Human Computer Interaction(HCI)

Course Description:
Human-computer interaction is an interdisciplinary field that integrates theories
and methodologies from computer science, cognitive psychology, design, and
many other areas. The course is intended to introduce the student to the basic
concepts of human-computer interaction. It will cover the basic theory and
methods that exist in the field. Case studies are used throughout the readings to
exemplify the methods presented and to lend a context to the issues discussed. The
students will gain principles and skills for designing and evaluating interactive
systems. Among the topics studied are the design and evaluation of effective user
interaction designs, including principles and guidelines for designing interactive
systems. User interaction development activities include requirements and task
analysis, usability specifications, design, prototyping, and evaluation.
Course Learning Outcomes:
Learning Resources:
Chapter-1 : Human Computer
Interaction(HCI)

Overview of HCI
and
Introduction to HCI
Human-Computer Interaction(HCI)
 "Human-computer interaction is a discipline or study
concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of
interactive computing systems for human use and with the
study of major phenomena surrounding them."
 It consists of three parts:
 the human,
 the computer,
 and the ways they work together
Goals of HCI
 HCI is – to improve the interactions between users and
computers – by making computers more usable and
receptive to the user's needs.

 HCI is – to design systems that minimize the barrier between

the human's cognitive model of what they want – to
accomplish and the computer's understanding of the user's
task
Where HCI can be used:
 HCI can be used in all disciplines wherever there is a possibility of
computer installation. Some of the areas where HCI can be
implemented with distinctive importance are mentioned below −
 Computer Science − For application design and engineering.
 Psychology − For application of theories and analytical purpose.
 Sociology − For interaction between technology and
organization.
 Industrial Design − For interactive products like mobile
phones, microwave oven, etc.
Objective:
 The objective of this course is to give an introduction to the key
areas, approaches and Developments in the field. The main
objective is to get student to think constructively and analytically
about how to design and evaluate interactive technologies.
Basically, the course will introduce them to key areas, theoretical
frameworks, approaches and major developments in HCI.
 The intention of this subject is to learn the ways of designing user-
friendly interfaces or interactions. Considering which, we will
learn the following −
 Ways to design and assess interactive systems.
 Ways to reduce design time through cognitive system and task models.
 Procedures and heuristics for interactive system design.
Designing for HCI:
 Designing for HCI means “Ensuring system functionality and
usability, providing effective user interaction support, and
enhancing a pleasant user experience.”
 Furthermore, “The overarching goal is to achieve both
organizational and individual user effectiveness and
efficiency.
The “fit” among the human, computer, and task affects
performance and well-being.

A good fit between the HCI elements of the human, the computer, and the task that needs to be
performed leads to performance and well-being, as shown in the figure below.
Introduction to HCI
 Human–computer interaction (HCI), alternatively man–
machine interaction (MMI) or computer–human interaction
(CHI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and
computers.
With today's technology and tools, and our motivation to create
really effective and usable interfaces and screens, why do we
continue to produce systems that are inefficient and confusing or, at
worst, just plain unusable? Is it because:
 We don't care?
 We don't possess common sense?
 We don't have the time?
 We still don't know what really makes good design?
Why is HCI important
 User-centered design is getting a crucial role!
 It is getting more important today to increase
competitiveness via HCI studies (Norman, 1990)
 High-cost e-transformation investments
 Users lose time with badly designed products and services
 Users even give up using bad interface – Ineffective allocation
of resources
 Chapter-2 : Usability of Interactive
Systems

