Human-Computer Interaction Overview

Human Computer Interaction

• HCI is a discipline regarding the theory, design, implementation, and evaluation of human interaction with computing devices.
• It focuses on the dialogue between humans and computers, where the output of one serves as the input for the other.
• Human-computer interactions involves the exchange of actions and intentions
• It's an interdisciplinary field embracing computer scientists, engineers, psychologists, social scientists, design professionals, and more.
• HCI aims to create information systems and work environments that increase productivity and job satisfaction.

Why is HCI Important?

• It helps us design interactive products to support daily and working lives.
• It develops usable products that are:
  • Easy to learn
  • Effective to use
  • Provide an enjoyable experience

Usability of Interactive Systems

• Usability emphasizes careful attention to requirements analysis and testing for well-defined objectives.
• Goals for requirements analysis:
  • Ascertain user needs
  • Ensure reliability
  • Promote standardization, integration, consistency, and portability
  • Complete projects on schedule and within budget

Usability Requirements

• Determining the target user community and tasks is crucial for establishing usability goals and measures.
• Each user and task requires precise, measurable objectives to guide designers, evaluators, and managers.

Guidelines

• Aim for consistent user interface through grammar, minimizing user confusion.
• Avoid inconsistent action verbs which slow down learning and increase errors.

Principles

• Principles are more fundamental, widely applicable, and enduring than guidelines.
• They require further clarification.
• Fundamental principles include:
  • Determining user skill levels
  • Identifying tasks
  • Choosing between interaction styles
  • Applying the eight golden rules of interface design
  • Preventing errors
  • Ensuring human control while increasing automation

Determining User Skill Levels

• Understanding "the user" is vital, encompassing age, gender, abilities, education, cultural background, training, motivation, goals, and personality.
• Design goals are based on skill level, considering:
  • Novice or first-time users
  • Knowledgeable intermittent users
  • Expert frequent users
• Multi-layer designs, personalized menus, and informative feedback are crucial for catering to different skill levels.

Identifying Tasks

• Task analysis involves observing and interviewing users to understand their task breakdown.
• Task decomposition helps determine the relative task frequencies, which inform design decisions.

Choosing an Interaction Style

• Five primary interaction styles exist:
  • Direct manipulation
  • Menu selection
  • Form fill-in
  • Command language
  • Natural language

The 8 Golden Rules of Interface Design

• Strive for consistency in design elements.
• Consider universal usability.
• Provide informative feedback.
• Design dialogs to yield closure, providing clear indication of completion.
• Prevent errors by offering clear guidance or preventing incorrect actions.
• Permit easy reversal of actions, allowing users to undo mistakes.
• Keep users in control of the interactive system.
• Reduce short-term memory load by minimizing information overload.

Preventing Errors

• Design error messages to be specific, positive, constructive, and helpful.
• Differentiate between mistakes and slips (Norman, 1983).
• Implement mechanisms for correcting actions, such as:
  • Graying out inappropriate actions
  • Using selection options instead of free typing
  • Automatic completion of inputs
• Utilize complete sequences, such as single abstract commands, macros, and subroutines.

Ensuring Human Control while Increasing Automation

• Successful integration of automation aims to:
  • Free users from routine, tedious, and error-prone tasks.
  • Allow users to focus on critical decisions, unexpected situations, and planning.
• Supervisory control is crucial for handling real-world open systems, where users are directly involved in the process, even with automated support.

Goals for Autonomous Agents

• Autonomous agents should:
  • Learn user preferences.
  • Make accurate inferences.
  • Adapt to novel situations.
  • Function effectively with minimal guidance.

Tool-like Interfaces vs. Autonomous Agents

• Avatars representing human users, rather than computers, can be more successful in interacting with users.

User Modeling for Adaptive Interfaces

• Adaptive interfaces track user performance and customize their behavior to individual needs, dynamically adjusting:
  • Response time
  • Message length
  • Feedback density
  • Menu content and ordering
  • Feedback type
  • Help screen content

Challenges of Adaptive Interfaces

• Users may find surprising changes in the system.
• They might struggle to:
  • Predict upcoming changes.
  • Interpret changes that have occurred.
  • Restore the system to its previous state.

Alternatives to Agents

• Enabling user control is essential, such as:
  • Providing control panels with settings, options, and preferences.
  • Utilizing tools like game levels, style sheets, information-visualization tools, and scheduling software.

Control Panels

• Control panels allow users to adjust physical parameters like cursor blinking speed or speaker volume.
• They can set personal preferences, such as time/date formats, color schemes, or the content of start menus.

Theories

• Theories provide a deeper understanding of guidelines and principles.
• They can be:
  • Descriptive – describing user interfaces and their uses.
  • Explanatory – describing sequences of actions.
  • Prescriptive – offering guidelines for decision making.
  • Predictive – offering predictions about user behavior.

Stages of Action Models

• Four principles of good design:
  • The system's state and action alternatives should be clearly visible.
  • A good conceptual model with a consistent system image should be established.
  • Good mappings should reveal the relationships between various stages.
  • Continuous feedback should be provided to users.
• User failures typically occur at these critical points:
  • Forming an inadequate goal.
  • Not finding the correct interface object due to unclear labels or icons.
  • Not knowing how to execute an intended action.
  • Receiving inappropriate or misleading feedback.

Consistency Theories

• Applying consistent user interface grammar is essential for minimizing learning time, errors, and confusion.
• Achieving absolute consistency is challenging, as different forms of interfaces can sometimes conflict.
• Inconsistency in action verbs can lead to longer learning times, more errors, slower user performance, and poor memorability.

Contextual Theories

• Micro-HCI Theories:
  • Focus on measurable performance, such as speed and errors, on standard tasks performed in lab settings.
  • Examples:
    • Design-by-levels
    • Stages of action
    • Consistency
• Macro-HCI Theories:
  • Analyze user experiences over extended periods in realistic usage contexts, considering rich social engagement.
  • Examples:
    • Contextual theory
    • Dynamic theory

User Actions Situated by Time and Place

• User actions are influenced by time and physical space.
• Short cuts and device-dependent syntax may not be feasible in time-sensitive situations or on mobile devices.
• Physical space matters for ubiquitous devices, such as museum guides that provide information about nearby artifacts.

Taxonomy for Mobile Device Application Development

• Mobile application development considers factors such as:
  • Monitoring and providing alerts, such as notifications or reminders.

Let me know if you require me to elaborate further on any of these topics in more detail!

Dive into the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) which explores the essential dialogue between humans and computing devices. Understand the importance of usability in designing interactive products that enhance our daily lives and improve productivity. This quiz covers HCI's interdisciplinary nature and its impact on design and user experience.