CS8079

HUMAN COMPUTER
INTERACTION
ELECTIVE THEORY III

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OBJECTIV
ES
 To learn the foundations of Human Computer Interaction.
 To become familiar with the design technologies for individuals and persons with
disabilities.
 To be aware of mobile HCI.
 To learn the guidelines for user interface.

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What is HCI?

 HCI involves the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive

systems in the context of the user’s task and work
 Man– machine interaction
 Not necessarily envisage(imagine) a single user with a desktop computer
 User
• An individual user, a group of users working together, or a sequence of
users in an organization
• Dealing with some part of the task or process and trying to get the job
done using the technology

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Cont..
 Computer
• Any technology ranging from the general desktop computer to a large-scale
computer system, a process control system or an embedded system. The system
may include non-computerized parts, including other people.
 Interaction
Any communication between a user and computer, be it direct or indirect.
o Direct interaction
A dialog with feedback and control throughout the performance of the task.
o Indirect interaction
Batch processing or intelligent sensors controlling the environment.

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Who is involved in
HCI?
Expertise in a range of topics:
•Psychology and Cognitive science
to give knowledge of the user’s perceptual, cognitive and problem-solving
skills
•Ergonomics - for the user’s physical capabilities
•Sociology
to help to understand the wider context of the interaction
•Computer science and engineering
to be able to build the necessary technology
•Business - to be able to market it
•Graphic design
to produce an effective interface presentation; technical writing to produce
the manuals, and so it goes on.
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Human
 Human psychology - cognitive psychology
 Capabilities and limitations
 Model Human Processor
• Simplified view of the human processing involved in interaction
• Three subsystems:
Perceptual system - handling sensory stimulus from the outside world
Motor system – controls actions
Cognitive system - which provides the processing needed to connect
the two
• Each of these subsystems has its own processor and memory

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Human

Input – Output channels

Memory

Problem –solving skills

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INPUT–OUTPUT
CHANNELS
• Input in the human occurs mainly through the senses
• Output through the motor control of the effectors
Senses
sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell
sight, hearing, touch – HCI
Effectors
limbs, fingers, eyes, head and vocal system
In the interaction with the computer, the fingers play the primary role
some use of voice, and eye, head and body position

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Vision
 Human vision is a highly complex activity with a range of physical and perceptual
limitations
 Visual perception
Physical reception of the stimulus from the outside world
- there are certain things that cannot be seen by the human
Processing and interpretation of that stimulus
- interpretative capabilities of visual processing allow images to be
constructed
 We need to understand both stages as both influence what can and cannot be perceived
visually by a human being, which in turn directly affects the way that we design
computer systems.

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Visual
Perception
Perceiving size and
depth
Perceiving Size
Visual angel
1 degree = 60
minutes
arc
1 minute arc = 60
seconds arc

Visual acuity
ability of a person to
perceive fine detail.
a person with normal
vision can detect a single line
if it has a
visual angle of 0.5 seconds of
arc. Spaces between lines can
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detected at 30 seconds to 10
1 minute of visual arc. These
 Cont..
• law of size constancy
a person’s height is perceived as constant even if they move further
from you
• It indicates that our perception of size relies on factors other than the
visual angle
Perceiving Depth
• If objects overlap, the object which is partially covered is perceived to
be in the background
• The size and height of the object in our field of view
• If we expect an object to be of a certain size then we can judge its
distance accordingly
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Perceiving brightness
• Brightness is in fact a subjective reaction to levels of light.
• It can be described in terms of the amount of luminance that gives a
just noticeable difference in brightness.
• It is affected by luminance which is the amount of light emitted by an
object.
• The luminance of an object is dependent on the amount of light
falling on the object’s surface and its reflective properties.
• Luminance is a physical characteristic and can be measured using a
photometer.
• Contrast is related to luminance: it is a function of the luminance of
an object and the luminance of its background.

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Cont
..
• Visual acuity increases with increased luminance
• However, as luminance increases, flicker also increases

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Perceiving
color

• Three components: hue, intensity and saturation

Hue - It is determined by the spectral wavelength of the light.

