What is HCI and where does GUI design fit in?

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What is HCI and where does GUI design fit in?

• Lecture 1 CSE3030

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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

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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)

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What is and isnt HCI?

• On the H side?
• On the C side?

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Three Mile Island

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The Control Panel
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Palm Beach Ballot
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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

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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.

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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.

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Human factors

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

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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!

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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)

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Human factors

• Norman Design of everyday things
• Most failures of human-machine system are due to
  poor designs that dont recognize peoples
  capabilities and fallibility's
• This leads to apparent machine misuse and human
  error
• Good design always accounts for human
  capabilities.

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

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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

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• from Science magazine
• In 1988, the Soviet Unions 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

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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

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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

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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

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Which are universal and which are
culturally-specific?
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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/

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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5 Areas of HCI

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

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Nature of Human-Computer Interaction

• Overviews of, and theoretical frameworks for,
  topics in human-computer communication

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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Human Characteristics

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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C2 Dialogue Techniques

• Techniques for interacting with humans
• Dialogue Interaction Techniques
• Dialogue type and techniques
• Navigation, orientation, error management
• Agents and AI techniques
• Multi-person dialogues
• Dialogue Issues
• Real-time response
• Manual control theory
• Supervisory control, automatic systems, embedded
  systems
• Standards
• "Look and feel," intellectual property protection
  

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C3 Dialogue Genre

• Conceptual uses for the technical means
• Concepts arise in any media discipline (film,
  graphic design)
• Interaction metaphors
• Content metaphors
• Persona, personality, point of view
• Workspace models
• Transition management
• Techniques from other media (film, theater,
  graphic design)
• Style and aesthetics

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C4 Computer Graphics

• Concepts from computer graphics that are useful
  for HCI
• Geometry in 2- and 3-D space, linear
  transformations
• Graphics primitives and attributes
• Solid modeling, splines, surface modeling, hidden
  surface removal, animation, rendering algorithms,
  lighting models
• Colour representation, colour maps, colour ranges
  of devices

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C5 Dialogue Architecture

• Software architectures and standards
• Layers and windows
• Screen imaging models (e.g. postscript)
• Window manager models, analysis of major window
  systems
• Models for specifying dialogues
• Multi-user interface architectures
• Standardization and interoperability

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Development Process

• Both design and engineering
• The methodology and practice of interface design
• The relationship of interface development to the
  engineering of the rest of the system

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D1 Design Approaches

• The process of design
• Alternative system development processes
• Choice of method under time/resource constraint
• Task analysis techniques
• Design specification techniques
• Design analysis techniques
• Graphic design basics
• Industrial design basics
• Design case studies and analyses of design

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D2 Implementation Techniques and Tools

• Tactics and tools for implementation.
• Relationships among design, evaluation, and
  implementation
• Independence and reusability, application
  independence, device independence
• Prototyping techniques
• Dialogue toolkits
• Object-oriented methods
• Data representation and algorithms

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D3 Evaluation Techniques

• Philosophy and methods for evaluations
• Productivity
• Measures
• Time
• Errors
• Learnability
• Design for guessing
• Preference
• Testing techniques, link testing to
  specifications
• Formative and summative evaluation
• Methods from psychology and sociology
• Ethics

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D4 Example Systems and Case Studies

• Classic designs that serve as examples of HCI
• Command-oriented
• Graphics-oriented
• Frame-based
• User-defined

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Where does GUI fit in?

• U3 human-machine fit and adaptation
• H1 human information processing
• H2 language, communication and interaction
• C1 input and output devices
• C2 dialog techniques
• C3 dialogue genre
• C4 computer graphics
• C5 dialogue architecture
• D1 design approaches
• D3 evaluation techniques

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References

• ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human
  Interaction (SIGCHI). ACM SIGCHI is an
  international, interdisciplinary forum for the
  exchange of ideas about the field of
  human-computer interaction. http//www.acm.org/si
  gchi/
• Norman, D. A. (1998). The Design of Everyday
  Things. New York, New York, USA Basic Books.
• Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C. (2005). Designing
  the User Interface Strategies for Effective
  Human-Computer Interaction (Fourth ed.). USA
  Pearson Education, Inc.
• Stone, D., Jarrett, C., Woodroffe, M., Minocha,
  S. (2005). User Interface Design and Evaluation.
  San Francisco, California, USA Elsevier.