Introduction
Usability Goals and Measures
Usability Motivation
Goals for our profession

nt
Text Book

Page Number:
25 to 54

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What is Usability:
 There is an underlying principle that forms the basis of HCI, and it is
that people use computers to accomplish work.
 This outlines the three major issues of concern: the people, the
computers and the tasks that are performed.
 The system must support the user’s task, which gives us a fourth focus,
usability: if the system forces the user to adopt an unacceptable mode
of work then it is not usable.
 There are three ‘use’ words that must all be true for a product to be
successful; it must be:
 useful – accomplish what is required: play music, cook dinner,
format a document;
 usable – do it easily and naturally, without danger of error, etc.;
 used – make people want to use it, be attractive, engaging, fun, etc.
What is Usability: (concluded)
 Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-
made object such as software application, website, book,
tool, process, or anything a human interacts.
 Allowing intended users to accomplish their tasks in the
best way possible.
 How well users can use the system’s functionality?

 https://www.usability.gov/index.html
Introduction…..(1/5)
 The Interdisciplinary Design Science of Human-Computer
Interaction (HCI) combines knowledge and methods
associated with professionals including:
– Psychologists (incl. Experimental, Educational, Social and
Industrial Psychologists)
– Computer Scientists
– Instructional and Graphic Designers
– Technical Writers
– Human Factors and Ergonomics Experts
– User experience designers
– Anthropologists and Sociologists
Introduction…..(2/5)
 Individual User Level
– Routine processes: tax return preparation
– Decision support: a doctor’s diagnosis and treatment
– Education and training: encyclopedias, drill-and-
practice exercises, simulations
– Leisure: music and sports information
– User generated content: social networking web sites,
photo and video share sites, user communities
– Internet-enabled devices and communication
 Communities
– Business use: financial planning, publishing applications
– Industries and professions: web resources for journals, and career opportunities
– Family use: entertainment, games and communication
– Globalization: language and culture
Introduction…..(3/5)
 Smart phones have high quality displays, provide fast Internet
connections, include many sensors and support a huge
variety of applications.
Introduction…..(4/5)
 Apple® Mac OS X® showing Picasa for photo browsing and Google Map in a
web browser. The bottom of the screen also shows the Dock, a menu of
frequently accessed items whose icons grow larger on mouse-over.
Introduction…..(5/5)
 Two children learn about the human body using a wearable, e-textile shirt
displaying real-time visualizations of how the body working via “organs” with
embedded LED lights and sound
Why is usability important ? (1/2)
 From the user's perspective
 Usability can make the difference between performing a task accurately and
completely or not, and enjoying the process or being frustrated.
 From the developer's perspective
 Usability is important because it can mean the difference between the
success or failure of a system.
 From a management point of view
 Software with poor usability can reduce the productivity of the workforce to
a level of performance worse than without the system. Also increase cost and
time
 In all cases, lack of usability can cost time and effort, and can greatly
determine the success or failure of a system.
 Given a choice, people will tend to buy systems that are more user-
friendly.
Why is usability important ? (2/2)
 Routine processes: tax return preparation
 Decision support: a doctor’s diagnosis and treatment
 Education and training: encyclopedias, simulations
 Leisure: music and sports information
 User generated content: social networking web sites, photo and
video share sites, user communities
 Business use: financial planning
 Industries and professions: web resources for journals, and career
opportunities
 Family use: entertainment, games and communication
 Globalization: language and culture
Usability Requirements:
 Every designer wants to build high-quality interfaces
 Quality means features such as usability, usefulness, no error
sand universality (can be used by different users from different
cultures)
 Everyone want “user-friendly” interfaces. These measures are
still subjective and vague, so a systematic process is necessary
to develop usable systems for specific users in a specific
context.
Usability Goals and Measures(1/7)
 Successful designers:
– Go beyond vague notions of “user friendliness”,
“intuitive”, and “natural” doing more than simply making
checklists of subjective guidelines.
– Have a thor-ough understanding of the diverse
community of users and the tasks that must be
accomplished
– Study evidence-based guidelines and pursue the research
literature when necessary
Usability Goals and Measures(2/7)
 Great designers:
– Are deeply committed to enhancing the user
experience, which strengthens their resolve when
they face difficult choices, time pressures, and tight
budgets
– Are aware of the importance of eliciting
emotional responses, attracting attention with
animations, and playfully surprising users
Usability Goals and Measures(3/7)
 Ascertain the user’s needs
– Determine what tasks and subtasks must be
carried out
• Include tasks which are only performed occasionally
• Common tasks are easy to identify
– Functionality must match need or else users
will reject or underutilize the product
Usability Goals and Measures(4/7)
 Ensure reliability
– Actions must function as specified
– Database data displayed must reflect the actual database
– Appease the user's sense of mistrust