Blues have short wavelengths, greens medium and reds
long. Approximately 150 different hues can be
discriminated by the average person.

Intensity - It is the brightness of the color

Saturation - It is the amount of whiteness in the color.

By varying these two, we can perceive in the region of 7 million different colors.
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The capabilities and limitations of visual
processing

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Cont.
.

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Cont
..

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Reading
• During reading, the eye makes jerky movements called saccades followed by
fixations. Perception occurs during the fixation periods, which account for
approximately 94% of the time elapsed. The eye moves backwards over the text
as well as forwards, in what are known as regressions. If the text is complex
there will be more regressions.

• Adults read approximately 250 words a minute. It is unlikely that words are
scanned serially, character by character, since experiments have shown that
words can be recognized as quickly as single characters.

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Cont..
• Instead, familiar words are recognized using word shape
• This means that removing the word shape clues (for example, by capitalizing
words) is detrimental to reading speed and accuracy
• standard font sizes of 9 to 12 points are equally legible given
proportional spacing between lines
• Similarly line lengths of between 2.3 and 5.2 inches (58 and 132
mm) are equally legible
• However, there is evidence that reading from a computer screen
is slower than from a book

• These factors can of course be reduced by careful design of

textual interfaces
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Reading

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Hearing
Human ear
•Hearing begins with vibrations in the air or sound waves.
•The ear receives these vibrations and transmits them, through various
stages, to the auditory nerves.

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Processing Sound
• Characteristics of sound:
Pitch – It is the frequency of the sound. A low frequency produces a low pitch, a
high frequency, a high pitch.
Loudness - It is proportional to the amplitude of the sound; the frequency remains
constant
Timbre – It relates to the type of the sound: sounds may have the same pitch and
loudness but be made by different instruments and so vary in timbre. We can
also identify a sound’s location
• It is rarely used to its potential in interface design, usually being confined to
warning sounds and notifications.

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Cont..
• The exception is multimedia, which may include music, voice
commentary and sound effects.

• However, the ear can differentiate quite subtle sound changes and
can recognize familiar sounds without concentrating attention on the
sound source.

• This suggests that sound could be used more extensively in interface

design, to convey information about the system state, for example.
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Touch
• Haptic perception
• Feeling buttons depress is an important part of the task of pressing
the button
• For those whose other senses are impaired, it may be vitally
important
• We receive stimuli through the skin
• Skin contains three types of sensory receptor:
 Thermoreceptors respond to heat and cold
 Nociceptors respond to intense heat and pain
 Mechanoreceptors respond to pressure

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Cont
..
o Rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors
Respond to immediate pressure
Also react more quickly with increased pressure
They stop responding if continuous pressure is applied
o Slowly adapting mechanoreceptors
Respond to continuously applied pressure

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Movement / Motor
Skill
 Movement time is dependent largely on the physical characteristics
 Reaction time varies according to the sensory channel through which the
stimulus is received.
 A person can react to an auditory signal in approximately 150 ms, to a visual
signal in 200 ms and to pain in 700 ms.
 However, a combined signal will result in the quickest response. Factors such
as skill or practice can reduce reaction time, and fatigue(tiredness) can
increase it.
 A second measure of motor skill is accuracy.
 Speed and accuracy of movement are important considerations in the design
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of interactive systems
Cont...
• The target may be a button, a menu item or an icon, for
example
• The time taken to hit a target is a function of the size of the
target and the distance that has to be moved.
• Fitts’ law
Movement time = a + b log2(distance/size + 1)
where a and b are empirically(provided by
experience/observation) determined constants.

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HUMAN MEMORY

There are three types of memory or memory function:

sensory buffers
short-term memory or working memory
long-term memory

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Sensory
Memory
 The sensory memories act as buffers for stimuli received through the
senses.
 A sensory memory exists for each sensory channel:
• iconic memory for visual stimuli
• echoic memory for aural stimuli
• haptic memory for touch
 These memories are constantly overwritten by new information
coming in on these channels.

