INTRODUCTION TO

HCI
Human Computer Interaction
HCI 101 – 48045 1700H
 CLASS GOALS

• Motivate the field of HCI

• Learn
• Basics of interface design
• Evaluation of interfaces
• HCI research problems
• HCI community (conferences and people)
 WHAT THE CLASS WILL LOOK
LIKE
• Lectures
• Readings + Quizzes + Presentations (?)
• Initial user study (web interface comparison)
• Final project
• Identify a client
• Create a new interface
• Evaluate the interface
• Differences between undergrad/grad
• Project requirements
 WHY TAKE THIS COURSE?

• Build your portfolio

• Work on a project you’ve always wanted

• Study a unique topic

• A computer science course focused on users

• Skill building
• Important in most research
• Burgeoning job field
 INTRO

• What is a user interface?

• Why do we care about design?

• We see this all the time.

• What’s good about the design of this error box?
• The user knows there is an error
• What’s poor about the design of this error box?
• Discouraging
• Not enough information
• No way to resolve the problem (instructions or contact
info)
 DEFINITION OF HCI

• 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.
 WHY HCI IS IMPORTANT
• The study of our interface with information.
• It is not just ‘how big should I make buttons’ or ‘how
to layout menu choices’
• It can affect
• Effectiveness
• Productivity
• Morale
• Safety
• Example: a car with poor HCI
• Take 5 minutes for everyone to write down one
common device with substantial HCI design choices
and discuss with the neighbor the pros and cons.
How does it affect you or other users?
 MY
CHOICE
• iPod by Apple
Computers
• Pros:
• portable
• power
• ease of use
• # of controls
• Cons:
• scratches easily
• no speech for car use
• proprietary
 WHAT FIELDS DOES HCI
COVER?
• Computer Science
• Psychology (cognitive)
• Communication
• Education
• Anthropology
• Design (e.g. graphic and industrial)
 HCI COMMUNITY

• Academics/Industry
Research
• Taxonomies
• Theories
• Predictive models
• Experimenters
• Empirical data
• Product design
• Other areas (Sociologists,
anthropologists, managers)
• Motor
• Perceptual
• Cognitive
• Social, economic, ethics
 HCI TOOLS

• Sound
• 3D
• Animation
• Video
• Devices
• Size (small->very large)
• Portable (PDA, phone)
• Plasticity
• Context sensitive/aware
• Personalizable
• Ubiquitous
 USABILITY REQUIREMENTS

• Goals:
• Usability
• Universality
• Usefulness
• Achieved by:
• Planning
• Sensitivity to user
needs
• Devotion to
requirements analysis
• Testing
 BAD INTERFACES

• Encumbering
• Confusing
• Slow
• Trust (ex. windows
crashing)
• What makes it
hard?
• Varies by culture
• Multiple platforms
• Variety of users
• What’s wrong with each?
• Type of error
• Who is affected
• Impact
• What’s a redesign solution?
 REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
1. Ascertain users’ needs
2. Ensure proper reliability
3. Promote appropriate standardization,
integration, consistency, and portability
4. Complete projects on schedule and within
budget
 ASCERTAIN USER’S
NEEDS
• Define tasks
• Tasks
• Subtasks
• Frequency
• Frequent
• Occasional
• Exceptional
• Repair
• Ex. difference between a space
satellite, car engine, and fighter
jet
 RELIABILITY