– The system should be available as often as possible
– The system must not introduce errors
– Ensure the user's privacy and data security by protecting
against unwarranted access, destruction of data, and malicious
tampering.
Usability Goals and Measures(5/7)
 Promote standardization, integration, consistency, and portability
– Standardization: use pre-existing industry standards where they
exist to aid learning and avoid errors (e.g. the W3C and ISO
standards)
– Integration: the product should be able to run across different
software tools and packages (e.g. Unix)
– Consistency:
 compatibility across different product versions
 compatibility with related paper and other non-computer based
systems
 use common action sequences, terms, units, colors, etc. within the
program
– Portability: allow for the user to convert data across multiple
software and hardware environments
Usability Goals and Measures(6/7)
 Define the target user community and class of tasks associated with the
interface
 Communities evolve and change (e.g. the interface to information services for
the U.S. Library of Congress)
 5 human factors central to community evaluation:
– Time to learn : How long does it take for typical members of the
community to learn relevant task?
– Speed of performance : How long does it take to perform relevant
benchmarks?
– Rate of errors by users : How many and what kinds of errors are made
during benchmark tasks?
– Retention over time : Frequency of use and ease of learning help make
for better user retention
– Subjective satisfaction : Allow for user feedback via interviews, free-
form comments and satisfaction scales
Usability Goals and Measures(7/7)
 Trade-offs in design options frequently occur
– Changes to the interface in a new version may create
consistency problems with the previous version, but the
changes may improve the interface in other ways or introduce
new needed functionality
 Design alternatives can be evaluated by designers and users
via mockups or high-fidelity prototypes
– The basic tradeoff is getting feedback early and
perhaps less expensively in the development process versus
having a more authentic interface evaluated
Usability motivations (1/5)
 The interest in interface usability arises by looking at the
poorly designed interfaces and the benefits of elegant
interfaces. Interfaces can be seen in different domains:
 Life-critical systems
 Air traffic control, nuclear reactors, police & fire
dispatch systems, military operations, and medical
instruments
 High costs, reliability and effectiveness are expected
 Lengthy training periods are acceptable despite the
financial cost to provide error-free performance
 Subjective satisfaction is less an issue due to well
motivated users
Usability motivations (2/5)
 Industrial and commercial uses
 Banking, insurance, order entry, inventory management,
reservation, billing, and point-of-sales systems
 Ease of learning is important to reduce training costs
 Speed of performance is important because of the number of
transactions
 Subjective satisfaction is fairly important to limit operator
burnout
 Retention is obtained by frequent use
Usability motivations (3/5)
 Office, home, and entertainment applications
 Word processing, electronic mail, computer conferencing and video
game systems, educational packages, search engines, mobile devices, etc.
 Ease of learning, low error rates, and subjective satisfaction are very
important because use is often discretionary and competition is intense
 Infrequent use of some applications means interfaces must be intuitive,
and comprehensible online help is important
 Choosing functionality is difficult because the population has a wide
range of both novice and expert users
 A level-structured design is one approach (e.g., search engines)
 Competition cause the need for low cost
Usability motivations (4/5)
 Exploratory, creative, and cooperative systems
 Exploratory: Web browsing, search engines, simulation and business
decision making
 Creative: Artist toolkits, architectural design, software development,
music composition, and scientific modeling systems
 Collaborative: enable two or more people to work together, even if they
are separated by time and space
 These systems are difficult to design and evaluate because:
 users may be knowledgeable in task domain but novices in the underlying
computer concepts.
 Benchmark tasks are more difficult to describe because of the exploratory
nature of these applications.
 The computer should "vanish" so that the user can be absorbed in their
task domain
Usability motivations (5/5)
 Socio-technical systems
 Complex systems that involve many people over long time
periods
 Voting, health support, identity verification, crime reporting
 Trust, privacy, and security are issues
 Ease of learning for novices and feedback to build trust
 Administrators need tools to detect unusual patterns of
usage and review procedures at different levels
Goals for our profession
 Influencing academic and business researchers:
Potential research topics
 Reducing anxiety and fear of computer usage
 Graceful evolution
 Social media participation
 Input devices
 Information exploration
Goals for our profession (cont.)
 Providing tools, techniques, and knowledge for system
implementers i.e commercial designers
 Rapid prototyping is easy when using contemporary tools
 Use general or self-determined guideline documents written for
specific audiences
 To refine systems, use feedback from individual or groups of
users
 Raising the computer(user-interface) consciousness of
the general public
 Many novice users are fearful due to experience with poor
product design
 Good designs help novices through these fears by being clear,
competent, and nonthreatening
Chapter-3 : HCI - Guidelines, Principles
and Theories

