Talk by John Canny: Toward Natural Human-Computer Interaction:

The talk will be held 2/9/2007 at 2:00pm at the UCI McDonnel Douglas Engineering Auditorium. There will be no Informatics seminar as a result. More details on the talk are located here:

Abstract: This talk covers several current projects at the Berkeley Institute of Design (BID) on more natural human-machine interaction. Multiview is a video-conferencing system that preserves eye contact in group situations, and closely mimics face-to-face for certain high-stakes communication tasks. We are pursuing several projects on technology for developing regions. This work covers language learning, story writing, speech interfaces and micro-finance. In this setting, "naturalness" is particularly important and strongly tied to the context of the interaction.

The remainder of the talk will discuss a general framework for natural interaction. The key again is to expose and use context. We argue that context must be studied on 3 planes (roughly time scales). One of these, the activity plane, has been reified in a prototype called CAAD that builds models of user work activity from desktop logs. The other two planes are being explored through current and inter-related projects on natural speech interfaces and story understanding.

About the Speaker: John Canny is a Professor in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, working in human-computer interaction, ubicomp and privacy. He holds the Paul and Stacy Jacobs Distinguished Professorship. His 1987 Ph.D. from MIT received the ACM dissertation award. His publications span HCI, ubiquitous computing, computer vision, robotics, cryptography, IR, and CSCW, with best paper awards in three of these areas.

http://luci.ics.uci.edu/blog/archives/2007/02/talk_by_john_ca.html

Human Computer Interaction

Over the holidays I read a magnificent book titled Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge. It’s an incredible collection of history combined with interviews from many of the great computer interface designers and entrepreneurs from the past 30+ years. The stories are superb, the interviews well done, and the pictures are incredible. It’s a must read for anyone serious about designing computer software of any sort. It’s a big book – I petered out about two thirds of the way through it as Moggridge shifted from storytelling to predicting the future – but I fault myself for trying to consume it at one time (and expect I’ll go back and try some of the later chapters again.)

The other day, as I pounded away on my keyboard and moved my mouse around the screen clicking away feverishly, my mind started wandering on the “there must be a better way theme.” My mind wandered to an afternoon that I spent playing Guitar Hero with my friend Dave Jilk and it occurred to me that there have been three companies that came out of my fraternity at MIT (ADP) that have built companies commercializing unique models of human computer interaction.

Guitar Hero from Harmonix Music Systems is the first and one that Dave and I were both involved in early in their life. While the first person shooter video game metaphor has been around forever (think Asteriods and Space Invaders – the category was NOT created by Doom – just made more fun and bloodier), I eventually wore out on video games because I got bored of killing things. When Harmonix came out with Guitar Hero, I got a copy but didn’t do anything with it. A few months ago I finally started playing with it and immediately became addicted. So have a bunch of other people as it became one of the top ten games of 2006. Interestingly, much of the buzz around the Nintendo Wii has been similar – rather than using a joystick to move a killing machine around a fantasy world, we get to interact with games much more physically – through a different interaction metaphor.

The Roomba from iRobot is another example of this. Colin Angle and his partners ultimately created a consumer based robot that does one thing extremely well – vacuum your floor. Metaphorically, they’ve simply wrapped a bunch of software in a consumer device that enables a radically different and fascinating human computer interaction model. If you’ve got a Roomba and a dog, you’ve also learned that the animal computer interaction model is a blast to observe.

Oblong is another company that came out of someone’s brain that resided at 351 Mass Ave in Cambridge (yup – it must have been something in the water.) The best way to describe Oblong is to ask the question “do you remember Tom Cruise in Minority Report? Remember the wall sized computer he controlled with his hands. That’s what John Underkoffler and his partners at Oblong have created.

It didn’t dawn on me how important this was until I started putting the pieces together that our current UI metaphor – which started at Xerox, was popularized by Apple, and mainstreamed by Microsoft – is starting to grow long in the tooth. I’ve been using a T-mobile Dash for the past few months and while I love the device, the Microsoft UI is immensely frustrating. I’ve trained myself to be incredibly efficient with in (and largely control the phone functions with speech), but the iPhone bashed me over the head with the current level of fatigue that I (and I expect others) have with their current UI metaphors.

While Amy likes to ask me - when she gets frustrated with Windows – “what was wrong with DOS and the command line anyway?” it prompts me to wonder why I’m sitting at my desk pounding away at a keyboard. There are – and will be – better ways. It’ll be fun to look back N years from now and say “boy – that WIMP UI sure was quaint” kind of the way we think of “C:\>” today.

Update: This morning, as I was reading the Wall Street Journal Online, I saw Walt Mossberg’s review of Enso from Humanized. Excellent retro stuff – now I get to type “Run Firefox” to run Firefox.



http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/002154.html

SWAN System To Help Blind And Firefighters Navigate Environment

Imagine being blind and trying to find your way around a city you've never visited before -- that can be challenging for a sighted person. Georgia Tech researchers are developing a wearable computing system called the System for Wearable Audio Navigation (SWAN) designed to help the visually impaired, firefighters, soldiers and others navigate their way in unknown territory, particularly when vision is obstructed or impaired. The SWAN system, consisting of a small laptop, a proprietary tracking chip, and bone-conduction headphones, provides audio cues to guide the person from place to place, with or without vision.

"We are excited by the possibilities for people who are blind and visually impaired to use the SWAN auditory wayfinding system," said Susan B. Green, executive director, Center for the Visually Impaired in Atlanta. "Consumer involvement is crucial in the design and evaluation of successful assistive technology, so CVI is happy to collaborate with Georgia Tech to provide volunteers who are blind and visually impaired for focus groups, interviews and evaluation of the system."

Collaboration

In an unusual collaboration, Frank Dellaert, assistant professor in the Georgia Tech College of Computing and Bruce Walker, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Psychology and College of Computing, met five years ago at new faculty orientation and discussed how their respective areas of expertise -- determining location of robots and audio interfaces -- were complimentary and could be married in a project to assist the blind. The project progressed slowly as the researchers worked on it as time allowed and sought funding. Early support came through a seed grant from the Graphics, Visualization and Usability (GVU) Center at Georgia Tech, and recently Walker and Dellaert received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to further develop SWAN.

Dellaert's artificial intelligence research focuses on tracking and determining the location of robots and developing applications to help robots determine where they are and where they need to go. There are similar challenges when it comes to tracking and guiding robots and people. Dellaert's robotics research usually focuses on military applications since that is where most of the funding is available.

"SWAN is a satisfying project because we are looking at how to use technology originally developed for military use for peaceful purposes," says Dellaert. "Currently, we can effectively localize the person outdoors with GPS data, and we have a working prototype using computer vision to see street level details not included in GPS, such as light posts and benches. The challenge is integrating all the information from all the various sensors in real time so you can accurately guide the user as they move toward their destination."

Walker's expertise in human computer interaction and interface design includes developing auditory displays that indicate data through sonification or sound.

"By using a modular approach in building a system useful for the visually impaired, we can easily add new sensing technologies, while also making it flexible enough for firefighters and soldiers to use in low visibility situations," says Walker. "One of our challenges has been designing sound beacons easily understood by the user but that are not annoying or in competition with other sounds they need to hear such as traffic noise."

SWAN System Overview

The current SWAN prototype consists of a small laptop computer worn in a backpack, a tracking chip, additional sensors including GPS (global positioning system), a digital compass, a head tracker, four cameras and light sensor, and special headphones called bone phones. The researchers selected bone phones because they send auditory signals via vibrations through the skull without plugging the user's ears, an especially important feature for the blind who rely heavily on their hearing. The sensors and tracking chip worn on the head send data to the SWAN applications on the laptop which computes the user's location and in what direction he is looking, maps the travel route, then sends 3-D audio cues to the bone phones to guide the traveler along a path to the destination.

The 3-D cues sound like they are coming from about 1 meter away from the user's body, in whichever direction the user needs to travel. The 3-D audio, a well-established sound effect, is created by taking advantage of humans' natural ability to detect inter-aural time differences. The 3-D sound application schedules sounds to reach one ear slightly faster than the other, and the human brain uses that timing difference to figure out where the sound originated.

The 3-D audio beacons for navigation are unique to SWAN. Other navigation systems use speech cues such as "walk 100 yards and turn left," which Walker feels is not user friendly.

"SWAN consists of two types of auditory displays - navigational beacons where the SWAN user walks directly toward the sound, and secondary sounds indicating nearby items of possible interests such as doors, benches and so forth," says Walker. "We have learned that sound design matters. We have spent a lot of time researching which sounds are more effective, such as a beep or a sound burst, and which sounds provide information but do not interrupt users when they talk on their cell phone or listen to music."

The researchers have also learned that SWAN would supplement other techniques that a blind person might already use for getting around such as using a cane to identify obstructions in the path or a guide dog.

