HCI - Introduction to HCI

Notes

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Interaction

• It’s frustrating when we spend more time figuring out how to use a software rather than focusing our time on accomplishing the task.
• As designers, we should address this - make the user feel they are interacting with the task , while our interface kind of vanishes behind (make it seamless).

HCI vs Human Factors

• Human factors engineering - designing interfaces between people and products, system
• Example - consider an electric car

Human Factors Engineering	Human Computer Interaction
interested in how humans interact with non computer parts too	interested just in how humans interact with computers present in the car
position of mirror, dashboard, height of seat	visualizing data on dashboard, control stereo system

• We take the teachings of HFE and narrow it down for computer systems.
• Overtime HCI applications are growing and the gap between HFE and HCI is narrowing down.

HCI vs User interface design

• UI Design - focus on on-screen interaction
• HCI - general methods applied to any interface

HCI vs User experience design

• HCI - understanding interaction between humans and computers
• UX - dictating interactions between humans and computers
• symbiotic relationship
• good design - understanding is correct
• bad design - understanding is flawed, fix the issues and improve the design

HCI vs Psychology

• HCI takes form of software engineering
• we use understanding of psychology, human perception, cognition to inform the designs
• use these to reflect on our understanding of psychology
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HCI : Research & Design

• Research (need finding, prototyping, evaluation)
• Design (distributed cognition, mental models, universal design)
• symbiotic relationship
• HCI : using research to define designs, using feedback from designs to inform our ongoing research

Learning goals

• Design cycle : conception → prototyping → evaluation

To design

• design - iterative process of needfinding, prototyping, evaluating, revising
• design has two forms :
  • apply known principles to new problems
  • gather info, develop alternative designs, evaluate them accordingly

Effectiveness

• what’s our goal ?
• most obvious : usability
• other times : research (how users perceive something is working perfectly, make them intentionally harder , reduce carbon footprint, compare stats to neighbours show usage graphics )

Between humans and computers

• goal shouldn’t be to design thermostat, instead goal should be to design it in such a way user controls the temperature in better way . (Ex - Nest - automatically adjusts)

Exploring HCI

• Technologies - new technological capabilities allowing us to design new user interactions
• domains - pre- existing areas that can be disrupted by computer interfaces like healthcare, education .
• ideas - theories about how people interact with interfaces

Ideas

Ubicomp and wearables

• Ubiquitous computing → computing power anytime, anywhere

Robotics

• Human robot interaction
• equip robots to interact naturally with humans
• giving ability to learn
• giving ability to teach humans
• loss of demand for human labour - intersection of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), AI, Philosophy

Mobile computing

• challenges : limited screen size, input methods are less precise
• opportunities : context-aware computing, AR
• why haven’t phones replaced computers ?

Context - Sensitive Computing

• equipping user interfaces with historical, geographical or other forms of contextual knowledge
• perform certain action based on location (phone - open google maps when in car, put in silent mode when in meeting room)

Gesture based Interaction

• Interacting with interfaces using hand or body gestures
• finger movements can support incredible number of interactions

Information Visualization

• representing abstract data visually to help humans understand it .

CSCW (computer supported cooperative work)

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Social computing

• where computing intersects with our social lives - games, social media, dating apps, blogs

Domain

Special needs

• helping with special needs : ageing, injury, disability
• robotic prosthetic : neuroscience + engineering
• it’s important to understand how person intends to use such a limb (hci + robotics)
• communicating data visualization to blind people (through sound)

Education

• use HCI to introduce difficulties, design learning experiences for students

Healthcare

• equipping doctors with patient data for diagnosis
• equipping patients with data to better understand their body
• using VR to treat phobias, providing therapy → help people confront their fears

Security

• security can be made usable with hci .
• if security methods come in the way of the people, they will simply ignore it risking online attacks.
• captcha’s earlier included writing down the text but now it’s just a checkbox (mouse movement is tracked).
• system should specify to user why strong passwords are needed (mindset changes).
• games scoring how strong password is fun way to ease the users into security practices .

Games

• best example of hci.
• logical mapping between actions and effects
• feedback loop where user adjust actions based on gameplay
• actions taken by user on controller should feel they are directly interacting with the game
• video game reviews mentions criticisms which are directly related to hci
• controls not easy to use, hard time navigating, penalty is high for loss

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Related

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References