Introduction, Guidelines: Navigation the interface, Accessibility guidelines, Organizing

the display and Getting the user’s attention
Principles: Determine user’s skill levels, Identify the tasks, Choose an interaction style,
Spectrum of Directness, 8 Golden Rules, Prevent errors, Automation and human control
Theories: By theory type and By Human Capacity with Taxonomies, Design by levels theories,
Stages of action theories, Consistency, Disappearance of syntax and Contextual Theories
Text Book

Page Number:
81 to 120

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Introduction:
 User interface design have accumulated a wealth of
experience and researchers have produced a growing body of
empirical evidence and theories, all of which can be
organized into:
 Guidelines: Low level focused advice about good practices and
cautions against dangers.
 Principles: Middle level strategies or rules to analyze and
compare design alternatives.
 Theories: High level widely applicable frameworks to draw on
during design and evaluation as well as to support
communication and teaching. In general, theories can also be
predictive in various aspects.
Introduction:(concluded)
(Similar to previous slide):
 Guidance for designers is available in the form of:
 Specific and practical guidelines
 Prescribe cures for design problems, caution against dangers, and provide
helpful reminders based on accumulated wisdom
 Middle-level principles
 Help in analyzing and comparing design alternatives
 High-level theories and models
 Try to describe objects and actions with consistent terminology so that
communication and teaching can be facilitated.
Guidelines:
 Guidelines are based on experience
 Record best practices derived from practical experience or empirical studies
with appropriate examples and counterexamples
 Promote consistency among multiple designers in terminology,
appearance, and action sequences
 Apple and Microsoft guidelines for desktop applications
 Guidelines for the web and mobile devices
 Critics
 Too specific, incomplete, hard to apply, and sometimes wrong
 Proponents
 Building on experience contributes to steady improvements
Guidelines:
 Shared language
 Best practices
 Critics
 Too specific, incomplete, hard to apply, and sometimes wrong
 Proponents
 Encapsulate experience

Example of Apple Guidelines for designing menus for the iWatch

Navigating the interface
 Sample of the National Cancer Institutes guidelines:
 Standardize task sequences
 Ensure that embedded links are descriptive
 Use unique and descriptive headings
 Use check boxes for binary choices
 Develop pages that will print properly
 Use thumbnail images to preview larger images

Detailed guidelines on www.usability.gov

Accessibility guidelines
Access Board (https://www.access-board.gov/), a US agency,
adapted guidelines about accessibility for people with
disabilities. The guidelines are organized into priority levels.
A sample of Accessibility Guidelines are:

 Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element

 For any time-based multimedia presentation synchronize
equivalent alternatives
 Information conveyed with color should also be conveyed without
it
 Title each frame to facilitate identification and navigation

https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
Organizing the display:
 Smith and Mosier (1986) offer five high-level goals for data display:
 Consistency of data display
 Terminology, abbreviations, formats, colors, etc.
 Efficient information assimilation by the user
 L/R justification, spacing, labeling, etc.
 Minimal memory load on the user
 No memory requirement from one screen to another
 Tasks of few actions only
 Labels & common formats, etc.
 Compatibility of data display with data entry
 Output fields as editable input fields
 Flexibility for user control of data display
 Order of columns, sorting of rows, etc.