Next Steps

The researchers' next step is to transition SWAN from outdoors-only to indoor-outdoor use. Since GPS does not work indoors, the computer vision system is being refined to bridge that gap. Also, the research team is currently revamping the SWAN applications to run on PDAs and cell phones, which will be more convenient and comfortable for users. The team plans to add an annotation feature so that a user can add other useful annotations to share with other users such as nearby coffee shops, a location of a puddle after recent rains, and perhaps even the location of a park in the distance. There are plans to commercialize the SWAN technology after further refinement, testing and miniaturizing of components for the consumer market.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Contact: Elizabeth Campell Georgia Institute of Technology

User Driven Modelling - Research Approach

The intention for this research is to enable non-programmers to create software from a user interface that allows them to model a particular problem or scenario. This involves a user entering information visually in the form of a tree diagram. The aim is to develop ways of automatically translating this information into program code in a variety of computer languages. The research is on translating from an abstract model of a problem expressed by a user, to software to solve the problem, and visualise the solution. This is very important and useful for many people who have insufficient time to learn programming languages. Scaffidi et al (2005) explain how much programming is undertaken by those who are not professional programmers. The the open source Protégé ontology editor is used, this is developed from a project of Stanford University, there is a page on the Protégé Community Wiki (2006) to describe this. This is used to research visualisation, and visualisation techniques to create a human computer interface that allows non experts to create software.

This research demonstrates how a taxonomy can be used as the information source, from which it is possible to automatically produce software. This technique is most suitable at present to modelling, visualisation, and searching for information. The research is about the technique of User Driven Model (UDM) Development that could be part of a wider approach of User Driven Programming (UDP). This approach involves the creation of a visual environment for software development, where modelling programs can be created without the requirement of the model developer to learn programming languages. The theory behind this approach is examined, and also the main practical work in creation of this system. The basis of this approach is modelling of the software to be produced in ontology management systems such as Jena (Jena, 2006), and Protégé (Stanford University, 2006). It also has the potential to be computer language and system independent as one representation could be translated into many computer languages or Meta languages (Dmitriev, 2006).

The development of visual user interfaces has been a major step forward. The use of pictorial metaphors such as folders to represent a collection of files has greatly aided human computer interaction. Pictorial metaphors give visual feedback so the user knows what the software system is doing. This technique can be used more dynamically in simulations. Simulations represent the real world problem and provide constant feedback to the user on how the system is progressing. In this sense, all software should be regarded as a simulation. Pictorial metaphors are static, while a users' mental model is made up of mental images connected together by a set of rules. The user runs a mental model like a simulation. Static user interfaces rely on a user to string together images into a mental model which correctly represents what the system is doing. A user may generate a mental model in response to user interface metaphors which is inconsistent with the system model. Simulation can help to ensure that the designers' model, system model and users' model are all the same. This subject is explored by Crapo et al. (2001), and is the basis of the visualisation techniques used to enable the user to create and understand models that are subsequently translated into software representations. This is also explained in chapter one of Watch What I Do: Programming by Demonstration (Cypher, 1993), this explains how the Pygmalion language attempts to bridge the gap between the programmer's mental model of a subject and what the computer can accept. The author of this system David Smith (Smith, 1977) went on to develop office oriented icons as part of the Xerox's "Star" computer project.

The research applies this User Driven technique to aerospace engineering but it should be applicable to any subject. The basis of the research is the need to provide better ways for people to specify what they require from computer software using techniques that they understand, instead of needing to take the intermediate steps of either learning a computer language(s) or explaining their requirements to a software expert. These intermediate steps are expensive in terms of time, cost, and level of misunderstanding. If users can communicate intentions directly to the computer they can receive quick feedback and be able to adapt their techniques in a quick and agile way in response to this feedback.

A modelling environment needs to be created by software developers in order to allow users/model builders/domain experts to create their own models. This modelling environment could be created using an open standard language such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language). As the high level translation though this would depend on tools developed using lower level languages, this is why tools such as Protégé and DecisioPro (now called Vanguard Studio) (Vanguard Software, 2006) are used. Until recently XML has been used to represent information but languages such as Java, C++, and Visual Basic have been used for the actual code. Semantic languages such as XML could be used in future for software development as well as information representation, as they provide a higher level declarative view of the problem.

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

I am a Researcher in the final year of my PhD. I specialise in applying Semantic Web techniques. My current research is on a technique of 'User Driven Modelling/Programming'. My intention is to enable non-programmers to create software from a user interface that allows them to model a particular problem or scenario. This involves a user entering information visually in the form of a tree diagram. I am attempting to develop ways of automatically translating this information into program code in a variety of computer languages. This is very important and useful for many employees that have insufficient time to learn programming languages. I am looking to research visualisation, and visualisation techniques to create a human computer interface that allows non experts to create software.

I am a member of the Institute for End User Computing (IEUC).

Top 8 Reasons HCI is in its Stone Age

1. Screen Corners

Let me introduce you to one of the greatest mysteries of our time: After more than 20 years of research, development and competition in the field of HCI, not one single leading operating system developing company has come up with an OS that utilizes the four corners of the screen. Any five-year-old earth child has probably already figured out that the screen corners are the easiest points to hit - the only locations hittable without looking. Ray Charles figured that out. Stevie Wonder figured that out. And they would probably make a better design team than any money-driven market thugs.

It gets better: The irony is that we argue about whether systems should be application-centered or document-centered, probably the two most important entities in a computer. Have you ever seen a system which lets you, out-of-the-box, hit a corner in order to do anything at all even remotely related to anything having anything at all to do with a document or application? So maybe documents aren't the most important entity in a computer. Browse the internet by hitting the screen corner? Check mail in the screen corner? Get Info in the screen corner? System preferences in the screen corner? Switching applications in the screen corner? No, or, well. In Mac OS X you can trigger Exposé by hitting a screen corner, although Exposé rhymes bad with point six below, so that hardly counts.

2. OS GUI's are Designed for Beginners.

Ooooh. there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can grow with your user interface. Problem is, we outgrow it in a matter of hours, and after that the OS is nothing but a nail in the eye, a cow in the car, a space tit, a belly-barn shackle in the reunion of unjustified friends. Just something you have to hazzle with. So is it possible to design a system that's suits both beginners and professionals? (No t33n-N30, the answer isn't »Pr3f3r3nc3Zz!!!!!!!! 1337-H4XX0R5!!!«.) Leaving the question unanswered for now, let's just face the fact that we are all beginners the first few hours in our computing career. The rest of the time, we're victims. Wait... an image is forming in my mind... It's a sweaty, hard-working bare-chested carpenter with a tiny red plastic hammer in his hand. Yes. This is his tool. Yes. He's been using it since he was 5.

3. Visual Attention - Sine Qua Non

Every single little tiny-weeny little interaction-shraction requires your visual attention. And I'm not talking peripheral attention, nooooo, then we could all go home and interact, couldn't we? You have to actually drop focus on what you're looking at and move your eyesight in order to find that tiny little resize button of the window. If your screen is large enough, you are even forced to move your head to find that window resizing widget. There's more penalty: once you're done, you must relocate that thing or text you were reading before you got the divine idea of resizing the window. The same goes for moving, scrolling, closing, zooming, panning and... . The Alfred Einsteins over at Adobe's somehow found out their users like to pan their documents (inside information? mole in the building?), so they assigned the SPACEBAR to invoke the »divine semi-mode of panning«. All respect to Adobe for that - they did better than the combined efforts of Redmond, Cupertino, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder (which equals the combined efforts of Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder). However according to my book, an action as atomic as panning mustn't be mode driven. In this particular case, Adobes panning only works if the user isn't inside a text object typing, in which case that »divine semi-mode of panning« is reduced to nothing but a space. An unwanted space at that.

»But sir, all the other keys were busy!!«.
No they weren't.

Situations like these make me feel sorry for the spacebar. So big and strong... He totally rules over the other keys, and yet all he produces is... nothingness. I hope I never find myself in the situation of having to explain to aliens what the LARGEST KEY ON THE KEYBOARD does. »Well... this key? Right over here? Ah, the chubby one! It.. spaces... kind of... leaps.. a tiny bit. In the text... See...? Nothingness! Hey, I know how this must sound... Hey! Wait!! No!! Come back!! But we just met!! COME BACK!!«
That's alright, they would probably have left anyway as soon as they saw me clicking »Start« in order to shut the computer down.

4. Multiple representation of the file system.

I'm talking files and folder here. One representation on the desktop and another one when opening and saving files (yes, dialogs). See point six.