• Actions function as specified

• Data displayed must be
correct
• Updates done correctly
• Leads to trust! (software,
hardware, information) – case:
Pentium floating point bug
• Privacy, security, access, data
destruction, tampering
 STANDARDIZATION,
INTEGRATION,
CONSISTENCY, PORTABILITY
• Standardization – common user-interface features
across multiple applications
• Apple
• Web
• Windows
• Integration – across application packages
• file formats
• Consistency – common action sequences, terms,
units, layouts, color, typography within an
application
• Portability – convert data and interfaces across
multiple hardware and software environments
• Word/HTML/PDF/ASCII
 CASE STUDY: LIBRARY OF
CONGRESS DATABASE
DESIGN
• http://catalog.loc.gov/
• Two interfaces
• Catalog New Books
• 3-6 hour training course - staffers
• Search Catalog of Books
• General public – too complex, command language and complex
cataloging rules
• Solution
• Touch screen
• Reduced functionality
• Better information presentation
• Eventually Web based interface
• Same database and services, different interfaces
 USABILITY
MEASURES
• How can we measure the
‘goodness’ of an interface?
• What are good metrics?
• ISO 9241
• Effectiveness
• Efficiency
• Satisfaction
• Schneiderman
• Time to learn
• Speed of performance
• Rate of errors
• Retention over time
• Subjective satisfaction
 •Time to learn
USABILITY •Speed of performance
•Rate of errors
MOTIVATIONS •Retention over time
•Subjective satisfaction
• Life-Critical systems
• Applications: air traffic, nuclear reactors, military,
emergency dispatch
• Requirements: reliability and effective (even under stress)
• Not as important: cost, long training, satisfaction, retention
• Industrial and Commercial Use
• Applications: banking, insurance, inventory, reservations
• Requirements: short training, ease of use/learning, multiple
languages, adapt to local cultures, multiplatform, speed
• Office, Home, and Entertainment
• Applications: E-mail, ATMs, games, education, search
engines, cell phones/PDA
• Requirements: Ease of learning/use/retention, error rates,
satisfaction
• Difficulties: cost, size
 •Time to learn
•Speed of performance
USABILITY MOTIVATIONS •Rate of errors
•Retention over time
•Subjective satisfaction

• Exploratory, Creative, Collaborative

• Applications: Web browsing, search engines,
simulations, scientific visualization, CAD,
computer graphics, music composition/artist,
photo arranger (email photos)
• Requirements: remove the ‘computer’ from
the experience,
• Difficulties: user tech savvy-ness (apply this to
application examples)
• Socio-technical systems
• Applications: health care, voting, police
• Requirements: Trust, security, accuracy,
veracity, error handling, user tech-savy-ness
 UNIVERSAL
USABILITY
• Interface should handle diversity of
users
• Backgrounds
• Abilities
• Motivation
• Personalities
• Cultures
• Question, how would you design an
interface to a database differently
for:
• A. right-handed female, Indian,
software engineer, technology savvy,
wants rapid interaction
• B. left-handed male, French, artist
 UNIVERSAL
USABILITY
• Does not mean ‘dumbing down’
• Ex. Helping disabled has helped
others (parents w/ strollers,
elderly)
• Ex. Door handles
• Goal: Address the needs of
more users - unlike yourself!
• Everyone is often not at full
faculties at all times
 PHYSICAL VARIATION
• Ability
• Disabled (elderly,
handicapped, vision,
ambidexterity, ability to see
in stereo [SUTHERLAND])
• Speed
• Color deficiency
• Workspace (science of
ergonomics)
• Size
• Design
• Lots of prior research
 PHYSICAL VARIATION
• Field of anthropometry
• Measures of what is 5-95% for
weight, height, etc. (static and
dynamic)
• Large variance reminds us
there is great ‘variety’
• Name some devices that this
would affect.
• note most keyboards are the
same
• screen brightness varies
considerably
• chair height, back height,
display angle
• Multi-modal interfaces
• Audio
• Touch screens
 COGNITIVE AND PERCEPTUAL
VARIATION
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• knowledge,
comprehension,
analysis, application,
synthesis, evaluation
• Memory
• short-term and
working
• long-term and
semantic
• Problem solving and
reasoning
• Decision making
• Language and
communication
 COGNITIVE AND PERCEPTUAL
VARIATION
• Language and
communication
• Search, imagery,
sensory memory
• Learning, skill
development,
knowledge acquisition
• Confounding factors:
• Fatigue
• Cognitive load
• Background
• Boredom
• Fear
• Drugs/alcohol
 PERSONALITY
• Computer anxiety
• Gender
• Which games do women like?
• Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Tetris
• Why? (Hypotheses: less violent,
quieter soundtracks, fully visible
playing fields, softer colors,
personality,
closure/completeness)
• Can we measure this?
• What current games are for
women?
• Style, pace,
top-down/bottom-up,
visual/audio learners, dense
vs. sparse data
 PERSONALITY
• No simple taxonomy of user
personality types. Ex. Myers-
Briggs Type Indicator
• Extrovert vs. introvert
• Sensing vs. intuition
• Perceptive vs. judging
• Feeling vs. thinking
• Weak link between
personality types and
interfaces
• Think about your application,
and see if user personality is
important!
• Fighter jets vs. search engines
CULTURAL AND INTERNATIONAL
DIVERSITY
• Language
• Date / Time conventions
• Weights and Measures
• Left-to-right
• Directions (!)
• Telephone #s and addresses
• Names, titles, salutations
• SSN, ID, passport
• Sorting
• Icons, buttons, colors
• Etiquette
• Evaluation:
• Local experts/usability
studies
 USERS
• Federal WITH
law to ensure DISABILITIES
access to IT, including
computers and web sites. (1998 Amendment to
Rehabilitation Act)
• Disabilities
• Vision
• Blind (bill-reader)
• low-vision
• color-blind
• Hearing
• Deaf
• Limited hearing
• Mobility
• Learning
• Dyslexia
• Attention deficient, hemisphere specific, etc.
• Keyboard and mouse alternatives
• Color coding
• Font-size
 USERS WITH DISABILITIES

