Transcript acce.edu.au

Human-Computer Interaction:
Who is General Failure and
Why is He Reading Drive A?
Dr Jay Burmeister
[email protected]
QSITE
ACEC 2006
Overview
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Know your users
HCI – what is it and why is it important?
HCI in the IPT syllabus
Pedagogical issues
Resources
Your participation is encouraged and valued
What Do You Think HCI Is?
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
HCI is: “concerned with the design, evaluation
and implementation of interactive computing
systems for human use and with the study of
major phenomena surrounding them”
(ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p.6)
HCI: What is it About?
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The ethos of HCI is that software, computers,
and technology should be intentionally and
actively designed for people
Software, computers, and technology exist
simply to meet human needs and are not an
end in themselves
User-Centred Design (UCD):
 the user should be the centre of the developers
concern
 users, their needs, and (dis)abilities should be
understood and designed for
HCI: An Interdisciplinary Concern
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Computer science (implementation)
Software engineering (processes)
Psychology (perception)
Cognitive science (problem solving)
Sociology (context)
Ergonomics (physical)
Graphic design (visual effect)
Technical writing (documentation)
Business (marketing)
Fields Associated with HCI
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HCI
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Human Factors
Cognitive Engineering
Cognitive Ergonomics
Computer Supported Co-operative
Work
Information Systems
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Why is HCI Important to You? To Students?
Why is HCI Important?
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Good interfaces don’t just happen – they
have to be designed
Bad interfaces don’t get used (or bought)
User-centred design is important
Understanding how humans use interfaces
improves interface design
Interfaces should empower people
Why is Interface Design so Bad?
Why is Interface Design so Bad?
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Good design is hard
Designers tend to emphasise functionality
Designers design for themselves, and
generalise inappropriately
Designers run out of time to put a good
interface on at the end of the design process
User tolerance of bad interfaces
The Interface/Functionality Distinction
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Functionality:
 what the system does
 easy to determine success
 design space less complex
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Interface:
 what the user sees and works with
 difficult to determine success
 complex design space
Conceptualising an Interface
System
presentation
Interface
User
Output
observation
evaluation
execution
performance
Input
articulation
(adapted from Abowd and Beale)
Queensland IPT Syllabus
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A major project must contribute towards the
assessment of HCI.
A minor project need not include a
contribution towards the assessment of
Human–computer interaction.
10% weighting
UCD sits well with the
design-develop-evaluate cycle
HCI must be integrated within the strands
information and intelligent systems (IIS) and
software and system engineering (SSE)
strands
Integrating HCI Into the Syllabus
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How do you integrate HCI into IIS and SSE?
Pedagogy
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What has worked for you?
What hasn’t worked and why?
What would you like to try?
How has embedding HCI in the other strands
affected your pedagogy?
Pedagogy: Website Evaluation
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Students may be supplied with a list of web
pages to evaluate or they may select (with
teacher approval) their own web pages to
evaluate
Students should either be supplied with a set
of web design principles or select (with teacher
approval)
For each design principle:
 provide clear description of the design principle
 provide example a web page that adheres to the
principle and describe the beneficial consequences
associated with its use
 provide example of a web page that does not
adhere to the principle and describe the detrimental
consequences associated with not using it
Pedagogy: Learning by Example
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Examples of good and bad design are useful
 Articulation of what is good and bad is sometimes
difficult
 Experience of good and bad design allows
students to understand design principles
 Good design is “hidden”
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Demonstration: EasyChart
Norman’s Usability Principles
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Visibility of system status
Match between system and the real world
User control and freedom
Consistency and standards
Help users recognize, diagnose and recover
from errors
Error prevention
Recognition rather than recall
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Help and documentation
Pedagogy: Prototyping
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Paper prototyping
Software prototyping
Design versus development tension
Storyboarding
Pedagogy: Evaluation & User Testing
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Think-a-loud protocols
Observation
Surveys
Video
User availability is an issue
Ethics is an issue
Pedagogy: Users and Clients
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Clearly draw the distinction between clients and users
Where possible, use real clients and users
 Obviously difficult and fraught with danger but also probably
impractical
 Consider developing a database or website for a non-profit
organisation or someone within the school
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Teacher to role play client and/or user
 Use physical hats to clearly show which “hat” you’re wearing
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Students as users
 Peer evaluation is a useful way to learn
 Be careful: structure feedback process, develop protocols to
protect feelings, teacher not students determine marks
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Ethics associated with using real clients and users
Pedagogy: Iteration
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Iteration through design-develop-evaluate
cycle is very useful
 Clearly demonstrates that the understanding of
the problem is emergent
 Practically demonstrates that designs improve
through user testing and redesign
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However, HCI is 10% of syllabus and iteration
in a 6 week project is difficult
Pedagogy: Development Teams
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Working in development teams where
possible provides experience of what both IT
development and UI development are like in
practice
Difficulties include
 Fair sharing of workload
 Students must complete an individual assessment
piece to ensure their contribution can be assessed
 Without iteration, concurrent development is
difficult
Resources
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What resources have you found effective?
Resources: Poor Design
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Interface Hall of Shame
http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm
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Bad Human Factors Desings
http://www.baddesigns.com/
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Web Pages That Suck http://www.websitesthatsuck.com/
Resources: Good design
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Interface Hall of fame
http://www.frankmahler.de/mshame/HallFame.htm
Resources: Discussion
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DontClick.It http://www.dontclick.it/ Alternate
interface
Video of Douglas Engelbart’s 1968 demo of
the mouse and other innovative UI
technologies
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html
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Accessible Design for Users With Disabilities
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9610.html
Resources: Usability
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IBM Ease of Use site
http://www-3.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/558
 Design concepts
 Web guidelines
 Style guidelines
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IBM Easy Chart http://www306.ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/3072
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Web-DesignUsability/EasyChart-a-Usability-Teaching-Tool-to-DemonstrateInterface-Design-from-Hell/
Usability.gov http://www.usability.gov/basics/index.html
UQ Usability Laboratory http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~uqul/
Resources: Design Principles
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Collection of design principles http://wwwstatic.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/designprinc/#ben
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PARC
http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/ed/subjects/ed1441/topics/topic4.htm
Resources: Gurus
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Jakob Nielsen http://www.useit.com/
Video interview (16 mins)
http://www.devsource.com/article2/0,1895,1937615,00.asp?kc=ewnws
(lingerie warning!)
Designing Web Usability
031706dtx1k0000599
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http://www.useit.com/jakob/webusability/
Resources: Gurus
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Don Norman http://www.jnd.org/
 The Design of Everyday Things
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Bruce Tognazzini http://asktog.com/index.html
 Bad design may even impair democracy
http://asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html
Resources: Windows 95 Case Study
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The Windows® 95 User Interface: A Case
Study in Usability Engineering
(graphics seem to be unavailable)
Conclusion, Discussion and Questions