Evaluation of Human

computer interaction
principles
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction................................................................................................................................3

Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3

The best design principles for designing user interfaces applications.......................................4

Distinction between Information-seeking and information retrieval.........................................6

Methods for evaluating the user interface applications..............................................................7

System usability issues to be considered on designing new system..........................................9

Discussion................................................................................................................................10

Conclusion................................................................................................................................10

References................................................................................................................................11

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TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: HCI design process (Lazar et al., 2017).....................................................................3

Figure 2: Difference between Information retrieval and information seeking (Issa et al., 2022)
....................................................................................................................................................7
Figure 3: Pros and cons of Heuristic evaluation (Johnson, 2020)..............................................8

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INTRODUCTION

HCI is the study of how individuals interconnect with machines, as it associates with system
integration. The majority of this field's study tries to enhance human-computer interaction
through enhancing how well a user can understanding an interface.  HCI assists in developing
user interfaces that raise productivity, enhance user experience and reduced chances in
safety-critical devices (Card et al., 2018). Unexpected events brought on by badly crafted
gadgets could cause anything from minor user discomfort to complete catastrophe. This is
why there is an increase in human-computer connection. HCI has come out as an important
component in authoring programs that might be utilized safely and efficiently on a regular
basis as we grow more reliant on tech.

Figure 1: HCI design process (Lazar et al., 2017)

LITERATURE REVIEW

(Wobbrock et al., 2016) believes that evaluating the accessibility of computer systems,
developing human-computer interactions, and other general human-centric concerns are all
aspects of HCI. It is built on ideas about how people use technology in social settings and
interact with innovation, putting HCI designers at the centre of a systems relationship
between individuals and machines. Additionally, through this engagement, design concepts
like visual hierarchy, colouring, and fonts are introduced into the setting.

What is wanted, the very first step in the HCI method, concentrates on learning about users'
requirements and habits to give HCI architects insights into how to create interactive
solutions that meet users' requirements (Shneiderman et al., 2016). Interviewing the user,
watching the user's environment directly, documenting the user's behaviour, and evaluating
pre-existing documentation are some proposed tools for this exploratory phase.

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The analysis step places significance on summarising the primary concerns from the initial
step and offers guidance for the following step, design. This phase's primary objective is
crisis management while incorporating usability principles and procedures. As designers
work towards creating the optimal solution, they create prototypes to evaluate the
effectiveness of their work utilising standards. These rules are applied to improve the
optimizer usability and communication with the intended audience as per (Kim, 2015).

Initial designs include cardboard mock-ups, concept art, video presentations, and paper-based
layouts. The following step is the integration of hardware and software, wherein HCI experts
utilise standards to evaluate design flaws when users engage with the answers in their own
environments. Prototypes are frequently used to evaluate a solution's efficacy with people and
are viewed as constrained demonstrations of a concept. The design process evaluation aids
HCI designers in identifying issues and provides a chance for them to do so in the initial
stages of advancement. The concept is put into practise and launched onto the market after
the prototype has shown to be efficient and useful (Issa et al., 2022).

THE BEST DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING

USER INTERFACES APPLICATIONS

Conceptual Models and Mental Models

A strong conceptual design of the system can be created by a user with the help of great
interactive systems, which gives them all the data they need to feel in charge and comprehend
the platform. When using the system, a conceptual model improves both searchability and
outcome evaluation (Ghasemifard et al., 2015). The cognitive representations in a user's head
that guide their expectations for a particular incident and how things function in reality are
known as mental models or cognitive maps.

Mappings
The connection between controllers and their impact on the outside world is called mapping.
Due to the way that mapping and feedback combine to produce a consistent experience, the
two factors are closely related (Johnson, 2020). The link between inputs and their ensuing

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functions is a requirement for nearly all artefacts; in the case of interface design, this is the
translating between inputs and actions.

Constraints
A technique to decide how to limit the type of user contact that can occur at a specific time is
to employ the proposed design of limitations (Kim, 2015). By giving users "guide rails" for
interactivity, or nearly like a helping force directing the potential interactions, interaction
design limitations support effective relationship.