5. Our love of choice

I bet you my bunny the former Soviet union could have designed a better operating system GUI than any of the software vendors of today. Not only would their GUI allow you to get the job done faster, it would completely lack preferences, freedom of choice and any settings even remotely related to changing the way you interact. And there's more: Their GUI would provide one way and one way only of accomplishing an atomic task. Imagine what that would do to a context menu!
Throw one preference at my bunny and he'll probably tell you why it's unnecessary.

By the way, did you know that one-knob faucets were originally designed for disabled persons?


6. Our Disrespect for Spatialness.

Spatial navigation is a condition for eventually being able to navigate by using muscle memory. Muscle memory, along with prediction, is superior to any other navigation method in terms of speed.This, of course, requires that you know your own file system.

In order to explain what spatial navigation is all about, we shall delve into a comparison to (say) getting cutlery out of kitchen drawers:
Before you open the kitchen drawer (which you can easily locate since it only exists in one place and in one shape), you already know the forks are on the left side. Even if you don't, you can easily localize the forks by just looking, and you will soon have learned that forks are stored on the left side.

Adding non-spatialness to the same example would mean that you first have to locate the kitchen drawer. Even if you have a nice and shine drop-shadowed kitchen drawer in your mind, your mental model of the kitchen, you still have to associate it with the name »kitchen drawer« in order to find it. Because the string »kitchen drawer« is what you're looking for. Eventually you locate and open the kitchen drawer and see but cutlery labels - »forks«, »knifes«, »spoons« - and you are forced once again to recall what the thing you're looking for is called. ("Zirconium oxide kyocera knife"...)

You will eventually open the non-spatial drawer again... (that is, after you've located it, for who knows? It might be easier this time. Perhaps you're in a part of the kitchen close to the drawer? Or maybe the cutlery drawer is in the recent items list? Go and have a look, but beware - if it isn't there, you have to navigate to the kitchen drawer »from scratch«) ...and you may figure that this time, at least you know exactly where to look... (this is true only if you manage to find and open exactly the same representation of the kitchen drawer you used last time) ...BUT, you would then be using spatial navigation!

»Spatial navigation eventually renders the declarative knowledge of the kitchen drawer secondary to the task of opening it, making way for an autonomous stage in retrieving cutlery out of kitchen drawers.«
(WELL PUT J R Anderson, The Architecture of Cognition, 1983!! (Ok. Somewhat modified to fit the example.)

Folders hosting a large number of files pose a problem no matter what representation you use - probably because 1000 files in a folder cannot be called »organized«.
Spatial navigation is in our nature. A desktop is entirely spatial, so what's the point of having a non-spatial metaphor?

Anyway, predictability is the key word, and is along with screen corners by far the thing I lack the most in modern operating system GUI's.

7. Terminology

The terminology we use is a strong indicator of stone age: »User-oriented« design. »User centered« design. Come on! Around whom else would the design be oriented?!

8.
We wish to rotate an image, shrink it 50%, attach it to an e-mail and send it to a deaf musician.
I'll leave this one up for you to decide: Which of the following approaches do you think would prove to be the easier one?

A. Utilizing a »modern« interface: The procedure would involve several clicks, mouse drags and keystrokes, and also require expert skills in order to complete the task in less time than one minute. Moreover, in order to complete the task at all, a number of subtasks (which are actually unrelated to the task at hand) need tending to. We need for instance worry about choosing a file name and a location in the process of storing the image, and then, from the e-mail application, locating the image we just stored in order to attach it.

B. Say »Tip a quarter to the right, crop by half and e-mail to Stevie Wonder«.

By the way, did you know that one-knob faucets were originally designed for disabled persons?


http://juicability.blogspot.com/2005/09/top-8-reasons-hci-is-in-its-stone-age.html

The Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program (Certificate, MS & PhD)

As the use of computers becomes increasingly central, the study of Human Computer Interaction will emerge as one of the most dynamic and important areas of research. Interdisciplinary in the extreme, this emerging field will have an impact on nearly every area of human endeavor. The Human Computer Interaction graduate major reflects a broad recognition both in academia and industry that the need exists to specifically train researchers in this burgeoning area, to meet the challenges faced by this rapidly evolving area of technological progress.

The women and men who contribute to this new paradigm will be shaping the future.

Purpose:

The study of the relationship between humans and increasingly powerful, portable, interconnected and ubiquitous computers is becoming one of the most dynamic and significant fields of technical investigation. The Interdepartmental Graduate Major in Human Computer Interaction is an interdisciplinary training program created to provide advanced education and training while fostering research excellence in Human Computer Interaction at Iowa State University.

HCI Degrees:

* M.S. in Human Computer Interaction
The entrance requirements for the M.S. in HCI graduate program include transcripts, test scores and other indicators that the student applicant can be successful at the graduate level. Furthermore, we require the demonstrated ability to write software competently. For those who do not have the required computing background, we provide an introductory survey course, with appropriate follow up material.
* Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction
The entrance requirements for the PhD in HCI include
a) the three courses required for the master's program
b) a master's degree and
c) a portfolio demonstrating the potential for research at the boundaries of the human computer interface.

HCI Certificate:

The Human Computer Interaction Graduate Program would like to announce the addition of an online Graduate Certificate in Human Computer Interaction. Through distance learning, students who are working in business and industry are able to take courses to learn more about Human Computer Interaction, furthering their education without having to travel to the Iowa State University campus to study or committing to a full graduate program. The certificate can be earned in one year if two courses per semester are taken, or in two years if a student chooses to take one course each semester.

The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Initiative

Driven by unprecedented technological progress, the study of the relationship between humans and increasingly powerful, portable, interconnected and ubiquitous computers is fast becoming one of the most dynamic and significant fields of technical investigation. Intent on establishing a leadership position in the rapidly changing field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), ISU is making a strategic investment to accelerate research, attract talented students and faculty members and expand the graduate program in this vital area of study.

Interdisciplinary in the extreme, this emerging field is having an impact on nearly every area of human endeavor. With researchers representing departments from every college in the University and related research underway at the Virtual Reality Applications Center and elsewhere, ISU is well positioned to quickly expand its focus and become a leader in HCI research.

The technical research component of the HCI initiative focuses on five areas:

* Information sensorization - human factors, cognitive models, virtual and augmented reality interfaces, haptics
* Mobile/ubiquitous interfaces - wireless connectivity, integration of remote sensors and participants, group interfaces
* Intelligent agents - network-based software services for individuals, groups and organizations
* Accessibility for non-technical collaborators - technology to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration
* Enabling infrastructure - software and hardware to facilitate HCI research




http://www.hci.iastate.edu/

Human-Computer Interaction Specialization Requirements

General MSI Requirements (for students entering Fall 2007)
All MSI students who enter in Fall 2007 or later must complete at least 48 credit hours of graduate coursework, including

* 2 core courses (course descriptions will be posted shortly)
* 1 core technology course (may be waived based on previous coursework or test)
* 1 methods course (from list to be posted)
* 1 management course (from list to be posted)
* 6 credits in cognate courses (3 cognate credits may be in an SI specialization other than your own; 3 credits must be taken elsewhere at U-M)
* 6 credits that meet Practical Engagement requirements, through credit-based internships or class-based experiential learning


These general MSI program requirements become effective for the 2007-2008 academic year. (View general MSI requirements for students who entered prior to Fall 2007.)

Additional HCI Requirements

Three Required HCI Courses
Students in the HCI specialization must take the following three required courses:

* 622 Evaluation of Systems and Services
* 682 Interface and Interaction Design
* 688 Fundamentals of Human Behavior


Two Additional HCI Courses

HCI students must choose two from among the following set of courses:

* 539 Design of Complex Web Sites (3 credits)
* 551 Information-Seeking Behavior (3 credits)
* 553 Multimedia Production (3 credits)
* 557 Visual Persuasion (3 credits)
* 561 Natural Language Processing (3 credits)
* 572 Database Application Design (3 credits)
* 583 Recommender Systems (1.5 credits)
* 649 Information Visualization (3 credits)
* 658 Information Architecture (3 credits)
* 670 Information in Organizations (3 credits)
* 684 eCommunities: Analysis and Design of Online Interaction Environments (3 credits)
* 689 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (3 credits)


Programming Requirement

HCI students must have two semesters of programming -- either previously completed or taken at U-M -- or must show competence through an exam. SI offers

* 539 Design of Complex Web Sites
* 543 Programming I
* 653 Programming II

to help you fulfill this requirement.

Statistics Requirement
HCI students must have one semester of statistics, either previously completed (transcript required) or taken at U-M. SI offers

* 544 Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis

to help you fulfill this requirement.


These additional HCI program requirements are effective for the 2006-2007 academic year.




http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/hci-reqs.htm

Human-Computer Interaction Specialization

The specialization in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) educates the professional who is designing and developing technologies that fit the organization and work practices, the work to be done, and the capabilities of the user.