 This compact set of high level objectives is a useful starting point, but each
project needs to expand these into application specific and hardware dependent
standards and practices.
Getting the user’s attention
 Intensity:
 two levels only, high intensity to draw attention
 Marking:
 underlining, box, arrow, asterisk, bullet, dash, plus sigh, or X
 Size:
 up to four sizes only, with larger sizes attracting more attention
 Choice of fonts:
 up to three fonts only
 Inverse video (inverse coloring)
 Blinking:
 use with great care and in limited areas
 Color:
 up to four
 Audio:
 soft tones for regular positive feedback, harsh for rare emergency conditions
 Overusing these techniques may result in cluttered displays
Facilitating data entry
 Smith and Mosier (1986) offer five high-level objectives as part of
their guidelines for data entry:
 Consistency of data-entry transactions
 Similar sequences of actions under all conditions
 Similar abbreviations, delimiters, and so on.
 Minimal input actions by user (increases productivity)
 Few clicks, list choice selection
 Avoid frequent movement between keyboard & mouse
 Avoid redundant data-entry
 Minimal memory load on users
 Lengthy list of codes, complex commands
 Compatibility of data entry with data display
 Flexibility for user control of data entry
 e.g., sequence control
 Should be used cautiously; flexibility goes against consistency
Principles
(While guidelines are low-level and narrowly focused)
 Principles are more fundamental, widely applicable, and
enduring than guidelines
 Need more clarification
 Fundamental principles
 Determine user’s skill levels
 Identify the tasks
 Five primary interaction styles
 Eight golden rules of interface design
 Prevent errors
 Automation and human control
Determine user’s skill levels
 “Know thy user”
 All designs should begin with an understanding of the intended users
 Age, gender, physical and cognitive abilities, education, cultural or ethnic background,
training, motivation, goals and personality
 Other variables: location (e.g. urban vs. rural), economic profile, disabilities, and attitude
towards using technology
 An understanding of users’ skills with interfaces and with the application domain is also important
 Separation of users into various groups might lead to different design goals. e.g.
 Novice or first-time users
 Knowledgeable intermittent users
 Expert frequent users
 Multi-layer (or level-structured) designs
 Not only in the software but also in user manuals, help screens, error messages and tutorials
 The most promising approach to promoting universal usability
 Other ways of accommodating different usage classes
 User control of the density of informative feedback
 Dense vs. sparse display of information
 Slow vs. fast pace of interaction
Identify the tasks
 The set of tasks must be determined before design can proceed
 Task analysis usually involve long hours observing and interviewing users
 Decomposition of high level tasks
 Relative task frequencies: frequent vs. infrequent
Choose an interaction style
 Direct Manipulation
 Menu selection
 Form filling
 Command language
 Natural language
Spectrum of Directness
The 8 golden rules of interface design
1. Strive for consistency
2. Cater to universal usability
3. Offer informative feedback
4. Design dialogs to yield closure
5. Prevent errors
6. Permit easy reversal of actions
7. Support internal locus of control
8. Reduce short term memory load
Prevent errors
 Make error messages specific, positive in tone, and
constructive
 Mistakes and slips (Norman, 1983)
 Correct actions
 Gray out inappropriate actions
 Selection rather than freestyle typing
 Automatic completion
 Complete sequences
 Single abstract commands
 Macros and subroutines
Relative Capabilities of humans and machines Automation and human control
Theories
• Beyond the specifics of guidelines
• Principles are used to develop theories

