine • In 1988, the Soviet Union’s Phobos 1 satellite was lost on its way to Mars, when it went into a tumble from which it never recovered.“not long after the launch, a ground controller omitted a single letter in a series of digital commands sent to the spacecraft. And by malignant bad luck, that omission caused the code to be mistranslated in such a way as to trigger the [ROM] test sequence [that was intended to be used only during checkout of the spacecraft on the ground]”

24. Factors affecting cognitive, perceptual & motor performance • Arousal, vigilance, fatigue • Cognitive (mental) load • Boredom, isolation, sensory deprivation • Anxiety and fear • Illness, ageing • Drugs and alcohol • Circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation

25. Personality factors • There is no single taxonomy for identifying user personality types. • Designers must be aware that populations are subdivided and that these subdivisions have various responses to different stimuli. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) • extroversion versus introversion • sensing versus intuition • perceptive versus judging • feeling versus thinking

26. Awareness of cultural and international diversity • Characters, numerals, special characters, grammar, spelling • L-to-r vs r-to-l vs vertical input & reading • Date and time formats • Numeric and currency formats • Telephone numbers and addresses • Names and titles (Mr., Ms., Mme.) • Social-security, national id & passport numbers • Etiquette, policies, tone, formality, metaphors

27. Which are universal and which are culturally-specific?

28. Users with disabilities • Need to plan early to accommodate users with disabilities as costs may be very high later • Some countries have laws which specify requirements to comply with equal opportunity legislation http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20011111.html http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/

29. Current Computing Systems • Human factors and HCI design impact on all of the large variety of current and emerging computer systems. • However, the impact of various human factors and design decisions depends on the nature of the system.

30. System types: Critical systems Examples: air traffic control, nuclear reactors: • High costs, reliability and effectiveness are expected. • Lengthy training periods are acceptable to provide error-free performance. • Subject satisfaction is less an issue due to well motivated users. Retention via frequent use and practice.

31. Systems types: Commercial/industrial Examples: banking, production control, banking, insurance, order entry, inventory management, reservation, billing, and point-of-sales systems: • Lower cost may sacrifice reliability. • Training is expensive, learning must be easy. • Speed and error rates are relative to cost, however speed is the supreme concern. Subject satisfaction is fairly important to limit operator burnout.

32. System types: Office/home/entertainment Examples: Word processing, electronic mail, computer conferencing, and video games, education: • Choosing functionality is difficult because the population has a wide range of both novice and expert users. • Competition causes the need for low cost. • Subject satisfaction is very important.

33. System types: ??? Examples: Artist toolkits, statistical packages, and scientific modelling systems • Benchmarks are hard to describe due to the wide array of tasks • With these applications, the computer should "vanish" so that the user can be absorbed in their task domain.

34. System engineering versus interface design System engineering evaluated by: • Coverage of task functionality. • Reliability, security, integrity of system and data. • Standardization, consistency and portability. • Time and budget considerations.

35. User interface evaluation Depends largely on human factors criteria: 1. Learning time 2. Performance speed 3. Error rates of users 4. Retention over time 5. Subjective satisfaction

36. HCI is concerned with… • Humans and machines jointly performing tasks • The structure of communication between human and machine • Human capabilities to use and learn to use machines • Algorithms and programming of the interface • Engineering concerns that arise in designing and building interfaces • The process of specifying, designing, and implementing interfaces • Design trade-offs

37. 5 Areas of HCI • The nature of human-computer interaction • Use and context of computers • Human characteristics • Computer system and interface architecture • Development processes

39. Nature of Human-Computer Interaction • Overviews of, and theoretical frameworks for, topics in human-computer communication

40. N1 The Nature of Human-Computer Interaction • Points of view • HCI as communication • agent paradigm, tool paradigm • Human / system / tasks division • Objectives or goals • productivity, user empowerment • History and intellectual roots • HCI as an academic topic • journals, literature • relation to other fields • science vs. engineering vs. design aspects

41. Use and Context of Computers • Applications of computers • Applications and appropriate interfaces • The general social, work, and business context • In addition to technical requirements, an interface may have to • satisfy quality-of-work-life goals of a labor union • meet legal constraints on "look and feel“ • position the image of a company in a certain market • General problems of fitting computers, uses, and context of use together

42. U1 Social Organization and Work • The human as an interacting social being • The nature of work • Human and technical systems mutually adapt to each other and must be considered as a whole • Models of human activity, groups, organizations • Models of work, workflow, cooperative activity • Organizations as adaptive open systems • Impact of computer systems on work and vice versa • Computer systems for group tasks, case studies • Quality of work life and job satisfaction

43. U2 Application Areas • Characterization of application areas • Document-oriented interfaces • Communications-oriented interfaces • Design environments: programming environments, CAD/CAM • On-line tutorial and help systems • Multimedia information kiosks • Continuous control systems: (process control systems, simulators, cockpits, video games) • Embedded systems (Copier controls, elevator controls, consumer electronics and home appliances)

44. U3 Human-Machine Fit and Adaptation • Design addresses ‘fit’ between the object and its use • Adjustments can be made • (1) at design time or at time of use • (2) by changing the system or the user • (3) by the users or by the system. • Adaptive systems • Theories of system adoption • Customizing and tailoring • Compatible users and systems • User adaptation: learning, training • User guidance: help, documentation, error-handling

45. Human Characteristics • human information-processing characteristics • how human action is structured • the nature of human communication • human physical and physiological requirements

46. H1 Human Information Processing • The human as a processor of information. • Models of cognitive architecture • Phenomena and theories of • memory • perception • motor skills • attention and vigilance • problem solving • learning and skill acquisition • motivation • Users' conceptual models • Models of human action • Human diversity, including disabled populations

47. H2 Language, Communication and Interaction • Language as a communication and interface medium • Aspects of language: syntax, semantics, pragmatics • Formal models of language • Conversational interaction • turn-taking, repair • Special languages • graphical interaction, query, command, production systems, editors • Interaction reuse • history lists

48. H3 Ergonomics • Human anthropometry and workspace design • Arrangement of displays and controls • Human cognitive and sensory limits • Sensory and perceptual effects of display technologies • Control design • Fatigue and health issues • Furniture and lighting design • Temperature and environmental noise issues • Design for stressful or hazardous environments • Design for the disabled

49. Computer System and Interface Architecture • Machines have specialized components for interacting with humans • Transducers for moving information physically between human and machine • Have to do with the control structure and representation of parts of the interaction

50. C1 Input and Output Devices • Technical construction of devices • Input devices • Mechanics and performance • Devices for the disabled • Handwriting and gestures, virtual keyboard • Speech input • Eye tracking, EEG, other biological signals • Output devices • Mechanics and performance • Devices for the disabled • Sound and speech output • 3D displays, motion (e.g., flight simulators) • Device weight, portability, bandwidth, sensory mode