Consistency, Standards, and Heuristics

An engagement must be uniform in order to reduce user error while also making a program
simple to understand. UX, general usability, and the effectiveness with which people could
use digital goods are all improved by continuity.

Visual Hierarchy and Emphasis

People are seeking the data that is most pertinent to their quest during their encounter with a
website or an application. The placement of items in a way that suggests significance is called
visual hierarchy (Bødker, 2021). The visual hierarchy of a design affects how the human eye
interprets what it observes.

Recognition Rather than Recall

While recollection entails retrieving data from memory, recall is considerably more of a
"cognitive load" and relates to the ability to "recognise" an occurrence or piece of data as
being recognizable. Usability is improved when consumers are shown things, they are
familiar with rather than having to recollect information from memory.

Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

Displays must be free of extraneous components and information that does not serve the
goals and responsibilities of the user. Designers should focus information screen-to-screen
inside the given context in addition to creating aesthetically beautiful user interfaces (Lazar et
al., 2017). Only the necessary and bare minimum of data requested for the user to execute a
task must be given utilizing graphic and the magic of focus.

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DISTINCTION BETWEEN INFORMATION-SEEKING
AND INFORMATION RETRIEVAL

Information retrieval
Whenever people are using a computer to seek for information assets (material) that fit
particular search term, they are engaging in human-computer interaction (HCI), or retrieval of
information. It all revolves around finding information that is pertinent to the customers'
requirements that has been recorded in a computer or system. To identify the pertinent
papers, a user's request is compared to a number of documents. Keep in mind that this may
produce a document collection.

The offerings of papers or text and the question that specifies "what to retrieve for" are both
crucial components of the retrieval process (Shneiderman et al., 2016). It includes looking
through a document collection and locating the pertinent ones. Information retrieval employs
a variety of approaches and procedures. By adopting an automated data retrieval method,
researchers can lessen overload of information.

Information seeking
Finding necessary details from the document corpus is the fundamental objective of
information seeking. From a collection of unorganized papers or a corpus, info searching
involves extracting specific data. It concentrates more on human-readable and human-written
materials, utilising these with NLP (natural language processing). However, information
gathering systems find material that is computer-stored and pertinent to the user's data needs.
It extracts text documents (in form of unstructured) from a big collection of remains.

The technology utilised to find out information for online version extraction ought to be
inexpensive. It must be easily adaptable to new fields and flexible in its evolution. Let's use
the computer's ability to understand natural speech as an instance. In this case, IS is able to
identify the IR network of a person's demand (Kim, 2015). The expanding amount of data
available in form of unstructured, such as on the Web, determines the significance of an
information seeking technology. This information can be transformed into a relational
structure or marked up with XML tags to make it easier to access.

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 Information retrieval Information seeking

Figure 2: Diff erence between Informati on retrieval and informati on seeking (Issa et al., 2022)

METHODS FOR EVALUATING THE USER

INTERFACE APPLICATIONS

There are two methods for evaluating user interface applications

Heuristic evaluation
Heuristic evaluation entails professionals identifying issues with interfaces while doing
independent walk-throughs to evaluate their effectiveness. Evaluators employ
renowned heuristics and provide suggestions that could help the design department enhance
the accessibility of the product from the outset (Ghasemifard et al., 2015).

The steps that must be taken to perform a heuristic evaluation are as follows:

 Learn what and how to test and how to perform it. Clearly specify the boundaries of
what will test and the goal, whether it's the whole product or just one operation.
 Pick three to five assessors, making sure they are knowledgeable about the related
industry and accessibility.

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  Specify the heuristics (around 5-10) - This will rely on the program's, brand's, or
architecture's characteristics. Think about utilizing/defining additional heuristics in
addition to the Nielsen-Molich heuristics.
 Give evaluation teams a briefing on the topics to cover in a few tasks and propose
using a range of intensity codes (such as critical) to indicate problems.
 First Walkthrough: Allow testers to fully utilise the item so they may choose out
components to examine.
 Second Walkthrough: Assessors examine each component in detail using the
heuristics. Additionally, they look at how they integrate with the overall layout while
meticulously documenting any problems.
 In a session, debriefing the assessors so they may compile the findings for analysis
and offer solutions.