• Contrast
• Text descriptors for web
images
• Screen magnification
• Text to Speech (TTS) –
JAWS (web pages)
• Check email on the road,
in bright sunshine, riding
a bike
• Speech Recognition
• Head mounted optical
mice
 USERS WITH DISABILITIES

• Eye Gaze control

• Learning what helps those
with disabilities affects
everyone
• Present procedures, directions,
and instructions accessible to
even poor readers
• Design feedback sequences
that explain the reason for
error and help put users on the
right track
• Reinforcement techniques with
other devices
• Good target area for a final
project!
 ELDERLY

• Reduced
• Motor skills
• Perception
• Vision, hearing, touch, mobility
• Speed
• Memory
• Other needs
• Technology experience is varied
(How many grandmothers use
email? mothers?)
• Uninformed on how technology
could help them
• Practice skills (hand-eye,
problem solving, etc.)
• Touch screens, larger fonts,
louder sounds
 CHILDREN
• Technology saviness?
• Age changes much:
• Physical dexterity
• (double-clicking, click and drag, and small targets)
• Attention span
• (vaguely) Intelligence
• Varied backgrounds (socio-economic)
• Goals
• Educational acceleration
• Socialization with peers
• Psychological - improve self-image, self-
confidence
• Creativity – art, music, etc. exploration
 CHILDREN
• Teenagers are a special group
• Next generation
• Beta test new interfaces, trends
• Cell phones, text messages, simulations, fantasy
games, virtual worlds
• Requires Safety
• They
• Like exploring (easy to reset state)
• Don’t mind making mistakes
• Like familiar characters and repetition (ever had
to babysit a kid with an Ice Age DVD?)
• Don’t like patronizing comments, inappropriate
humor
• Design: Focus groups
 ACCOMMODATING
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
DIVERSITY
• Support a wide range of hardware and
software platforms
• Software and hardware evolution
• OS, application, browsers, capabilities
• backward compatibility is a good goal
• Three major technical challenges are:
• Producing satisfying and effective Internet
interaction (broadband vs. dial-up & wireless)
• Enabling web services from large to small (size
and resolution)
• Support easy maintenance of or automatic
conversion to multiple languages
 HCIand
• Influence academic GOALS
industrial researchers
• Understand a problem and related theory
• Hypothesis and testing
• Study design (we’ll do this!)
• Interpret results
• Provide tools, techniques and knowledge for
commercial developers
• competitive advantage (think ipod)
• Raising the computer consciousness of the
general public
• Reduce computer anxiety (error messages)
• Common fears:
• I’ll break it
• I’ll make a mistake
• The computer is smarter than me
• HCI contributes to this!
 NEAR & FUTURE INTERFACES
•Time to learn

•Speed of performance
• Let’s review
• Minority Report •Rate of errors
• Steel Battalion
• Eye Toy •Retention over time
• Dance Dance Revolution
• Nintendo Wii •Subjective satisfaction