HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

Definition
Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the study of planned design for human and computer
activities.
HCI uses productivity, safety and entertainment to support and fulfill human-computer
activities and is applied to various types of computer systems, including air traffic control,
nuclear processing, offices and computer gaming.
HCI systems are easy, safe, effective and enjoyable.
► Computer Science
► Psychology (cognitive)
► Communication
► Education
► Anthropology
► Design (e.g. graphic and industrial)
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

Goals and important of HCI

The goals of HCI are to produce usable and safe systems, as well as functional systems. In
order o produce computer systems with good usability, developers must attempt to:

 understand the factors that determine how people use technology

 develop tools and techniques to enable building suitable systems
 achieve efficient, effective, and safe interaction
 put people first

It can affect
o Effectiveness
o Productivity
o Morale
o Safety
HCI Tools
  Sound
 3D
 Animation
 Video
 Devices
o Size (small->very large)
o Portable (PDA, phone)
o Plasticity
 Context sensitive/aware
 Personalizable
 Ubiquitous

Usability

Usability is one of the key concepts in HCI. It is concerned with making systems easy to learn
and use. A usable system is:

 easy to learn
 easy to remember how to use
 effective to use
 efficient to use
 safe to use
 enjoyable to use
 Planning
 Sensitivity to user needs
 Devotion to requirements analysis
 Testing

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

Eight Golden Rules of Shneiderman will help you if you want to make a great design, productive
and frustration free of interfaces.
Google, Mac, Microsoft, are among some are follows the shneiderman’s rules for interface
design, therefore they have their business in the market and they are highly successfully
companies in the world.
Schneiderman’s rules can lead successful products. The companies has great success starting
from macintosh to the hand held devices like cell phones. They pride themselves for their
consistency, integrated, standardized, and portability with the beautiful design.
Shneiderman’s design principle as follows:-
1. Strive to Consistency
Consistency by utilizing familiar icons, Logos, menu hierarchy and call to action,
User flow when designing in similar and sequence of actions.
Consistency plays an important role by helping the users become familiar with the
landmark so they can achieve their goals more easily.
“Consistency” and “Perceived Stability” are woven into design of Apple Mac OS. In the
mac operating system in menu bar is consistent and very known by its design by the
Macintosh Company that is a unique logo were used in 1980s and 2010 same but updated
design recognized by average user. The Menu bar design contain consistent graphic
element whether its version from 1980s to 2010.
(mac OS in menu bar contains stay consistent)

2. Enable Frequent User to Use Shortcuts

Enable frequent user to use shortcuts, this is a quick method of completing the tasks. For
example both windows and mac provide user with keyboard shortcuts for copying and
pasting, so as the user become more experienced, they can navigate and operate the user
interface more quickly and effortless.

3. Offer Informative Feedback

When user work on their system many pages like web or offices files were open and
running multiple task suddenly a pop up message will appear which is like “dll.doc is
irresponsive error # 1234556 Do you want to save it” this type of message is not given
usefull information to the user this type of message is poor design therefore user cant
understand it and he does not know what he take action according to this type of
message. So avoid this type of message design.
This is poor design error message that does not means anything.

4. Design Dialogue for Yield Closure

“Thank You” this is a message that proof of purchasing receipt when they have
completed online shopping.
As the user install software to Mac OS, as informative screen shows what step the user is
currently at in their installation.

5. Offer Simple Error Handling:

 During sotftware installation user are gently alerted with an informative message if an
error was made, it is important to recognize.

6. Permit Reversal of Action

These reversal should be permitted at various points whether it occurs after a single
action a data entry or a whole sequence of action.

7. Support Internal Locus of Control

Allow your users to be the initiators of actions.

8. Reduce short-term Memory load

Human attention is limited and we are only capable of maintaining around five items in
our short term memory at one time.
Types of Design Rules:
1. Principles
2. Standards
3. Guidelines
Principles of Design Rules
1. Learnability
2. Flexibility
3. Robutness
Learnability
1. Predictability
2. Synthesizability
3. Familiarity
4. Generalizability
5. Consistency
Flexibility
1. Dialogue Initiative
2. Multithreading
3. Task Migratability
4. Substituvity
5. Customizability
Robustness
1. Observability
2. Recoverability
3. Responsive
4. Task Conformance

Usability and Evaluation

Usability Evaluation focuses on how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their
goals. It also refers to how satisfied users are with that process. To gather this information,
practitioners use a variety of methods that gather feedback from users about an existing site or
plans related to a new site.
Usability refers to the quality of a user's experience when interacting with products or systems,
including websites, software, devices, or applications. Usability is about effectiveness, efficiency
and the overall satisfaction of the user.

