Chapter 2: The Computer

2.1 Introduction

Interaction (with or without computer) is a process of information transfer. The diversity of devices
reflects the fact that there are many different types of data that may be entered into and obtained
from a system, as there are many different users. In the early days, batch processing was common: a
large mass of information was dumped into and processed by the computer. Nowadays, computers
respond within milliseconds and computer systems are integrated in many different devices.

2.2 Text entry devices

2.2.1 The alphanumeric keyboard

The vast majority of keyboards have a standardized layout, known by the first six letters on the top
row: QWERTY. The non-alphanumeric keys are not standardized. This layout is not optimal for
typing, but dates from the time of mechanical limitations of the typewriter. Today, the keys can also
be arranged in alphabetic order (the alphabetic keyboard), but this does not improve typing
performance. The DVORAK keyboard does, placing the keys in a different order on a similar layout
as found on the QWERTY keyboards. The layout minimized the stretch of fingers and the use of
weak fingers, reducing fatigue and increasing typing speed (10-15%).

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2.2.2 Chord keyboards
 On chord keyboards, only a few keys are used. Letters are produces
pressing multiple keys at once. They are smaller than conventional
keyboards and have a short learning time.

2.2.3 Phone pad and T9 entry

The numeric keys on a cellphone can be pressed more than

once to enter letters. Most phones have 2 keypad modes: a
numeric and an alphabetic mode. Most phones have additional
modes for entering (initial) capitals. On modern phones you can
also find the T9-algorithm. This uses a large dictionary to
disambiguate words by typing the relevant letters keys once.

2.2.4 Handwriting recognition

Current technology is still fairly inaccurate and makes a
lot of mistakes, partly due to the enormous differences
between people’s handwriting. HR deals mostly worth
stroke information: the way in which the letter is
drawn, not the letter itself. Therefore, online
recognition is most accurate. HR has the advantage of
size and accuracy over small keyboards and is therefore
often used in mobile computing.

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2.2.5 Speech recognition
The performance of speech recognition is still
relatively low, even for a restricted vocabulary.
Adjusting the system for use with natural language
gives birth to even more problems: the ‘errors’ in
 natural language use, different voices, emotions
and accents etc. This means the system has to be
tuned for each different user. SR can be used in 3
scenarios: as an alternative text entry device,
replacing the keyboard in the current software,
with new software especially designed for SR and in
situations where the use of keyboards is impractical
or impossible.

2.3 Positioning, pointing and drawing

2.3.1 The mouse

The mouse is an indirect input device, because a transformation is required

to map from the horizontal nature of the desktop to the vertical alignment
of the screen. Invented in 1964 by Engelbart, his mouse used 2 wheels that
slid across the desktop and transmitted x; y-coordinates to the computer.
There have been experiments with foot-controlled mice.

2.3.2 Touchpad

Touchpads are touch-sensitive tablets, operated by sliding the

finger over it and are mostly used in notebook computers.
Performance can be increased using accelerators.

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2.3.3 Trackball and thumbwheel

A trackball is an upside-down mouse: instead of moving the device itself, the

ball is rolled to move the cursor. Trackballs are often used by RSI users.

Thumbwheels (in 2 dimensions) offer less usability because they can only
manipulate the horizontal and vertical movement of the cursor. 1-
dimensional thumbwheels are often included on the normal mice the
enhance the scrolling

2.3.4 Joystick and keyboard nipple

There are two types of joysticks: absolute sticks, in which the position of the
cursor corresponds to the position of the joystick in its base, and isometric
sticks, in which the pressure on the stick (in a
certain direction) controls the velocity of the
cursor in that direction.

Keyboard nipples are tiny joysticks that are sometimes used on

notebook computers.

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2.3.5 Touch-sensitive screens (touchscreens)

Touchscreens detect the position of the user’s finger or stylus on the

screen itself and are therefore very direct. They work by having the
 finger/stylus interrupting a matrix of light beams, making capacitance
changes on a grid overlaying the screen or by ultrasonic reflections. It is
a direct device: no mapping is required. However the selection of small
areas is difficult and intensive use can be tiring

2.3.6 Stylus and lightpen

For more accurate positioning, systems with touch-sensitive surfaces often

emply a stylus. An older technology for the same purpose is the lightpen,
which emits radiation detected by the screen. A difficulty of this and other
direct devices is that pointing obscures the display, making it more difficult
to use in rapid successions.

2.3.7 Digitizing tablet

A device used for freehand drawing. A resistive tablet detects point
contact between two separated conducting sheets. Magnetic,
capacitive and electrostatic tablets use special pens. The sonic tablet
requires no pad: an ultrasonic sound emitted by the pen is detected
by 2 microphones.