Students learn how to create effective human-computer interaction both by determining useful system functionality, and by designing a usable interface. The "interface" is broadly construed to include not just the visual/auditory display and interaction dialog, but the situation in its entirety, the group in which this task takes place, and the organizational goals and resources. The specialization has applicability to people who are designing technologies for work, education, entertainment and social interaction, and takes as its design materials the technology and social processes (the coordination among actors, the incentive scheme, etc.).

Graduates from the HCI specialization are employed in a variety of professions: as entrepreneur software developers; as team members involved in software development in a larger organization; as inventors of the next interaction paradigm; and as the strategists interested in achieving the organization's goals with distributed talent connected by new technologies.

HCI courses also serve those who wish to become effective webmasters, evaluators of software for use in an organization, writers of software reviews in a magazine like InfoWorld, and writers of technical documentation and training programs. Some job titles of recent graduates are:

* Webmaster
* Technical writer
* Software developer
* Entrepreneur



http://www.si.umich.edu/msi/hci.htm

New ACM Fellows are HCI People

Three of the 41 new ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) 2006 Fellows are HCI people.

As part of its recognition of excellence, ACM honours those whose contributions have impacted our world for the better among its members. Fellows are chosen for their work in both the practical and theoretical aspects of computing and information technology. 'The new ACM Fellows, from some of the world's leading industries, universities, and research labs, made significant advances that are having lasting effects on the lives of citizens throughout the world,' says the announcement.

Susan T Dumais at Microsoft Research gets an award for 'research contributions to information retrieval and human-computer interaction'. While Alan Newell at the University of Dundee, who gave a keynote at the last British HCI Group conference in London, receives his for 'contributions to computer-based systems for people with disabilities'. And Dan Olsen of Brigham Young University is recognised for his 'contributions to user interface technology'.

Awardees will receive their Fellowships formally at the annual Awards Banquet on June 9, in San Diego, California in the USA.

Researchers Develop Context-Aware Mobile Phone

Professors Asim Smailagic and Dan Siewiorek, along with a team of students from the College of Engineering, the School of Computer Science and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, have developed a new context-aware mobile phone technology called SenSay that can keep track of many everyday details in a person's life, including email sent, phone calls made and the user's location. The phone also adapts to dynamically changing environmental and psychological conditions.

In addition to manipulating ringer volume, vibration and phone alerts, SenSay can provide remote callers with the ability to communicate the urgency of their calls, make call suggestions to users when they are idle and provide the caller with feedback on the current status of the user.

SenSay uses sensors like thermometers, light and microphones mounted in a wearable unit on the human body to provide data about the user. Industry analysts report that the new technology will not only increase data traffic on their networks, but also place the cell phone even more squarely at the center of people's daily lives.

TYPO3 Human-Computer-Interaction

ISO 9241-11 definition of "usability": effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which a specified set of users can achieve a specified set of tasks in a particular environment.

The HCI team is responsible for two things:

* The usability of 4.5
* Future usability, preferably embedded into the development culture.

We are preparing a "team contract" that definitively describes what the responsibility of this team is and what authority we have.

Focus

I find it necessary to define what the focus of our group is since some suggestions easily fall into other categories. The highlighted bullet is our focus:

* Architecture => go to "5.0 Core" team
* Improve ease-of-use, newbee appeal, human-factor => 4.5 (thats us! Our criteria!)
* General features and nice-to-haves => Any version as an extension or core implementation through bug-tracker)

From the Roapmap of 4.5 (May 2005) you find this nice graph:

From the R&D results in May 2005 you also find these perspectives on what "ease-of-use" means:

• consistency
• transparency
• unique, descriptive names
• user/task centered options
• proconfiguring template users as editors, administrators, developers and as beginners, advanced, expert
• Consolidate displaced functions in new central modules. (User Manager)
• Substantially improve usability with the help of scientific testing and university experts.
• Create pre-configured users narrowing options down to beginner, advanced and expert level for editors, administrators and developers, making all modules configurable.

(At this point I feel we should only look to this list as inspiration since the most accurate definition of "ease-of-use" is the one we will jointly discover on this team! -kasper)

Lifetime of our 4.5 work

An objection to working on 4.5 and 5.0 simultaneously has been that we waste time on 4.5. That is not the case if we do this right. Mainly because the value of our work lies in knowledge about working usable solutions for TYPO3, not the implementation itself (generally speaking). This leads to the following system:

* Ideas, concepts, experience, visual elements: All goes directly to 5.0 development
* Technical implementation
o Some will be 4.x branch implementation only.
o Some will feed into 5.x (thats what we will want to do for the major development works),

for example:

+ Forms/Wizard framework?
+ New backend interface (requires some MVC?)
# XUL possible
# Other client interaction?

In the process of working with usability for version 4.5, we have the following work areas:

* Usability No-brainers: There are obvious improvements we can already name from own experience (these are abundantly exposed on the HCI list already, on mailing lists, we could make a survey for the community). This is where you can contribute your ideas off hand. Also, contributed by creating a Usability Survey for the community.
* Usability Discoveries: There are improvements we have not realized yet (these should be discovered through usability tests on the current system). This is where we work systematically with analysis of the current system.
* Usability Innovation: There are possibly innovative ideas to be discovered (seeking inspiration outside our software?). This is where we innovate new approaches

Eventually all improvements needs to be tested (we change only to improve, not for the sake of change)

Paradigms?

"TYPO3 has got it's own style and IMHO we should try to keep it that way, since this has been a part of the success story during the last few years. Improving things should never lead to a loss of identity." JoH

I think the sentence above from JoH is very important to keep in mind!

Below is a compilation of statements we can refer to in the discussion of what usability actually is and means for TYPO3:

* Well taught, TYPO3 never is a problem (for any target group?)
* Short term, long term thinking - do we sacrifice long term efficiency with improvements that appeal to novices?
* Is a usable design one that keeps a user in a "Dependent" state - or makes them independent?
* "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime": Is it better to teach users the concept instead of the specific action?

Does these paradigms hold true depending on user profile?

* once-a-month user? Should be guided
* everyday editor? Should be trained in the concept so they help themselves.
* Long-term developer? Should be trained
* First-time-installed? Should be guided into the experience.

Usability is the function of. (-Alex/Erik)

* A good working UI
* Splendid teaching
* Teachers who understand the users need

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction

Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction is an up-to-date explanation of the design of the current and next generation interactive technologies, such as the web, mobiles, wearables. These exciting new technologies bring additional challenges for designers and developers - challenges that require careful thought and a disciplined approach. Written for both students and practitioners from a broad range of backgrounds, this book addresses these challenges using a practical and refreshing approach. The text covers a wide range of issues, topics and paradigms that go beyond the traditional human-computer interaction (HCI).

Some extract from the foreword for the second edition, by Jim Foley:

"My bookshelf is full of HCI texts. Some are great, some not so great. This is one of the greats. That’s why I’ve been using the first edition for my Georgia Tech College of Computing undergraduate HCI class for the past four years and will move on to using this second edition as soon as it is ‘hot off the press’. I like this text because it emphasizes the process of user interface design rather than the artifacts and technology of UI design. It is process that I believe is the most important part of UI design, and the hardest for technology-oriented students to appreciate.

… Most teachers have discovered, as have I, that the best way to teach the UI design process and design itself is to have students working in teams actually go through the design process from start to finish. … This text is wonderfully suited for use with such a project-oriented course! But that’s not the only reason I like the text.

… This text is not just for classroom use; the practitioner of UI design who is working from experience without formal instruction will surely find this book very helpful and useful.

… The major strength of this book is teaching how to learn about users and the tasks they perform and then to apply that knowledge in creating, evaluating, and refining designs that do indeed allow users to perform their tasks. That’s the process to which I referred earlier. And the book is grounded in a host of examples that make the process come alive! I recommend this text to my fellow HCI teachers. It’s a gem."

Some extract from the foreword for the first edition, Gary Perlman:

"I've been waiting for this book for many years. I think it's been worth the wait. As the director of the HCI Bibliography project (www.hcibib.org), a free access HCI portal receiving a halfmillion hits per year, I receive many requests for suggestions for books, particularly from students and software development managers. To answer that question, I maintain a list of recommended readings in ten categories (with 20,000 hits per year). Until now, it's been hard to recommend just one book from that list. "

"More than anything, I think students need to be motivated, inspired, challenged, and I think this book, particularly Chapters 1--5, will do that. Many students will not have the motivating experience of seeing projects and products fail because of a lack of attention, understanding, and zeal for the user, but as I read the opening chapters, I imagined students thinking, "This is what I've been looking for!'' ... I see students making career choices based on this motivating material. "

"... the book itself is pedagogically well designed. Each chapter describes its aims, contains examples and subtopics, and ends with key points, assignments, and an annotated bibliography for more detail."