Figure 3: Pros and cons of Heuristi c evaluati on (Johnson, 2020)

Cognitive walkthrough
The objective of a cognitive walkthrough, a task-based usability inspection technique, is to
recognise those elements of the interaction that might be difficult for new customers by
having a cross-functional squad of critics go over each step of an assignment stream and

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respond to a set of questionnaires. There is a cognitive tour in a workshop environment. The
client activities that will be assessed during the sessions are predetermined. Attendees in the
seminar can include manufacturers, designers, and industry experts. A guide is one of the
participants. Every person serves as an assessor, providing views on how an individual user
type might see the interaction (Bødker, 2021).

SYSTEM USABILITY ISSUES TO BE CONSIDERED

ON DESIGNING NEW SYSTEM

Banner-Blindness
It's worthwhile to know that internet users are rather adept at ignoring anything that appears
to be an ad. Even though people have noticed advertisements, they virtually invariably
disregard them. As a result of the internet conceptual frameworks that consumers have
created for various tasks just on Internet, when they are search for a particular piece of
information on the web, they only concentrate on the little content and links that appear on
the screen.

Fold
The lowest point on a site's display at which it is not immediately viewable is known as the
fold. In addition, the user's display resolution determines where the fold is located. The area
of a webpage that is viewable before navigating is referred to as the area just above fold (also
known as screenful) (Shneiderman et al., 2016).

Gloss
Gloss is an automatic function that offers suggestions and quick facts about what the link
relates to and to where it will lead the visitor once they click it. Users desire complete control
over all that happens on a site, therefore explicit and clear descriptions of both internal and
external links, reinforced by reliable keyword phrase, can enhance a site's accessibility.

DISCUSSION

In the 1980s, desktop computers started to proliferate in households and

companies, marking the beginning of HCI (Wobbrock et al., 2016). For the first time, the

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general people had access to cutting-edge electrical technology for things like word
processing software, game consoles, and accounting applications. As a result, the need to
produce human-computer interaction that was equally simple and successful for others with
less experience become increasingly important as laptops stopped being costly and bulky. 
HCI garnered a lot of interest among researchers right away. It was acknowledged as a
crucial tool for popularising the idea that user interface with computers should resemble a
continuing dialogue between two individuals.  First, HCI researchers focused on making
personal computers more easily accessible. However, as emerging innovations
spread, computer use started to move away from desktops and towards portable devices.

CONCLUSION

In order to comprehend consumers and contextually employ solutions, HCI as a field,

emphasises human-centeredness and collaboration across disciplines. HCI often involves
cyclical processing steps, including user knowledge and observation to identify issues, trying
to design, prototype, and evaluation. Each phase, nevertheless, is guided by particular rules
that specify the instruments to be employed and the objectives to be met. HCI primarily
concentrates on creating technology and necessitates a grasp of customers in order to develop
needs. This essay aimed to provide an outline of various HCI facets while also outlining the
finest guidelines for creating user interface apps and comprehending usability problems with
systems.

REFERENCES

Bødker, S. (2021). Through the interface: A human activity approach to user interface

design. CRC Press.

Card, S. K., Moran, T. P., & Newell, A. (2018). The psychology of human-computer

interaction. Crc Press.

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Ghasemifard, N., Shamsi, M., Kenari, A. R. R., & Ahmadi, V. (2015). A new view at
usability test methods of interfaces for human computer interaction. Global Journal of
Computer Science and Technology.

Issa, T., & Isaias, P. (2022). Usability and Human–Computer Interaction (HCI).
In Sustainable design (pp. 23-40). Springer, London.

Johnson, J. (2020). Designing with the mind in mind: simple guide to understanding user
interface design guidelines. Morgan Kaufmann.

Kim, G. J. (2015). Human-computer interaction: fundamentals and practice. CRC press.

Lazar, J., Feng, J. H., & Hochheiser, H. (2017). Research methods in human-computer

interaction. Morgan Kaufmann.

Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C., Cohen, M. S., Jacobs, S., Elmqvist, N., & Diakopoulos, N.
(2016). Designing the user interface: strategies for effective human-computer interaction.
Pearson.

Wobbrock, J. O., & Kientz, J. A. (2016). Research contributions in human-computer

interaction. interactions, 23(3), 38-44.

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