2.3.8 Eye gaze

Eye gaze allows you to control the computer by looking at it, while
wearing special glasses, head mounted boxes etc. By tracking a laser
beam’s reflection in the eye, the direction in which the eye is looking
is determined. The system needs to be tuned and is very expensive,
but also very accurate.

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2.3.9 Cursor keys and discrete positioning
 For 2D-navigation,

cursor keys can sometimes be preferable. The same goes for remote-controls and
cellphones.

2.4 Display devices

2.4.1 Bitmap displays, resolution and color
A bitmap-base means that the display is made of a fixed number of dots or pixels in a rectangular
grid. The color or intensity at each pixel is held by the ’computer’s video card. The more bits per
pixel, the more colors/intensities are possible. Also is the resolution of the screen: the total number
of pixels (in a 4:3-ratio) and the density of the pixels. Anti-alinsing: softening the edges of line
segments, blurring the discontinuity and making the juggles less obvious.

2.4.2 Technologies
In a CRT-monitor a stream of electrons is emitted from an electron gun, which is than focused and
directed by magnetic fields. As the beam hits the phosphor- coated screen, the phosphor is excited
by the electrons and glows. Flicker can be reduced by increasing the scanning rate or by interlacing,
in which odd lines are scanned first, followed by even lines. In LCD’s a thin layer of liquid crystals is
sandwiched between two glass plates. External light passes through the top plate and is polarized.
This passes through the crystal and is reflected back to the user’s eye by the bottom plate. The
polarization of each single crystal can be turned electronically.

2.4.3 Large displays and situated displays

There are several types of large displays. Some use gas-plasma technology and usually have a 16:9-
ratio. Several smaller screens can also be places together in a video wall. Projectors are possible too,
in two variants: projectors with 3 lenses (red, green and blue) can build a full-color image. LCD
projectors have a small screen, through which light is projected on a screen.

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2.4.4 Digital paper
Thin flexible material that can be written to electronically, but keeps its contents when removed
from the power supply.
2.5 Devices for virtual reality and 3D interaction

2.5.1 Positioning in 3D
Changing from 2D to VR does not mean going to 3 degrees of freedom, but (sometimes) to 6,
because except for moving in 3 dimensions, you can also roll, turn, twist etc. Humans can use a 3D
environment with a 2D-device (mouse). The human mind is therefore capable of handling multiple
degrees of indirection. A 3D-input device is the 3D-mouse, which has 6 degrees of freedom: 3 for
position (x,y,z), 1 for pitch, yawn and roll. However, sometimes its better to use a data glove: a lycra
glove with fibers laid around the fingers, detecting the joint angles of the fingers and thumb. The
position of the head can be tracked using a VR-helmed, which can also display the 3D-world to each
eye. With other devices, e.g. special clothing or a modified trampoline, the position and movement
of the whole body can be tracked.

2.5.2 3D displays
3D can be displayed on normal screens using shadows, depth etc. It is also possible to generate the
natural stereoscopic images for both eye positions and have them delivered to the eyes using a VR
helmed. Finally, users can enter a VR cave, where the VR world is projected around them. If the VR
system performances too slow, and there is a delay between movement and image, disorientation
and sickness may occur.

2.6 Physical controls, sensors and special devices

2.6.1 Special displays
Except for CRT and LCD, there are numerous other display devices, e.g. LED’s, ganges, dials and
head-up displays.

2.6.2 Sound output

We do not yet know how to utilize sound in a sensible way to achieve maximum effects and
information transference in HCI. However, by having sounds confirm a right action, we can speed up
interaction.

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2.6.3 Touch, feel and smell
Force feedback gives different amounts of resistance to an input device depending on the state of
the virtual operation. Haptic devices are various forms of force, resistance and texture influencing
our physical senses.

2.6.4 Physical controls

Not only the function of controls, but also the physical design is important and needs to suit the
situation in which it is used: kitchen equipment, for example, needs controls that can be cleaned
easily.

2.6.5 Environment and bio-sensing

There are many sensors in our environment monitoring our behavior. Their measurements range
from temperature and movement to the user’s emotional state.

2.7 Paper: printing and scanning

2.7.1 Printing
The most common printers nowadays are dot-based. In order of increasing resolution, familiar types
are dot-matrix printers, ink-jet printers and laser printers.

2.7.2 Fonts and page description languages

Some printers print ASCII-characters and bitmaps by itself. Many more complex documents are
translated into suitable bitmaps by the computer. More sophisticated printers can accept a page
description language, e.g. PostScript. The programming-language for printing includes standard
programming constructs, which means that less data has to be sending to the printer in comparison
to using a bitmap.

