HCI Fundamentals

• Consumer products:Usage patterns are influenced by lifestyle factors such as age, gender, and occupation.

• Active listening: An effective interviewing technique for gathering information.

• Open body language: Facilitates a more engaging and attentive interview.

• Minimal encouragers: Encourage the interviewee to elaborate with brief verbal cues and body language.

• Open-ended questions: Encourage detailed responses and elaboration on specific topics.

• Closed questions: Clarify understanding and confirm facts.

• Business interview flow: Introduction, why we're there, background, tasks, goals, follow up, and wrap-up.

• Medical errors: A significant cause of death in the US, with an estimated 98,000 preventable deaths annually.

• Institute of Medicine Report: "To Err is Human" identified 98,000 preventable deaths due to human error in healthcare.

• FDA medical device reports: Over 25,000 annually related to user errors, many contributing to patient or user deaths.

• Glucose monitors: Commonly used by people with diabetes but can have usability issues, especially for older patients.

• Digital divide: Socioeconomic and demographic divisions between computer users and nonusers, particularly affecting older adults, less affluent, Hispanics and African Americans, rural populations, and less educated individuals.

• Telemedicine device: A touch screen interface designed for patients with diabetes, making it more user-friendly for older adults and computer newcomers.

• Design process: An iterative process that involves needs analysis, generating alternatives, using representations, interaction design, and user-centered design.

• Norman's seven stages of user activity: A model for understanding and designing user activities in a digital system.

• Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a discipline that focuses on designing, evaluating, and implementing interactive systems for human use.

• HCI is concerned with the interaction between people (users) and computers.

• HCI is composed of three parts: the human factor (users), the computer, and the interaction between them.

• HCI aims to put people first, ensuring computer systems are easy to use, easy to learn, and error-free.

• Approaches to HCI study vary, requiring a wide range of academic styles.

• HCI experts need to be both creative and practical, placing design at the center of the field.

• There are two main approaches to HCI: traditional and user-centered.

• Traditional system development focuses on producing software, while considering the interface as just another software component.

• User-centered design involves users at each step of the process, from requirement specification to implementation and evaluation.

• User-centered development involves data collection, analysis, prototyping, design, and evaluation.

• User-centered design advantages include user involvement, error detection, and quicker feedback.

• User-centered design goals include understanding users and systems, limitations, and design acceptability.

• HCI is important for various reasons, including preventing accidents, reducing the cost of training and support, and increasing sales.

• Software development projects often fail due to reasons such as lack of senior management commitment, user involvement, user requirements specifications, poor project planning, and team problems.

• Usability was born out of the need to prevent "friendly fire" during the Second World War.

• HCI focuses on studying human factors and understanding user needs to create effective and efficient interactive systems.

Test your knowledge of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) fundamentals with this quiz. Explore the key principles and goals of HCI, including understanding users, tasks, and environments, designing prototypes, and evaluating systems.