"I think the material is presented in a way that is understandable by a wide audience, which is important in order for the book to be useful to whole multidisciplinary teams."

Introduction to Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Apple has the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X, which combines a powerful core foundation with a compelling user interface called Aqua. With advanced features and an aesthetically refined use of color, transparency, and animation, Mac OS X makes computing even easier for new users, while providing the productivity that professional users have come to expect of the Macintosh. The user interface features, behaviors, and appearances deliver a well-organized and cohesive user experience available to all applications developed for Mac OS X.

These guidelines are designed to assist you in developing products that provide Mac OS X users with a consistent visual and behavioral experience across applications and the operating system. Following the guidelines is to your advantage because:

• Users will learn your application faster if the interface looks and behaves like applications they’re already familiar with.
  
• Users can accomplish their tasks quickly, because well-designed applications don’t get in the user’s way.
• Users with special needs will find your product more accessible.
• Your application will have the same modern, elegant appearance as other Mac OS X applications.
• Your application will be easier to document, because an intuitive interface and standard behaviors don’t require as much explanation.
• Customer support calls will be reduced (for the reasons cited above).
• Your application will be easier to localize, because Apple has worked through many localization issues in the Aqua design process.
• Media reviews of your product will be more positive; reviewers easily target software that doesn’t look or behave the way “true” Macintosh applications do.

The implementation of Apple’s human interface principles make the Macintosh what it is: intuitive, friendly, elegant, and powerful.

What Are the Apple Human Interface Guidelines?

This document is the primary user interface documentation for Mac OS X. It provides specific details about designing for Aqua compliance in Mac OS X version 10.4, although some of the information may apply to previous versions of Mac OS X.

Aqua is the overall appearance and behavior of Mac OS X. Aqua defines the standard appearance of specific user interface components such as windows, menus, and controls, and is also characterized by the anti-aliased appearance of text and graphics, shadowing, transparency, and careful use of color. Aqua delivers standardized consistent behaviors and promotes clear communication of status through animated notifications, visual effects, and more. Designing for Aqua compliance will ensure you provide the best possible user experience for your customers.

Aqua is available to Cocoa, Carbon, and Java software. For Cocoa and Carbon application development, Interface Builder is the best way to begin building an Aqua-compliant graphical user interface. If you are porting an existing Mac OS 9 application to Mac OS X, see the Carbon Porting Guide in Carbon Porting Documentation. Java developers can use the Swing toolkit, which includes an Aqua look and feel in Mac OS X.
Who Should Read This Document?

Anyone building applications for Mac OS X should read and become familiar with the contents of this document. This document combines information on the mechanics of designing a great user interface with fundamental software design principles and information on leveraging Mac OS X technologies.

Organization of This Document

The document is divided into three main parts, each of which contains several chapters:

• The first part, "Application Design Fundamentals", describes the fundamental design principles to keep in mind while designing an application.
• The second part, "The Macintosh Experience", discusses many of the Mac OS X technologies that users are accustomed to using. You can take advantage of these technologies to streamline your development process and ensure that your application is well-behaved in the context of the operating system as a whole.
• The third part, "The Aqua Interface", describes the Mac OS X Aqua user interface. It explains the specific user interface components available to you and includes extensive guidelines on how to use and implement them in your application.

Supplementary information is provided in the following locations:

• A listing of the recommended and reserved keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X, in "Keyboard Shortcuts Quick Reference"
• A summary of the changes made to this document in its various incarnations appears in "Document Revision History".
• A listing of the terms used in this document, along with their definitions, is provided in the "Glossary".

Conventions Used in This Document

Throughout this document, certain conventions are used to provide additional information:

Carbon-specific and Cocoa-specific implementation details and references to supplementary documentation are provided in paragraphs that begin with either Carbon: or Cocoa:. If you do not see a specific reference to either Carbon or Cocoa, the information presented applies to both Carbon and Cocoa.

Some of the example images include visual cues to note whether a particular implementation is appropriate or not:

• image: ../art/mini_useicon.jpg
• indicates an example of the correct way to use an interface element.
• image: ../art/mini_do_notuseicon.jpg

indicates an example of the wrong way to use an interface element. An example accompanied by this symbol often illustrates common mistakes.

Bold text indicates that a new term is being defined and that a definition of the word appears in the glossary.

All Apple developer documentation is available from the Apple Developer Connection (ADC) website:

http://developer.apple.com

Under the heading “Reference Library” on that page, click Documentation to go to the main Documentation page. From there you can go to Documentation pages for various categories of information and see the lists of documents applicable to that category.

In this document, cross-references to Apple documents look like this:

See Handling Carbon Windows and Controls in Carbon User Experience Documentation.

To navigate to that document from the main Documentation page, you click Carbon, then click User Experience on the Carbon Documentation page. You are then on the Carbon User Experience Documentation page, which lists all the documents that have information related to the user experience in Carbon.

Human-Computer Interaction

This special field treats the interaction between humans and machines from several different perspectives; utility, safety, job satisfaction, work environment and consequences on society.

Understanding the technological effect on the individual is crucial in order to make adequate technological choices. Assessing a product’s usability is necessary in order to develop products with high utility that are easy to use. This calls for knowledge of the latest technological developments so that the way from a technological concept to a usable product becomes as short as possible. The group's interests are concentrated on two main sectors:

User experience

This is a special field where we apply processes for user-centred design (UCD) in accordance with ISO 13407, and methods and tools for user-centred analysis, specification, design and evaluation. Our attention is centred on the individual user's requirements and practice.
Project areas

The focus of attention in our projects is on:

* Requirement specification
* User-centred evaluation
* ICT utility models
* Universal design
* Mobile ICT

Flexible solutions

The focus of this sector is on how to meet the challenge of increased need for flexible solutions in organisations and development of various services. We look at methods and tools for model-driven UI-development, methods and tools for enterprise modelling, groupware, technology for natural language processing. One case in point is the use of one's native language to access the information society and prevent digital discrimination. We have been working in forstering R&D in language technology and evaluating progress in the field. See our natural language processing activities.

Project types

* Enterprise modelling
* Knowledge work
* Mobile ICT
* Model-based UI development

Natural Human-Computer Interaction

With the development of information technology in our society, we can expect that computer systems to a larger extent will be embedded into our environment such as homes and offices. These environments will impose needs for new types of human-computer-interaction, than the keyboard, the mouse and the remote control.
They will claim interfaces that are natural and easy to use, and allow people to interact with them the way they do with other people. In particular, interfaces that make it possible to interact with computerized equipment without need for special external equipment.

These interfaces are not based on menus, mice, and keyboards but use instead gesture, speech, affect, context, and movement.
Their applications are not word processors and spreadsheets, but smart homes and personal assistants: “instead of making computer-interfaces for people, it is of more fundamental value to make people-interfaces for computers”.

The most important factor in making these applications possible in recent years has been the novel viability of real-time computer vision and speech understanding.

Systems coupled with natural interfaces will enable tasks historically outside the normal range of human-computer interaction by connecting computers to phenomena (such as someone walking into a room) that have traditionally been outside the scope of traditional user-interfaces. With natural interfaces the user experiences a form of context awareness, exploiting dialog modalities and behaviors that are commonly used in ordinary activities in his/her real daylife.

Three categories:

a) Virtual reality /augmented reality environments;
b) Perceptual interfaces (natural language interfaces based on speech understanding or gesture interfaces based on computer-vision based interfaces) ;
c) Mixed solutions

PERCEPTUAL INTERFACES BASED ON COMPUTER VISION

Main advantages of using visual input in this context are that visual information makes it possible to communicate with computerized equipment at a distance, without need for physical contact with the equipment to be controlled.

Compared to speech commands, hand gestures or body postures are advantageous in noisy environments, in situations where speech commands would be disturbing, as well as for communicating quantitative information and spatial relationships. The idea is that the user should be able to control equipment in his environment as he/she is, and without need for specialized external equipment, such as a remote control.

IMEDIA Human-Computer Interaction

IMEDIA technical staff has built a reputation in the areas of human-centered design, human-media technology, as well as human-computer interaction, which is constantly facing usability tasks and challenges in developing next-generation user interfaces.
The Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of National Research Council of the U.S. published in 1997 a review on the state-of-the-art on design and evaluation practices that states:

"Designing any sort of computer-mediated device for ordinary people for effective and pleasant everyday use has proven to be surprisingly difficult. … It is, of course, possible that the greater power, utility, and desirability of computer-based functions as compared to traditional mass-market technologies (e.g., television, telephony) mean that greater difficulty of use is inevitable, worth a high price in human effort and inconvenience, and solvable only by increased education with its concomitant risk of leaving out those with insufficient time, resources, or ability. However, an alternate view is that it should be possible to use the power of the new technologies not only to do more and better things but also to do most of them at least as, or more, easily. Much of the burden of introducing new information technologies to the public can be removed or relieved by better design of the functions and interfaces with which most people will deal.

