It is difficult to identify any areas of business endeavour that have not been materially impacted by computer innovation. In past decades, when computers were 'new,' there seemed to be a prevailing attitude that business information systems were constructed to exploit the characteristics of computer innovation, and that users would adapt themselves to the technology. Therefore, most efforts to improve user acceptance and increase individual and organisational productivity focused on promoting computer literacy. But, the lack of success of many systems is now forcing developers to recognise that no matter how technically proficient a new computer-based system might be, it will not be effective if users will not use it, or use it to its fullest capacity.
Human-Computer Interaction (H-CI) is an area of endeavour, developed in response to the need to promote user acceptance. H-CI attempts to improve user acceptance by examining how people perform work tasks in real-life settings, their attitudes and perceptions, and by incorporating material aspects into system design, especially physical interface design (ergonomics) and software (graphical) user interface design. To borrow a thought from Elaine Weiss (1993), that while there is no dispute over the necessity to make users more computer literate, it is also highly desirable to make computers more people literate. Specifically, in this subject, our aim is to do just that - work to make computers more people literate!
This subject provides students with a series of lectures, tutorial exercises and assignments designed to provide them with opportunities to explore basic Human-Computer Interaction (H-CI) concepts.
Objectives
- Examine the foundations of H-CI; the human, the computer and the interaction between the two
- Review the H-CI design process through an examination and application of models related to users, user tasks, information and systems
- Investigate the tools and processes surrounding the development and implementation of H-CI focused systems, such as common computer platforms and management science tools, implementation and testing procedures and user documentation
