RECAP

Human-Computer Interaction deals with the design of systems that are to be used by people. HCI focuses on user-centered design process and why it is an important part of designing highly usable systems

Human-Computer Interaction
Usability What is usability or user-friendliness?

Usability

Usability

Definition of Usability
Tom Carey: If your computer were a person, how long till you punch it in the nose? Schneiderman: usability is a combination of characteristics: Ease of learning High Speed of user task performance Low user error rate User retention over time
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Common Usability Myths

Users dont need better interfaces, just better training. Usability is subjective it cannot be measured or engineered. User interface design is implicit to software design. Usability increases development costs and length of the development cycle

Why care about usability?

Reduces user errors Reduces training costs Reduces support costs Reduces development costs Increases user satisfaction Increases user acceptance

reduces development cost

reduces budget overruns

why care about usability?

top reasons for budget overruns frequent change requested by user overlooked tasks post implementation cost approximately 80% of total software development costs occur after release. 80% of the fixes are due to unmet or unforeseen user needs
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Why are we teaching this course?

There are too many bad user interface out in the market already and we dont need more Human Mistakes are expensive; Learn how these mistakes happen Develop processes to design and implement a more usable system

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Components of a System

application engine

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How Tightly Bounded Should the Design Be?

Theory: designing interface separate from system allows for better design of user interactions But: Most users think the interface is the system The interface is the system in as much as all the functionality of the system that is important to the user is part of the interface Summary: No easy answer, varies from system to system
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Component of User Interface Development Process

Development of the user interface Development of the interaction component(how a user interface works, how it behaves in response to user actions) Development of the interface software(software that implements the interaction component)
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Behavioral and Constructional Domains

Behavioral
What is being developed Interaction component of interface View of the user

Constructional
Interface software (to support interaction) View of the system

What view is adopted

What is described What is involved

User actions, perceptions, and tasks Human factors, scenarios, detailed representations, usability specifications, evaluation Where interaction designers and evaluators do their work Procedures performed by the user

System actions in response to what the user does Algorithms, callbacks, data structures, widgets, programming Where interface software implementers do their work Procedures performed by the system

The locale

The test

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How Tightly Bound Should These Be?

Implementation of User Interface is constructional

BUT
Constructional issues will affect usability: Computers have speed and functionality limitation that will affect interface

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Aspects of HCI
Pure behavioral issues: Human perception, memory and cognitive issues Pure constructional issues: Elements of user interfaces: devices, widgets User interface design tools. E.g. Visual Basic Behavioral and constructional issues: Process and methodologies of user interface development: UI specifications, design, evaluation, testing Principles, guidelines, standards for designing good user interfaces
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Exercise
Evaluate the User Interface of the a mobile phone based on heuristics Does it support workflow? Is it consistent Does it provide clear navigation and orientation? Does it give users control? Does it increase learnability? Does it reduce memory load? Does it provide effective feedback? Is visual clarity optimized? How would you improve the UI to make it more usable?
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The Human Input-Output Channels

 FOUNDATION OF HCI The Human The Computer The Interaction The Human Psychology Under the general banner of cognitive psychology Model Human Processor (Card, Moran and Newell, 1983) composed of the perceptual, motor and cognitive subsystems

Input-output channels
First rule of HCI: Know the user Input in human 5 senses effectors

Visual Perception
Anatomy of the eye

Anatomy of Perception
Brightness Affected by luminance Visual acuity increase with luminance Flicker increases with luminance and more noticeable in peripheral vision

Anatomy of Perception
Contrast Visual acuity increases with contrast Experiment shows that negative contrast results in more accurate reading performance

Negative Contrast
Experiment also showed that performance did not change even with increase flicker

Positive Contrast
Experiment showed that flicker increased with positive contrast.

Anatomy of Perception
Colour Hue Spectral wavelength of light Intensity Brightness of colour Saturation Amount of white in colour

Colour Usage
Segmentation: colour is a powerful way of dividing display into separate regions Amount of colour: too many colours in a display increases search times Task demands: colours is very powerful for search tasks and less use in categorization and memorization Inexperience users benefit more from use of colour for search tasks than experienced users

Size & Depth

Size & Depth cont.

Size & Depth cont.

Stereoscopic Vision

Other Cues in 3D Perception

Overlapping objects Contrast, clarity and brightness Shadows Texture Familiarity with actual sizes of objects

Rendering 3D Image on Computer

Reading
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh?

Reading cont.
Stages in reading process: Visual pattern of word perceived Decoded w.r.t. internal representation of language Syntactic and semantic analysis to determine meaning Word are scanned and recognized globally by word shape cHanGIng tHe SHaPe oF ThE wOrD wITh fUnNy caPiTaLIzaTiON iS bAd.

Reading (cont.)
Speed at which text is read measures legibility Reading from screen is slower than from a book

It is easier to read leftjustified texts than rightjustified texts

Separate paragraph with blank line Use paging, not scrolling

Semantic Analysis
User understand familiar terms better and faster
the incipient soporific discourse on comprehension is a ruse for the fatigued.

Avoid jargon Use short familiar words Use complete words

Hearing and Speaking

Sound is a very powerful transmitter of information: (e.g. speech, music) Why is it useful? For visually impaired users For busy users who dont want to look at a screen (i.e. are doing something else) User who dont want or cant touch the keyboard dirty hands, disabled person, etc.

Hearing and Speaking cont.

Not used much in computer system Clutter: organizational Redundant with visual cues
make sure user has control over quality and volume

Semantic analysis of speech still a difficult problem Expensive, but getting more accessible

Hearing and Speaking cont.

Limited usage: Getting users attention Confirmation that something has been typed Full usage natural language systems Guide the user by providing options Give users a feel of talking to a real person Music to set mood or control users performance

Touch
Fingers contain many receptors & very sensitive Touch is very important in HCI Feeling buttons depress important part of task of pressing button Visually impaired users also rely more heavily on touch Virtual reality: feels unreal because of no touch feedback

Movement
motor control involves several processing stages movement time is dependent on physical characteristics of subject reaction time is dependent on the sense through which the stimulus is received measures of motor skill: speed and accuracy