While it is hardly possible to mount a systematic search for empirical evidence on trends in usability, there is a consensus among usability engineers that things have not in general improved: for the most part, technological advances, particularly in software, have increased complexity, and, while some vendors are doing more usability testing, increased competition to be first to market with new features has brought a growing tendency to omit the kinds of early and iterative design and evaluation activities these experts think is essential to ensure ease of learning and use."

Although these statements come from a market-oriented survey, they nonetheless apply to products that evolve out of applied research activities within the INI-GraphicsNet. It is envisioned that such novel applications could be productized for the broader market, thus forming a basis for spin-off commercial activities and ventures. New tools and applications can only compete if their usability is at least comparable to similar products. For innovative technologies and applications, usability studies can help determine the potential market acceptance of a new product.

The quality of software products and component technologies is paramount at IMEDIA. In addition to its own R&D activities, IMEDIA positions itself to introduce products to the North American market. IMEDIA technical staff has established the Software Engineering Competency Center in order to achieve the highest degree of performance, stability, maintainability, and reuse accors multiple product lines for the future. Of equal importance is thorough evaluation of the usability of any new system, which will ultimately impact its market value.

The basic model for human-computer interaction

n order to depict a taxonomy of multimodal human-computer interaction we will have to clarify a number of concepts and issues. The first assumption is that there are minimally two separate agents involved, one human and one machine. They are physically separated, but are able to exchange information through a number of information channels. As schematically shown in figure 1.1 , we will make the following definitions.

Figure 1.1 : A model for the identification of basic processes in human-computer interaction. Note that in fact two loops exists: the intrinsic feedback as in eye-hand coordination, and the extrinsic loop, imposed by the computer.

There are two basic processes involved on the side of the human user: Perception and Control. Note that we take the perspective of the human process throughout this document. With respect to the Perceptive process, we can make a distinction between:

* Human Input Channels (HIC) and
* Computer Output Media (COM)

Within the Control process, we can make a distinction between:

* Human Output Channels (HOC) and
* Computer Input Modalities (CIM)

Then, within both of the agents, a cognitive or computational component can be identified, which processes the incoming input information and prepares the output. Also, at this intermediate cognitive level, intentional parameters will influence the processing, either implicitly, such as by design, in the case of non-intelligent agents, or explicitly, as in humans or in more sophisticated agents containing an explicit representation of goals and ``beliefs''. With respect to the machine, it should be noted that here the design is known, whereas for the human cognitive apparatus, the architecture must be inferred and cannot be observed directly.

Instead of the word modality at the human input side, and the word media at the human output side, we have chosen for the word channel, which also allows for a more clear distinction between the abbreviations (HOC CIM COM HIC HOC ...) which can also be pronounced as:

* HOC: human output to computer
* CIM: computer input from man
* COM: computer output to man
* HIC: human input from computer

Perception

Now we will deal with perception, i.e., the process of transforming sensorial information to higher-level representations which can be used in associative processes (memory access) and cognitive processes such as reasoning. In the perceptual process, two basic components can be identified as described earlier (figure 1.1 , right part). First there is the human sensory system with its typical characteristics and constraints, providing the ``human input channel'' (HIC) processing functions. Second, there are those components of a computer system which provide a multidimensional signal for the human user: ``computer output media'' (COM).

Control and Manipulation

In this chapter, we will describe the processes of control and manipulation as performed by users of a computer system. Again, two components can be discerned (Figure 1.1 , left part). The first component we will approach consists of the ``human output channels'' (HOC). Theories on motor control will be reviewed briefly. The second component consists of the ``computer input modalities'' (CIM) that are suitable to be interfaced to the human output activity patterns. In addition, event handling architectures which are relevant for different computer input modalities will be investigated. Finally, our approaches towards bi- and multimodal control schemes will be introduced.

Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Design

Human Computer Internaction &Usability pays central attention to the design, evaluation and implementation of existing and future interactive (computer-) systems and interactive environments. Faculty members with the background of computer science, psychology, communication studies, design and information management work in the following research foci:

• Mobile Interfaces Challenges of and possible solutions to effective and innovative human-computer interaction with mobile systems and services.
• The field of intelligent and emotional interfaces studies the possibilities of enriching human interaction with different forms of "artificial" intelligence. A particular research focus is on the emotional aspect.
• Ambient interfaces are an approach to embed ICTs as an invisible yet ubiquitous component in our every-day environment. The central concern of research is to assess the effects and potentials of this invisible integration from the points of view of the user and of interaction.
• Social interfaces are a new development in the field of interface technologies which strives to facilitate social interaction between humans and computers and to create new possibilities for human interaction procedures.
• Contextual interfaces and advanced interaction technologies study alternative approaches and paradigms concerning special interaction tasks in various contexts and places of applications, for special needs in households.
• User experience methods and tools investigate methodological aspects and tools to support all phases of user-oriented development, in the research foci described above and beyond. Studies on the significance of user experience and its influential factors are to be particularly emphasized here.

Introducing Human Computer Interaction

As I mentioned in my former post, that study Human Computer Interaction has been of interest to me, and I said might be blogging about the areas that i will be surfing through, just like how the Cognitive Science Series works, and here I am sitting through the weekend reading “Human-Computer Interaction: David Benyon, Helen Sharp, Jenny Preece, Open University, U.K. Simon Holland Tom Carey. Yvonne Rogers; Publisher: Addison-Wesley; Copyright: 1994″. This book is a decent read, i was reading this and unknowingly i ended up to the 53rd page, its seriously an interesting read. So in this introduction, i will be talking about what exactly is this HCI about, and what are the aim of this field.

When i went through wikipedia, it says Human Computer Interaction “(HCI) or, alternatively, man-machine interaction (MMI) or computer–human interaction (symbolized as χ Chi, the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. It is an interdisciplinary subject, relating computer science with many other fields of study and research. Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface (or simply interface), which includes both software and hardware, for example, general purpose computer peripherals and large-scale mechanical systems such as aircraft and power plants.”

What is Human Computer Interaction (HCI) ?

Machines are tools operated by humans to achieve certain goals by performing certain action in work, play, etc. there is an interaction between human and machine.

A Machine…

* When a machine is built, emphasis is on functionality - what it can do. (Goal)
* Little emphasis on usability – how to use it to achieve the goal, what actions required.
* Build for ‘technical expert’ who:
o Understand the machine and how it functions.
o Can and willing to be trained.
o Have motivation – to achieve personal or professional goals.

Currently, computers have increased speed, capability and memory, and reduced cost, and wide range of users (non-computing specialists), new technology (VDT, keyboard, mouse, etc), but users still complained that:

* Machines still difficult to use.
* Machines are inflexible.
* Many steps required accomplishing certain task.

The Aim of Human Computer Interaction

To optimize the performance of human and computer together as a system.
In HCI (Human Computer Interaction), considerations of users and their environment are given as much emphasis as the functionality.

1. Users should not have to adapt to the interface.
2. Must be natural and intuitive for users to learn to use it.
3. Make computers “People Literate” rather than humans “Computer Literate”.
4. Usability is given as much importance as other criteria for software quality such as functionality, reliability, efficiency, maintainability, portability, etc

This might have given you a hint of what is HCI and the aims.

Human Computer Interaction, Cognitive Psychology

I have talked about Cognitive Psychology in many areas (Cognitive Psychology, Congnitive Psychology(The Psychology of Learning), Cognitive Psychology(Thought and Learning)) while discussing about Cognitive Science. To take a detailed look in to the subject domain, please refer the above mentioned links. In this series I will be covering the basics and things that i didnt talk about in the previous articles and will be focused mainly on how this subject domain ties up with Human Computer Interaction. so lets get started..

Cognitive Psychology

Study of how we gain knowledge, understanding, remembering, reasoning, awareness, acquiring skills, creating new ideas, etc.

Used in Human Computer Interaction

• Improve on ways user interacts with computers.
• Know characteristics of people interacting with computer or with other people.
• Identify/ know the target user, their needs, capabilities, goals, etc
• Explain why source interfaces are more successful than others.

Limitations

• Cannot provide precise rules for better design (only a guideline)
• Mainly applied on a single personal interaction with the computer, hence suitable only for single stand-alone user software.
• However people often work in corporation with other people interacting together with the system.
• E.g. group-base (video conferencing, electronic meeting)

Components of Human Computer Interaction

HCI (Human Computer Interaction) involves more than good interface design – input devices, output displays, dialogues, icons, graphics, etc.

HCI (Human Computer Interaction) also involves user environment, organizational factors, health, safety, comfort, etc; Personality, capabilities, past experience of intended users, etc.

HCI (Human Computer Interaction) covers knowledge from a large number of academic disciplines.

