Principle of Human

Computer Interaction

Janine Padilla Defante | Instructor 1

Introduction to HCI

Lecture 1

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  Introduction
 What is HCI?
 The HCI Challenge
 HCI is Not about
 HCI is about
Outline  The goals of HCI
 What is Usability?
 Why is usability important?
 Why HCI is Important in the Context of WWW?
 It is not Simple to Make Good User Interfaces
 Examples of good and bad design

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  Interacting with technology has become an
essential part of everyday life for the
majority of people.

 The average user of a computer system is

now less likely to understand the
technology. Since, there are different types
of technology they have to use.
Introduction
 People are busy and may spend little or no
time actually learning a new system.

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  Therefore, computer systems
should be easy to use, easy to
learn, and with no errors.
Introduction
(cont.)  To design and develop of such a
system is a major concern of HCI

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  Human-computer interaction (HCI): “is a discipline
concerned with the design, evaluation and
implementation of interactive systems for human use
and with study of major phenomena surrounding
them.”
What is HCI?
(ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p. 6)
  HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of
interaction between people (users) and computers.

 Interaction between users and computers occurs at the

What is HCI? user interface

 The golden principle in HCI is that “people should come

first”.

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 HCI consists of three parts:
 Human: could be an individual user or a group of
users.

What ..(cont.)  Computer: could be any technology ranging from

the general desktop computer to a large scale
computer system.
 Interaction: any direct or indirect communication
between a human and computer.

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  HCI concentrates on the study of human factors

 The study of human factors started during the

Second World War by US army.
What ..(cont.)
 Usability was born because of badly designed arms
that caused “friendly fire” during war.

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The HCI
Challenge

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  Making the interface look pretty

 Only about desktop computers (and that goes for

computing as well!)
HCI is Not
about  Something that would be nice to do but usually
there’s no time for it

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  Understanding the users
 Understanding users tasks
 Understanding the surrounding environment
 GUI requirements gathering and analysis
HCI is about  Design prototype
 Evaluate the system

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  The goal of HCI “is to develop or improve the safety,
utility, effectiveness, efficiency and usability of
The goals of system that include computers.”
HCI (Interacting with computers, 1989, p3)

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 • The goals of HCI are to produce
usable and safe systems, as well as
functional systems. In order to fulfill
that, developers must attempt to:
–Understand how people use technology
–Building suitable systems
The goals of –Achieve efficient, effective, and safe
HCI interaction
–Put people first

People needs, capabilities and preferences

should come first. People should not have to
change the way that they use a system.
Instead, the system should be designed to
match their requirements

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  A usable system is:
 easy to use
 easy to learn
What is  easy to remember how to use
Usability?  effective to use
 efficient to use
 safe to use
 enjoyable to use

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 A Good user-interface can:

1. Earn a company billions.

2. Increase users loyalty.

Why is
usability 3. Increase users trust.
important?
4. Makes users happy : )

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 A Bad user-interface can:

1. be annoying, embarrassing, frustrating, and even

deadly.
Why ..(cont.) 2. Increase mistakes in data entry and system
operation.
3. Makes functions become completely inaccessible.
4. System failure because of user rejection.

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 • Competition is very close (just
another link…)
• Comparison is easily possible
Why HCI is (example – Online-Shop)
Important in
the Context • Users who can’t find the product in
of WWW? the shop can not buy it
• Users who are not able to fill in
correctly the order form are not
going to buy

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 Basic misconceptions:
• If I (the developer) can use it,
everyone can use it
It is not
Simple to • If our non-technical staff can use it,
Make Good everyone can
User
Interfaces • Good user interfaces are applied
common sense

• A system is usable if all style

guidelines are met

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Examples of
good and bad
design

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Introduction to HCI

Lecture 2

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  Disciplines Contributing to
Human-Computer Interaction
 Is HCI really Important?
 A real life example
 The importance of HCI
Outline
 Reasons for Failures
 Traditional approach
 User-centred design
 Examples of good and bad design

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Disciplines
Contributing
to Human-
Computer
Interaction

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Is HCI really
Important?

