Foundations and Principles of

Human Computer Interaction

CPSC 481

Saul Greenberg

Professor
University of Calgary

Slide deck by Saul Greenberg. Permission is granted to use this for non-commercial purposes as long as general credit to Saul Greenberg is clearly maintained.
Warning: some material in this deck is used from other sources without permission. Credit to the original source is given if it is known,

Administrivia

Saul Greenberg
– Human computer interaction
– Computer supported cooperative work

Contact information
– [email protected]
– 220-6087
– Math Sciences Building MS-680

Office hours
– one hour before class on Monday and Wednesday
– by email any time
– by appointment: email or phone to arrange one
– drop in for urgent requests (but no guarantees!)

Saul Greenberg

1 - Course Introduction
 Out of the way,
hacker! A user is
coming!!!

Moore’s Law
Computer
abilities

transistors
speed
discs
cost

1950 1990 2030

Slide idea by Bill Buxton Saul Greenberg

2 - Course Introduction
 Psychology

human
abilities

2000BC 1950 1990 2030

Slide idea by Bill Buxton Saul Greenberg

Where is the bottleneck?

system
performance

Slide idea by Bill Buxton Saul Greenberg

3 - Course Introduction
 Human Computer Interaction

A discipline concerned with the

design implementation

evaluation

of interactive computing systems for human use

Saul Greenberg

An interface design process

Articulate: Brainstorm Refined Completed
•who users are designs designs designs
Goals: •their key tasks

Task
Psychology of Graphical
centered Participatory
everyday screen
system interaction
Evaluate things design Usability Field
design
User Interface testing testing
Methods: Participatory
involvement Task guidelines
design
scenario Style
User- Representation Heuristic
walk- guides
centered & metaphors evaluation
through
design

low fidelity high fidelity

prototyping prototyping
methods methods

Products: User and Throw-away Testable Alpha/beta

task paper prototypes systems or
descriptions prototypes complete
specification

4 - Course Introduction
 Why an interface design process?

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

Usability engineering is software engineering

– pay a little now, or pay a lot later!
– far too easy to jump into detailed design that is:
• founded on incorrect requirements
• has inappropriate dialogue flow
• is not easily used
• is never tested until it is too late

Saul Greenberg

Foundations for designing interfaces

Understanding users and their tasks

– Task-centered system design
• how to develop task examples
• how to evaluate designs through a task-centered walk-through

Designing with the user

– User centered design and prototyping
• methods for designing with the user
• low and medium fidelity prototyping

– Evaluating interfaces with users

• the role of evaluation in interface design
• how to observe people using systems to
detect interface problems

Saul Greenberg

5 - Course Introduction
 Foundations for designing interfaces

Designing visual interfaces

– Design of everyday things
• what makes visual design work?

– Beyond screen design

• representations and metaphors

– Graphical screen design

• the placement of interface components on a screen

Principles for design

– Design principles, guidelines, and usability heuristics This is a
• using guidelines to design and discover usability problems great
design!

Saul Greenberg

Objectives

At the end of this course, you will know

– methods for grounding your design in reality

– methods for prototyping visual applications

– methods for evaluating interface quality

– fundamentals of screen design and representations

– how to apply guidelines to interface designs

– how to apply your training in practice and continue your

education

Saul Greenberg

6 - Course Introduction
 How you will be evaluated

Assignment 1
– task centered design and prototyping (13%)

Assignment 2
– usability evaluation of an existing system (12%)

Project
– system (re-)design, implementation and critique (25%)

Exams (50%)
– mid-term (20%)
– final (30%)

You must pass both the exam

components and assignment
components to pass the course Saul Greenberg

Labs

Critical to your success in assignments

– elaboration of details
– learn specific skills
– discuss intermediate results
– class feedback on assignment milestones

Saul Greenberg

7 - Course Introduction
 Text and additional references

Lecture notes
• sold at cost by the department
• available on the web

Optional programming manuals

• C# / Visual Studio 7 is our implementation platform
• documentation is on line
• you can choose whatever books you need to get you started

Other resources
– see the web site http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/481/

Saul Greenberg

8 - Course Introduction