CSCI 4800/6800 Human-Computer Interaction

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CSCI 4800/6800Human-Computer Interaction

• Eileen Kraemer
• eileen_at_cs.uga.edu
• 1/11/05

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Course content

• Design, implementation, evaluation of user
  interfaces for computer systems
• Take into account
• human factors
• usability
• design process
• Topics include
• effects of human capabilities and limitations on
  interaction with computer systems
• Ethics and rules for working with human subjects
• Experimental design and statistical analysis
• New topics in HCI

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Projects ..

• Students will apply these concepts to the design
  and implementation of graphical user interfaces.
• Java will be used for UI design guidelines for
  such use will be discussed

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What do you already know? Folk HCI

• Folk theories (e.g. folk psychology, folk
  physics) help in everyday explanations (e.g. why
  people do things, what will happen to cartoon
  character when he runs off cliff)
• Folk HCI Our intuitive knowledge about usability
  and explanations

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However .

• Folk theories are often wrong w.r.t.
  scientific/engineering analyses

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Folk definitions of usability

• Speed of response
• Regularity of response
• Intuitiveness
• Familiarity
• Legibility
• Navigability
• Freedom from error

• Expected feedback
• Absence of visual clutter
• Clear what to pay attention to ..
• All good ideas, but
• What do they really mean?
• How do we achieve them?

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Understanding humans

• Humans sensory processors
• Sensory psych., EE CS systems
• Humans interpreters/predictors
• Cog. Psych and AI
• Humans actors in environments
• Activity theory, ethnograpy, ecological
  psychology
• Question How much and how rapidly do humans
  change?

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What makes a system usable?

• Humans sensory processors
• Usability fit with human limits
• Humans interpreters/predictors
• Usability fit with knowledge
• Humans actors in environment
• Usability fit with task and social context

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Two views of interaction

• Interaction with
• Software system is tool or machine
• Interface is a usability-engineered membrane
• Human-as-processor and interpreter model
• Interaction through
• Software is a medium used to interact with task
  objects or other people
• Software must make affordance visible
• Human-as-interpreter -actor models

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Broadening the Cognitive Framework

• Recent developments in cognitive psychology
• From human factors to human actors
• Cognition and action as socialVygotsky
• Distributed cognition
• Use of artifacts as external memoriesHutchins

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Affordances

• What sort of operations and manipulations can be
  done to a particular object Norman
• Examples
• Handles
• Scroll bars
• Other virtual affordances such as icons

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