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 A real example: a pilot shuts down
the wrong engine and the plane
crashes (as happened near
Leicestershire, in England on the
M1 motorway in 1989), this is
obviously more serious. 47 died
A real life
example

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 Example about: direct correlation between
HCI and sales
• NYNEX: a telecommunication
company in Italy
– Purpose: to increase the
A real performance of helpdesk office
..(cont.)
– Decided to improve the usability of
the helpdesk operator interface
– Reduced the process time 1 second
per call
Result: $ 3,000,000 benefit / year
www.metu.edu.tr/~acengiz/biltek_sunum
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 1. Can Preventing accidents
2. Health and safety concerns
The 3. Can reduce the cost of customer training and
importance support
of HCI 4. Direct correlation between HCI and sales
5. HCI can provide you a job.

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  What is the percentage of software development
projects that fails?
 A. 20%
Time to
Think!  B. 35%
 C. 55%
 D. 85%

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 Fact
- Fletcher Buckley “: 85% of Software projects are
either late or delivered without satisfying the
specification.”

But WHY?

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 Projects in general fail for various reasons:

•lack of senior management commitment

Reasons for •lack of user involvement

Failures
•lack of user requirements specifications

•poor project planning and team problems

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  Is concerned with producing
software, software specification,
Traditional maintainability, and testing
approaches
to system
development  Generally considers the interface
to be just another software
component.

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 Requirements
specification

Analysis

Example of Design

traditional
approach Implementation

Testing

Operation and
maintenance

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  This approach normally involves a
number of key activities throughout
the development of the software
Introduction including:
to User  Involving users
Centered  Obtaining their feedback on the
approach design
 Providing prototypes for system
evaluation and re-design in light of
user feedback and comments.

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  Real users involved at each step of the
process

 Find out about the users before

User requirement specification
Centered
approach
 Design and implementation

 Review (usability test) with the users

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 cannot assume a linear
user needs Requirements sequence of activities
specification
as in the waterfall model
The life cycle Analysis

for
interactive Design

systems
Implementation

lots of feedback!
Testing

Operation and
maintenance

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 1. Data Collection
User 2. Data Analysis
Centered 3. Prototyping
Development 4. Design
5. Evaluation

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 • Data recording
– Using media

• Interviews
– Stakeholder interviews
1. Data – Subject Matter Expert interviews
– User and customer interviews
Collection
• Questionnaires
– Surveys, product reviews

• Literature review
– Studying existing systems

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 • Requirement analysis
– Formal specifications of the system

• User analysis
– Identifying and understanding the user
2. Data
Analysis • Task analysis
– Steps user take to accomplish this task

• Functional analysis
– Functions that system perform to help the users
carry out their task

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 Advantages of Prototyping:

 Users are actively involved in the

development

 It provides a better system to users

3. Prototyping  The users get a better understanding
of the system being developed.

 Errors can be detected much earlier

 Quicker user feedback is available

leading to better solutions

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  Goals
 Achieving goals

 Users and systems

4. Design  Understanding the raw materials: computer and
human

 Limitations
 Accepting limitations of humans and of design

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  Testing the usability, functionality and acceptability
of an interactive system
 Expert evaluation
5. Evaluation  Evaluation by Subject Matter Experts

 User evaluation
 Evaluation by user or customer

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 Making a photocopy

Designer vs.
Users
 Why this photocopier does not work? What do you
think!

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Designer vs.
Users
Clear Copy

Designer meant by ‘C’ = Clear People thought that ‘C’ = Copy

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
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Examples
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Examples
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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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Examples
..(cont.)

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  http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~rxb/Teaching/HCI%2
0II/intro.html
 http://www.baddesigns.com/examples.html
 http://www.goodexperience.com/tib/archives/w
ebtech/
References  http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~saul/hci_topics/to
pics/psych.html
 http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/
 www.useit.com
 http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~meinkej/inss690/wil
son.htm

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