Human-Computer Interaction: Who is General Failure and Why is He Reading Drive A? Dr Jay Burmeister QSITE ACEC 2006

Overview 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? 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 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 HCI Human Factors Cognitive Engineering Cognitive Ergonomics Computer Supported Co-operative Work Information Systems

Why is HCI Important to You? To Students?

Why is HCI Important? 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?

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 Functionality:  what the system does  easy to determine success  design space less complex Interface:  what the user sees and works with  difficult to determine success  complex design space

Conceptualising an Interface Output Input articulation observation presentation performance SystemInterfaceUser evaluation execution (adapted from Abowd and Beale)

Queensland IPT Syllabus 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 How do you integrate HCI into IIS and SSE?

Pedagogy 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 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 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” Demonstration: EasyChart

Norman’s Usability Principles 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 Paper prototyping Software prototyping Design versus development tension Storyboarding

Pedagogy: Evaluation & User Testing Think-a-loud protocols Observation Surveys Video User availability is an issue Ethics is an issue

Pedagogy: Users and Clients 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 Teacher to role play client and/or user  Use physical hats to clearly show which “hat” you’re wearing 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 Ethics associated with using real clients and users

Pedagogy: Iteration 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 However, HCI is 10% of syllabus and iteration in a 6 week project is difficult

Pedagogy: Development Teams 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 What resources have you found effective?

Resources: Poor Design Interface Hall of Shame Bad Human Factors Desings Web Pages That Suck

Resources: Good design Interface Hall of fame

Resources: Discussion DontClick.It Alternate interface Video of Douglas Engelbart’s 1968 demo of the mouse and other innovative UI technologies Accessible Design for Users With Disabilities

Resources: Usability IBM Ease of Use site  Design concepts Design concepts  Web guidelines Web guidelines  Style guidelines Style guidelines IBM Easy Chart ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/ ibm.com/ibm/easy/eou_ext.nsf/publish/ Usability/EasyChart-a-Usability-Teaching-Tool-to-Demonstrate- Interface-Design-from-Hell/ Usability/EasyChart-a-Usability-Teaching-Tool-to-Demonstrate- Interface-Design-from-Hell/ Usability.gov UQ Usability Laboratory

Resources: Design Principles Collection of design principles static.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/design- princ/#ben static.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/design- princ/#ben PARC

Resources: Gurus Jakob Nielsen Video interview (16 mins) dtx1k (lingerie warning!) dtx1k Designing Web Usability

Resources: Gurus Don Norman  The Design of Everyday Things Bruce Tognazzini  Bad design may even impair democracy

Resources: Windows 95 Case Study The Windows® 95 User Interface: A Case Study in Usability Engineering (graphics seem to be unavailable)

Conclusion, Discussion and Questions