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Short-term
memory
• Short-term memory or working memory acts as a ‘scratch-pad’ for temporary
recall of information.
Example 1:

• calculate the multiplication 35 × 6 in your head

Example 2:
• In order to comprehend the sentence you need to hold in your mind the
beginning of the sentence as you read the rest.
• Limited capacity.
• Two basic methods for measuring memory capacity:
The first involves determining the length of a sequence which can be
remembered in order.
The second allows items to be freely recalled in any order.

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Cont.
.
• Using the first measure, the average person can remember 7 +/- 2
digits
 265397620853 44 113 245 8920
• In second sequence digits are grouped or chunked.
• The successful formation of a chunk is known as closure.
• Most people would have difficulty remembering the following
sequence of chunks:
 HEC ATR ANU PTH ETR EET
• By moving the last character to the first position, you get the
statement ‘the cat ran up the tree’, the sequence is easy to recall.

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Cont
..
• In experiments where subjects were able to recall words freely,
evidence shows that recall of the last words presented is better than

recall of those in the middle. This is known as the recency effect.

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• short-term memory is not a unitary system but is made up of a
number of components, including a visual channel and an articulatory
channel.

• The task of sentence processing used the visual channel, while the
task of remembering digits used the articulatory channel, so
interference only occurs if tasks utilize the same channel.

• These findings led Baddeley to propose a model of working memory

that incorporated a number of elements together with a central
processing executive.
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Long-term
memory
• Long-term memory is intended for the long-term storage of
information.
• Information is placed there from working memory through rehearsal
• We store factual information, experiential knowledge, procedural
rules of behavior – in fact, everything that we ‘know’.
• It has a huge, if not unlimited, capacity.
• it has a relatively slow access time of approximately a tenth of a
second.
• Forgetting occurs more slowly in long-term memory.

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Long-term memory
structure
• There are two types of long-term memory: episodic memory and semantic
memory.
• Episodic memory represents our memory of events and experiences in a serial
form. It is from this memory that we can reconstruct the actual events that took
place at a given point in our lives.
• Semantic memory, on the other hand, is a structured record of facts, concepts
and skills that we have acquired.
• The information in semantic memory is derived from that in our episodic
memory, such that we can learn new facts or concepts from our experiences.
• Semantic memory is structured .
• The viability of semantic networks as a model of memory organization has been
demonstrated by Collins and Quillian.

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THINKING: REASONING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Reasoning
•Reasoning is the process by which we use the knowledge we have to draw
conclusions or infer something new about the domain of interest.

•Types of reasoning: deductive, inductive and abductive.

•We use each of these types of reasoning in everyday life, but they differ in
significant ways.

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Deductive reasoning

• Deductive reasoning is a logical approach where you progress from

general ideas to specific conclusions. It's often contrasted with
inductive reasoning, where you start with specific observations and
form general conclusions.
• Deductive reasoning is also called deductive logic or top-down
reasoning.
Examples:
• All dogs have ears; golden retrievers are dogs, therefore they have
ears.
• All racing cars must go over 80MPH; the Dodge Charger is a racing
car, therefore it can go over 80MPH.
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Inductive reasoning
• Inductive reasoning is a method of drawing conclusions by going from
the specific to the general. It's usually contrasted with deductive
reasoning, where you go from general information to specific
conclusions.
• Inductive reasoning is also called inductive logic or bottom-up
reasoning
• For example, if you notice that every time you eat spicy food, you get
a stomach ache, you might use inductive reasoning to conclude that
spicy food causes stomach aches.

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Abductive reasoning
• Abductive reasoning is a form of logical reasoning which starts with
single or multiple observations then seeks to find the most likely
explanation or conclusion for the observation.
• Abductive reasoning is an extension of deductive reasoning, but in
abductive reasoning, the premises do not guarantee the conclusion.
• Example : If you see an abandoned bowl of hot soup on the table, you
can use abduction to conclude the owner of the soup is likely
returning soon.

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