2.7.3 Screen and page

There are many differences (e.g. size, color depth, resolution etc.) between a paper print and a
computer monitor, which causes problems when designing WYSIWYG-software. Especially the
correct alignment of text (in different fonts) is difficult.

2.7.4 Scanners and optical character recognition

Scanners produce a bitmap image from a ‘hard’ original and can, using optical character recognition,
transfer a page of text directly into a txt-file. There are 2 kinds of scanners: flat-bed (as in a copie
machine) and hand-held (as in a fax machine; however the scanner has to be manually pulled over
the paper). Scanners shine a beam of light at the page and record the intensity and color of the
reflection. The resolution of the scanner can differ highly between different types.

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2.8 Memory
2.8.1 RAM and short-term memory
(STM)
Most current active information is held in the random
 access memory (RAM). RAM is volatile: contents are
lost when the power is turned off.. However, there are
more expensive or low-power consuming memory
techniques that can hold their contents when the
power is off.

2.8.2 Disks and long-term memory (LTM)

There are 2 main techniques used in disks: magnetic disks (floppy,

hard disk, tape) and optical disks. (CD-ROM/DVD). In comparison to
RAM, the computers LTM is rather slow.

2.8.3 Understanding speed and capacity

The capacity of RAM is limited and therefore multitask-systems tend to swap background-running
programs from RAM to the hard disk. When the program is fully activated it has to be swapped
back, which can cause delays (von Neumann bottleneck).

2.8.4 Compression
Compression techniques can be used to reduce the amount of storage required for text, bitmaps
and video. In text, logical contractions in the sentence can be replaced by a short code. In video,
differences between frames can be recorded instead of the whole frames. If fractal compression is
used, the quality can even improve in the process.

2.8.5 Storage format and standards

The basic standard for text storage is the ASCII character codes, which assign to each standard
printable character and several control characters an internationally recognized 7 bit code. UNICODE
is an extended version of this system and can also code for foreign characters. However, this is all
unformatted text. All editors which produce formatted texts have their own file format. Also for
images there exists a wide range of formats.

2.8.6 Methods of access

Standard database access is by special key fields with an associated index. The user has to know the
key before the system can find the information. Indices on databases are limited due to the storage
costs, privacy and security. The user’s mistakes in searching can be compensated by using forgiving
systems, for example by matching a key to a database index which corresponds closely.

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2.9 Processing and networks
2.9.1 Effects of finite processor speed
The processing speed of an interactive system can affect the user by being too slow (which can be
avoided by using buffers) or too fast. The faults can be functional, in which the program does the
wrong action. Slow responses from the system can also cause the so called cursor tracking and icon
wars. If the system is too fast, the user will not have enough time to interpret the system’s output.

2.9.2 Limitations on interactive performance

Several factors that can limit the speed of an interactive system.
They can be:
• Computation bound: Make sure the user has an indication of the system’s progress. •
Storage channel bound: Select the best fitting kind of memory and access technique. •
Graphics bound: The actual time of graphic operations can differ much from the estimates. •
Network capacity

2.9.3 Network computing

Networked systems have an effect on interactivity, because the large distances may cause a
noticeable delay in response from the system. The actions of other users may also influence your
own interaction with the connected computers

Summary
Computer system comprises various elements, each of which affects the user of the system.

• Input devices for interactive use, allowing text entry, drawing and selection from the screen:
o text entry: traditional keyboard, phone text entry, speech and handwriting
o pointing: principally the mouse, but also touchpad, stylus, and others
o 3D interaction devices
• Output display devices for interactive use:
o different types of screen mostly using some form of bitmap display
o large displays and situated displays for shared and public use
o digital paper may be usable in the near future
• Virtual reality systems and 3D visualization have special interaction and display devices. •
Various devices in the physical world:
o physical controls and dedicated displays
o sound, smell and haptic feedback
o sensors for nearly everything including movement, temperature, bio-signs
• Paper output and input: the paperless office and the less-paper office:
o different types of printers and their characteristics, character styles and fonts
o scanners and optical character recognition
• Memory:
o short-term memory: RAM

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o long-term memory: magnetic and optical disks
o capacity limitations related to document and video storage
o access methods as they limit or help the user
 • Processing:
o the effects when systems run too slow or too fast, the myth of the infinitely fast
machine
o limitations on processing speed
o networks and their impact on system performance

For more information, please follow the links below:

https://hcibook.com/e3/plain/chaps/ch2

https://www.slideshare.net/alanjohndix/hci-chapter-2

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