Multiple theory types that researchers and designers

consider when evaluating user interfaces:
1. By Theory Type:
Descriptions/explanatory and prescriptive/predictive
2. By Human Capacity:
Motor task and perceptual/cognitive
Explanatory and predictive theories
 Explanatory theories:
 Observing behavior
 Describing activity
 Conceiving of designs
 Comparing high-level concepts of two designs
 Training
 Predictive theories:
 Enable designers to compare proposed designs for execution
time or error rates
Perceptual, Cognitive & Motor tasks
 Perceptual or Cognitive subtasks
theories
 Predicting reading times for free text, lists, or
formatted displays
 Motor-task performance times
theories:
 Predicting keystroking or pointing times
Taxonomy (explanatory theory)
 Order on a complex set of phenomena
 Facilitate useful comparisons
 Organize a topic for newcomers
 Guide designers
 Indicate opportunities for novel products.
Design by levels theories
 Conceptual, semantic, syntactic, and lexical
model:
 Foley and van Dam four-level approach
 Conceptual level:
 User's mental model of the interactive system
 Semantic level:
 Describes the meanings conveyed by the user's command input and by the
computer's output display
 Syntactic level:
 Defines how the units (words) that convey semantics are assembled into a complete
sentence that instructs the computer to perform a certain task
 Lexical level:
 Deals with device dependencies and with the precise mechanisms by which a user
specifies the syntax
 Approach is convenient for designers
 Top-down nature is easy to explain
 Matches the software architecture
 Allows for useful modularity during design
Stages of action theories or models
 Norman's seven stages of action
1. Forming the goal
2. Forming the intention
3. Specifying the action
4. Executing the action
5. Perceiving the system state
6. Interpreting the system state
7. Evaluating the outcome
 Norman's contributions
 Context of cycles of action and evaluation.
 Gulf of execution: Mismatch between the user's intentions and the
allowable actions
 Gulf of evaluation: Mismatch between the system's representation
and the users' expectations
Stages of action theories or models(cont.)
 Four principles of good design
 State and the action alternatives should be visible
 Should be a good conceptual model with a consistent system
image
 Interface should include good mappings that reveal the
relationships between stages
 User should receive continuous feedback
 Four critical points where user failures can occur
 Users can form an inadequate goal
 Might not find the correct interface object because of an
incomprehensible label or icon
 May not know how to specify or execute a desired action
 May receive inappropriate or misleading feedback
Consistency Theory through grammars
Consistent user interface goal
 Definition is elusive - multiple levels sometimes in conflict
 Sometimes advantageous to be inconsistent.
Consistent Inconsistent A Inconsistent B
delete/insert character delete/insert character delete/insert character
delete/insert word remove/bring word remove/insert word
delete/insert line destroy/create line delete/insert line
delete/insert paragraph kill/birth paragraph delete/insert paragraph

Inconsistent action verbs

 Take longer to learn
 Cause more errors
 Slow down users
 Harder for users to remember
Contextual Theories
 User actions are situated by time and place
 You may not have time to deal with shortcuts or device dependent syntax, such as on
mobile devices, when hurried
 Physical space is important in ubiquitous, pervasive and embedded devices, e.g. a
museum guide stating information about a nearby painting

 A taxonomy for mobile device application development

could include:
 Monitor and provide alerts, e.g. patient monitoring systems
 Gather information
 Participate in group collaboration
 Locate and identify nearby object or site
 Capture information about the object and share that information
Dynamic Theories
 These theories owe much to the theories of adoption or
innovation diffusion(Rogers 2003), which include five
attributes:
 Relative advantage: faster, safer, more error free usage or
cheaper
 Compatibility: fitting for user need, consistent with existing
values
 Trial ability: availability to experiment with innovation
 Observability: visibility of innovation to others
 Less Complexity: ease of learning and use