It is important to realize that usability is not a single, one-dimensional property of a product,

system, or user interface. ‘Usability’ is a combination of factors including:

 Intuitive design: a nearly effortless understanding of the architecture and navigation of the
site
 Ease of learning: how fast a user who has never seen the user interface before can
accomplish basic tasks
 Efficiency of use: How fast an experienced user can accomplish tasks
 Memorability: after visiting the site, if a user can remember enough to use it effectively in
future visits
 Error frequency and severity (Performance): how often users make errors while using the
system, how serious the errors are, and how users recover from the errors
 Subjective satisfaction: If the user likes using the system

Evaluation:-
Evaluations can be done without users with inspection methods, or with users by user testing
methods, such as usability testing.
 Evaluation means to assess the system for functionality as well as usability

 We explore how to compare, assess, and improve interfaces

Design of the OMS (Olympic Messages System)

1. Early Focus on user and task
2. Empirical Measures on user behavior
3. Interactive Design
ISO (International Standards Organization) defines usability as “ a concept comprising the
effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals
in a particular environment”

Usability indicators based on performance

1. Goal achievement indicators (success rate, failure rate, accuracy, effectiveness).

2. Work rate indicators (speed, completion rate, efficiency, productivity, productivity gain).

3. Operability indicators of the user's ability to make use of the systems features (error rate,
problem rate, function usage)

4. Knowledge acquisition indicators of the user's ability and effort in learning to use the system
(learnability and learning).

The usability engineering life cycle

. Know the user
· Analyze competing products
· Set usability goals
· Consider alternative designs
· Engage in participatory design
· Coordinate the total interface
· Check against heuristic guidelines
· Prototype
· Evaluate interface
· Design in iterations
· Follow up with studies of installed systems

Methods of usability assessments include:

1. Thinking aloud (protocol analysis)
2. Observation
3. Interviews
4. Focus groups
5. Automatic logs
6. Questionnaires

Heuristic guidelines

1. Create simple and natural dialog

2. Speak the user's language
3. Minimize the user's memory load
4. Be consistent
5. Provide feedback
6. Provide clearly marked exits
7. Provide shortcuts
8. Provide specific, corrective and positive error messages
9. Minimize propensity for error

Evaluation is a broader term than usability – it includes several goals: IMP

 1) assess the system's functionality against the intended specifications,
2) assess the system's effect on the user's behavior and attitude,
3) assess the system's impact on measures of performance that are related to the user or the
objective of the system,
4) discover unintended problems and perhaps opportunities.

Evaluation techniques include:

1) Exploratory vs. model based.
2) Design or implementation.
3) Field study vs. laboratory testing.
4) Design vs. use.
5) Level of performance measures.
6) Degree of designed manipulation and intrusion.

Cognitive Walk Through

Task description from the first-time user's viewpoint. Include any special assumptions about
the state of the system assumed when the user begins work.
* Action sequence: Make a numbered list of the atomic actions that the user should perform to
accomplish the task.
* Anticipated users: Briefly describe the class of users who will use this system. Note what
experience they are expected to have with similar or previous versions.
* User's initial goals: List the goals the user is likely to form when starting the task. If there are
other likely goals list them, and estimate for each what percentage of user are likely to have
them.

Direct Manipulation
• Positive feelings associated with good user interfaces ☺
– Mastery of the interface
– Competence in performing tasks
– Ease in learning the system originally and in assimilating advanced features
– Confidence in the capacity to retain mastery over time
– Enjoyment in using the system
– Eagerness to show the system off to novices
– Desire to explore more powerful aspects of the system

What is Direct Manipulation?

Direct Manipulation is a central concept of:
● GUI’s
○ WYSIWYG
■ “What You See Is What You Get”

Principles of Direct Manipulation

1. Continuous representations of the objects and actions of interest with meaningful visual
metaphors.
2. Physical actions or presses of labeled buttons, instead of complex syntax.
3. Rapid, incremental, reversible actions whose effects on the objects of interest are visible
immediately.
Direct MANIPULATION EXAMPLES (Important)