Computer Science.

Knowledge of the latest development in IT and methodologies used.
E.g. High-Level Languages, User Interfaces Management Systems, Protoyping tools.

Cognitive Psychology.

Knowledge about perception, attention, memory, learning, thinking, problem solving, of human brain.

Erogonomics

Design of artifacts to suit capabilities and capabilities of user to maximize user’s safety, efficiency, reliability, and performance confort.

Sociology

Studies of human behaviour

• How individuals behavior influence another.
• Impact of a group on its member’s attitudes and behavior.E.g how the introduction of a new system might affect working practice.
  

Artificial Intelligence.

Graphics Design

Social and Organizational Psychology

Human Computer Interaction, Usability Factors

Measure how well the specified users can perform the desired activities:

1. Learnability:

How easy to learn to use the system?
How well are the learned skills retained over time?

2. Throughput (Volume/ Result):

How quickly can the task be performed?
How many people needed to perform a task?
What is the user error rate?
How easily for user/ system to recover from errors.

3. Flexibility:

How suitable is the system for the expertise of the intended users?
Can system be customized to have different levels of expertise?

4. Attitude:

What is the user subjective satisfaction with the system?

5. Visibility:

What feedback is given to user to confirm the action of user or error occurs?

6. Transparency:Users do not need to know how a system works, but only the functions.
E.g. a driver can drive a car without knowing how an engine runs.

7. Affordance:

Define as the properties of objects.
What kind of operations and manipulating can be done to objects?

Consequences of Poor Interface Design

1. Increased mistake in data entry and system operation
2. Inaccessible functionality
3. User frustration – Low productivity, under utilization
4. User rejection of system.

Human-Computer Interaction - The critics

The article posted by Jon Katz about the book of Kurzweil received many messages of all kinds of people. Some of them deserve to be reviewed. Jon Paterson says: "Anyone who says that the human brain is a million times more intelligent than a computer is a twit, end of story... This assumes that computers are intelligent at all.

They are no more intelligent than a rock, just more useful for some tasks". Richieb warns:"AI proponents have been predicting this stuff since early sixties. They just keep changing the date. It´s not the speed of processors or the amount of memory that needs to be compared to the human brain, it´s the software. And nobody has any idea how to write it. We can´t even agree on what is intelligence and somehow he expects to program intelligent machines". Andy agrees: "How about this for a law (Andy´s Law). ´He who can program a thing, understands a thing. The inverse is also true: he who understands a thing, can program a thing´. We do not have even a rudimentary knowledge of the nature of intelligence. Until we do there will be no real AI".

Vertigo tries to clear the subject: "Reproducing intelligence in computers may be possible, but only because we define intelligence in our own narrow way... People don´t even understand themselves yet. They may know the outer shell, the molecules, the plumbing, but they don´t know the essence of things. They can only barely see a distorted image of the shallow surface they perceive as the truth. That, they can mimic in computers, and because their own conscience is limited they will not be able to tell the difference... Evolution itself is much more advanced than these futurists can grasp, and I believe the next hundred years will definitely be interesting and bring us things we could have never imagined. But I also think they will not even resemble ´spiritual computers´, which in itself is a contradition of terms". Vertigo also gives an advice: "If I want to ´merge´ with something or reproduce I´d get myself a date and not some piece of metal. If you think otherwise it´s time you get away from your computer and sniff in some fresh air from outside".

About a sentence in the article ("´The Age of Spiritual Machines´ surpasses most futuristic predictions of sci-fi writers ans technologists".), Phaid says: "Wrong. It apes them, and not very well from the sound of things. Sounds like Jon Katz needs to do a bit more reading before extolling the virtues of this kind of literature. It raises some interesting points, yes, so it´s fodder for good discussions, but at the same time it´s not original and doesn´t seem to bring anything new to the table. I´ll check out a used copy sometime". Axel Boldt, from Germany, also has something to say: "The Turing Test is inadequate since it really only measures how well the machine simulates the input-output behavior of a human. That does not have much to do with intelligence; hyperintelligent aliens for example could not pass the Turing Test. Instead, we should try to build machines which can pass the Boldt Test: their input-output behavior should be as interesting as that of the average human". Super Geek philosophizes: "The irony of it all is that man seeks to become more machine by making machine more man".

Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millennium

Book Description

Human-computer interaction (HCI) has long been a focal area for innovative, multidisciplinary computing research and development. At the dawn of a new millennium, it is time to ask where this increasingly important field is going. What are the critical technical challenges and opportunities that will define HCI work in the years to come? What are the approaches that will sustain and enhance the vitality and effectiveness of HCI? In what ways will HCI differ from what it is today?

In this unique book, John M. Carroll, himself a prominent contributor to HCI understanding, presents answers to these questions from a number of leaders in the field. Half of the chapters are based on articles that first appeared in special issues of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction and Human-Computer Interaction, revised and rewritten for a broader audience. The other half are original contributions, describing some of the latest work being done in HCI and providing a striking vision of the future. No single volume could cover the entire scope of HCI, but these selected writings will give you a good glimpse of the energy and creativity now driving HCI forward.

Topics covered include:

• The influence of the cognitive sciences on HCI
• Usability engineering, including both measurement and design
• Addressing interface concerns earlier in the development process; participatory design
• New user interface software tools for speech and voice, immersive displays, and position-sensing controls
• New interfaces and methodologies for supporting collaboration
• Interfaces that support navigation through vast amounts of information
• Situated computing and the integration of computers with real environments
• Learner-centered design; community computing
• Social and societal impacts

Whether you are a specialist in HCI, a software designer or developer, or simply a curious computer user, you will find here a wealth of interesting and stimulating ideas on the future of our interactions with computers.

The State of Science in the Area of Human-Computer Interaction

Over 2,200 academics, scientists, researchers, and practitioners in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from 63 countries gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, from July 22 to 27, 2005, to share their recent findings in all areas of HCI during the HCI International 2005 Conference. This is one of the most important international and scientific conferences in the area of HCI.

Through over 250 parallel sessions, 270 poster presentations and 22 tutorials, participants presented their major findings in Cognitive Ergonomics, Usability and Internationalization, Virtual Reality, Universal Access, Augmented Cognition, Management of Information, Online Communities and Social Computing, and Health Aspects of Work with Computers. The Proceedings have been published on CD-ROM by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, and are structured in 11 volumes and a "Posters" section.

Dr. Gerald M. Edelman, Nobel laureate, was the keynote speaker and outlined prevalent views of higher brain functions and information processing. He discussed Neural Darwinism and neural correlates of consciousness, and presented supporting evidence on the neural correlates of consciousness obtained from MEG studies of human subjects.

It is obviously impossible to summarize the content of such a huge conference in a few sentences. However, the hottest topics at this year's conference seemed to be, in my opinion, Virtual Reality, Universal Access/Multimodal Design, and Augmented Cognition. A keyword search within the Conference proceedings on each of the first two topics (Virtual Reality and Universal Access) resulted in over 400 papers, and more than 200 papers were found on the topic of Augmented Cognition. Another particularity of this year's conference was the important presence of United States military research institutions, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Many contributions from DARPA indicated the importance of HCI in military projects and equipment design. A variety of equipment designs based on the findings of these research projects, from simulation equipment to sophisticated vehicles (DaimlerChrysler), was displayed during the Exhibition.

In software application design, numerous contributions reported a variety of findings, from design to implementation, design patterns, accessibility issues, and so on. Referring to these studies, which constitute a vast intellectual resource for every professional in the field of HCI, could save practitioners a lot of time in designing and evaluating enterprise software applications.

HCI International 2005 hosted an extensive and impressive Exhibition of over 60 booths representing a variety of enterprises, among them major companies such as Boeing, Sandia National Laboratories, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, DaimlerChrysler Corporation and Oracle Corporation.

HCI International 2007 Conference will be held in Beijing, P.R. China, 22-27 July 2007.

The Future of Human-Computer Interaction

Interfaces

The Future: Perceptual Interfaces

The other important piece of future interfaces should be "perception." The simplest example is speech recognition, or more accurately, speech-based interfaces. Another example is computer vision. Smart phones are excellent speech platforms, as already noted, but most also have cameras and a respectable amount of CPU power, especially in their digital signal processors. They are more than capable of computer vision using either still images or video from their cameras. A simple example is barcode recognition, which is already available on some camera phones (both 2D and 1D barcode readers have appeared on commercial phones). OCR (optical character recognition) for business-card recognition is also available commercially. Another example is TinyMotion, a phone software application that my lab has developed, which uses the video from a camera phone to compute the phone's motion relative to a background - just as an optical mouse does. This creates a software-only general-purpose 2D mouse for camera phones. TinyMotion is very useful for map browsing (which is why we developed it) in location-based cellphone services. It turned out also to be a nice interface for smart-phone games, which is probably a bigger market than its target .Computer vision has a big role to play in managing personal media assets, and this reaches into the home, as well as the mobile market.

These niche applications for vision on phones are suggestive, but perhaps not really convincing of the economic value of computer vision for phones. Let's look for a moment at "social media," personal data such as photos and videos that are shared with friends and family. As argued before, the phone is a communicating and social platform, and photo sharing is likely to be one of the most popular uses of multimedia on the phone. With collaborators at Berkeley and in industry, we explored face recognition from camera-phone images. The application is precisely photo-sharing and archival. The user will likely want to share a photo with the people who are in the photo and would like meta-data about who is in the photo so he or she can find it later when looking for specific people. Our results were interesting because we found not only was it possible to recognize subjects reasonably well using computer vision, but also that the recognition accuracy improved significantly when context data was used, as well as computer vision. While our system actually did its recognition on a PC rather than on the phone, we realized that the same state-of-the-art PC algorithms could easily have run on the smart phones we had used. Computer vision has a big role to play in managing personal media assets, and this reaches into the home, as well as the mobile market.

Turning to ASR (automatic speech recognition) and VUIs (voice user interfaces), we saw a boom in these industries in 2000, followed by a contraction for several years. But 2000 was also the era of wild promises and unrealistic expectations. What should have happened with speech? First of all, when PCs were mostly in offices, VUIs didn't make much sense. Nothing wrong with the technology, but speech is a poor match for most office work. Let's not forget the significant advantages of text for routine business communication: You can scan text for what you want, you can read back and forth if you don't understand, you can edit text while you're writing it to make sure you say exactly what you mean, and you can forward text through a long chain of readers without losing its meaning. Written text is generally less ambiguous than spoken language that expresses the same meaning - we're not really aware of this, but we're trained from an early age to take more care with text. Furthermore, you can work on text documents without your neighbors listening in. Much knowledge work is about managing structured or semi-structured information (even before computers came along). Most organizations relied on paper to store and move this information around with precision and robustness (again before computers). Speech technology can certainly play a role, but it's wrong to think about displacing most of the "paperwork" in office environments. As Jordan Cohen (formerly of VoiceSignal, now of SRI International) points out in his interview in this issue, the way to succeed with speech technology is first to identify the market where it makes sense.

Let's remember the lessons from the Xerox Star. The Star was all about having a real-use context (office work) and identifying an appropriate set of user tasks. Phones are primarily about communicating using a variety of media (sound, images, text) and to an increasing extent about sharing and archiving those media. To support and augment those communication services, we need some knowledge of what's "in" those media, which is exactly a machine perception task. Furthermore, if phones are to provide other services (besides communication) to users, they also need to interpret the user's intent through whatever interfaces the phone possesses. I already remarked on users' toils with phone menus and buttons, while at the same time the phone is a beautifully evolved speech platform. Speech interfaces do indeed look like a great choice. They continue to improve in performance, but the state of the art is much better than people realize.

Tips on how to adapt IT for business changes!

Until last year, like most HCI researchers, I was skeptical about the value of speech interfaces in HCI. But then I saw a Samsung phone (P207) shipping with large-vocabulary speech recognition and getting very good user reviews in all kinds of publications (including the hard-to-impress business market).

I also taught a class on medical technologies and had a chance to meet with many caregivers. There is already a large speech industry in medicine, and it is widely seen as one of the key technologies moving forward (it has probably already eclipsed "office ASR" and is a significant part of the speech recognition industry overall).

I had committed the cardinal sin of generalizing experience from a technology in one context (VUIs in the office) to its application in a different context. It's the technology-in-context complex that matters. ASR-on-phones and ASR-in-medicine are brand new markets. Their users don't know or care about the history of speech in the office. They just buy it and use it, and they either like it (so far, so good) or they don't.

My only direct experience with speech interfaces was with the burgeoning automated call-center industry, which had been quite bad. But after learning more about the state of the art (Randy Allen Harris's Voice Interaction Design or Blade Kotelly's The Art and Business of Speech Recognition are excellent guides), I realized that there are many superb examples of voice interface design. It's a lot like Web sites and GUIs in the 1980s. The practice of human-centered user interface design was not widely known back then, but as the HCI discipline grew both in academia and industry, best practices spread. Products that didn't follow a good user-centered process were quickly displaced by competitors that did. There is an excellent set of user-centered design practices for speech interfaces that are very similar to the practices for core HCI. As yet, they aren't widely adopted, but the differences between systems that follow them and those that don't are so striking that this cannot last forever.

It has also become clear that the recognition accuracy of the ASR part of the interface is not the limiting factor - it's the quality of the overall VUI design and the match of the application to its context. In other words, there's no reason to wait for future technical magic before using speech interfaces. You can write excellent ones now, assuming speech interaction fits your application context.

After these epiphanies, I moved a significant amount of activity in my group to speech and dialog-based interfaces (i.e., started four new projects). While there are very good practices in speech interface design today and many useful services that can be built with them, there are still significant challenges and room for improvement. Those limits have to do with the shared understanding between a human and a machine sharing a speech interface. This is why speech interfaces are also a rich research area. Much of the shared information is the context we have already been talking about, and all of the aforementioned projects are coupled with our work on context-awareness

Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices

Mobile applications are having a profound impact on organizations and individuals. Organizations no longer need to provide every employee with a wired connection to perform their job functions. Individuals can use mobile devices to access the information systems they need anywhere at anytime. But mobility and mobile device use is also adding to problems of information overload. Information management becomes more difficult and complex in mobile environments as well. Since mobile devices can be taken anywhere, the user’s environment can change rapidly from moment to moment. There can also be a significant number of people, objects, and activities vying for a user’s attention aside from the mobile application itself.

Designing effective interaction methods is a challenging part of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and mobile devices make this challenge even greater. Mobile applications require efficient ways to record and access information under circumstances that are often quite different from those where desktop computers are used. The purpose of this mini-track is to provide a forum for examining how people interact with mobile information systems and the devices that are used to access them. Submissions addressing all aspects of HCI with mobile devices are welcome.

Possible Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Novel interaction and interface design for mobile devices (e.g., phones, PDAs)
• Usability testing methods for wireless applications
• HCI security (HCI-SEC) for mobile devices and interactions
• Field tests of mobile information systems
• Case studies looking at the design and usability of mobile applications
• Formal user studies of mobile device interaction techniques
• Designing privacy into mobile applications and devices
• Notification cues and information displays for handheld devices
• Wearable systems and computing
• Input and output methods for small and ultra-mobile devices (e.g., PDA’s, watches, rings)

Human-Computer Interaction Studies in MIS

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is an interdisciplinary field that has attracted researchers, educators, and practitioners from different disciplines. HCI has gained attention during recent years due to the rapid development and advancement in information and computer technology. To better use advanced technology, we need to better understand users, their tasks within different contexts, and the interplay among users, tasks, and contexts/environments.

In the MIS field, broad HCI issues and research questions have been investigated over a long period of time. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) or Human Factors studies in MIS are concerned with the ways humans interact with information, technologies, and tasks, especially in business, managerial, organizational, and cultural contexts. MIS researchers study these issues in organizational, business, and personal contexts or take these contexts into consideration in their studies.

The high level of interest exhibited by MIS scholars in broad HCI studies has been demonstrated in many ways:

1. The high number of hits from queries to the ISWORLD Faculty Directory on research and teaching in HCI related areas (see Zhang et al., 2002 in CAIS);

2. The high level of participation in HCI specific events sponsored by the AIS SIGHCI (please refer to http://sigs.aisnet.org/sighci for more information);

3.The high level of participation in the HCI track/minitrack at AMCIS 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. At the last five AMCIS conferences, the HCI in MIS track (or minitrack prior to AMCIS 2004) was among the most popular ones at AMCIS.

This increasing trend of interest and enthusiasm was exhibited by the large number of submissions and the high level of participation during the last few years. A meta/mega track is necessary so that
(1) it is possible to attend to specific research areas within HCI in MIS,
(2) more HCI researchers can be involved, play important organizing roles, and make an impact in this area, and
(3) the overall reviewing process for submissions in this area can be more efficiently and better managed.

The aim of this track is consistent with the HCI in MIS track/minitrack in previous years at AMCIS. We want to provide a forum for AIS members to acknowledge each other's work, and to discuss, develop, and promote a range of issues related to HCI in MIS, including the history, reference disciplines, theories, practice, methodologies and techniques, new development, and applications of the interaction between humans, information and information technology. In an effort to bridge academic research and industry practice, both research articles and experience reports are welcome. The track is open to all types of research methodologies (e.g., conceptualization, theorization, case study, action research, experimentation, survey, simulation). We also welcome visionary articles and research in progress papers.