HUMAN

COMPUTER
INTERACTION
Introduction:

• Interacting with technology has become an essential part of everyday life for
the majority of people.
• The average user of a computer system is now less likely to understand the
technology. Since, there are different types of technology they have to use.
• People are busy and may spend little or no time actually learning a new system.
• Therefore, computer systems should be easy to use, easy to learn, and with no
errors.
• To design and develop of such a system is a major concern of HCI
What is HCI?

• Human-computer interaction (HCI): “is a discipline concerned with the design,

evaluation and implementation of interactive systems for human use and with study
of major phenomena surrounding them.”

• HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of interaction between people

(users) and computers.
• Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface

• The golden principle in HCI is that “people should come first”.

HCI consists of three parts:

• Human: could be an individual user or a group of users.

• Computer: could be any technology ranging from the general desktop
computer to a large scale computer system.
• Interaction: any direct or indirect communication between a human
and computer.
The HCI Challenge
HCI is Not about

• Making the interface look pretty

• Only about desktop computers (and that goes for computing

as well!)

• Something that would be nice to do but usually there’s no time

for it
HCI is about
• Understanding the users
• Understanding users tasks
• Understanding the surrounding environment
• GUI requirements gathering and analysis
• Design prototype
• Evaluate the system
The goal of HCI

• The goal of HCI “is to develop or improve the safety, utility, effectiveness, efficiency and usability of
system that include computers.”
• The goals of HCI are to produce usable and safe systems, as well as functional systems. In order to fulfill
that, developers must attempt to:
– Understand how people use technology
– Building suitable systems
– Achieve efficient, effective, and safe interaction
– Put people first

People needs, capabilities and preferences should come first. People should not have to change the
way that they use a system. Instead, the system should be designed to match their requirements
HCI is a vast field of multidisciplinary study
The areas of study in the field of HCI include the following:

• Computer science and engineering: The computer component, including the concepts, theories, and
coding languages that allow us to build computer software.
• Behavioral science and psychology: The human component, including the concepts, theories, behavior,
and ways people think about systems.
• Design and media (product design, visual design, and content): The design and interaction component
including methodologies, theories, concepts, and best practices that make up the products that are used
by people.
• Human factors and ergonomics: The interaction component of HCI, including the concepts, best practice,
form factors, and physical constraints of products so that people can use them without any injury.
• Other professions: HCI also extends into professions such as information architecture, informatics,
cultural anthropology, user research, education, and business, which all overlap with HCI.
HCI
• focuses on the design of computer technology and the interaction
between humans and computer software systems.
• is situated at the intersection of computer science and engineering,
design and media, human factors and ergonomics, behavioral
sciences and psychology, and several other fields of study and
research.
Why HCI?

• The profound impact of computing stands among humankind's

greatest achievements alongside the wheel, refrigeration, and sliced.
A big part of understanding computers is that humans make them for
other humans and, therefore, can be changed based on how humans
evolve. Technology moves at an incredible speed, and the way it
impacts our society, our behaviors, and our education are sometimes
hard to understand.
Documenting HCI jargon

• HCI jargon is a collection of unique words or expressions that are used by

people in our particular profession and are difficult for others to understand.
• Here are a few HCI terms to get you up to speed:
1. Operating System (OS)
2. The mouse
3. Windows
4. Graphical User Interface (GUI)
5. What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)
The goals of HCI jargon are to do the following :

1. Establish a shared language for building human-centered solutions.

2. Build a shorthand for skills and industry terms.
3. Identify and navigate the growing job market utilizing HCI skills
This can also be seen in the following diagram:
• Millions of people around the planet build computer hardware and
software. As a group, we can create software with computers faster due
to our shared vocabulary for describing, discussing, and ultimately
building solutions. It is nerdy. HCI jargon is a way to introduce you to
the community to give you a shared language and allow you to talk the
talk as you walk the walk. The language we share is relatively new and
revolves around technology and computer systems. Lean into your nerd
self and know that as a group, it is us nerds that change the world
through technology.
Exploring the history of computers

• Without computers, HCI would not be a profession. Software that HCI

designers work on is steeped in history and knowing the foundations
will allow you to take steps into the future more confidently,
therefore, let's rewind a bit and understand how we got here.
Very early history – the 17th century

• Since the beginning of civilization, there is proof of human beings'

ability to quantify and record their interactions. The computer is the
outcome of millennia of knowledge, all now combined into handheld
devices that allow us to quantify our existence. The long tail of human
accomplishment and innovation that have brought us to today are too
numerous to count, but we have been able to advance faster than any
other time due to our ability to harness the accomplishments of our
forefathers in computing history
Early history – the 17th to 19th centuries

• 17TH CENTURY - the invention of the mechanical calculator started with Wilhelm
Schickard and Blaise Pascal
• 18TH CENTURY - adding machine by William S. Burroughs' (1855-1898)
• 19TH CENTURY - the first programmable machine (a computer) was created by
German Konrad Zuse - the Z1 IN 1493
All computer programs are processed as bits. A bit is
the smallest unit of data in a computer, a 0 or 1 of a
transistor. See the following representation of 8
bits = 1 byte:
Recent history – the 20th century

• The post-World War II economies created many opportunities and the

1950s-1980s saw an explosion in computing technology and computer
software creation. The movement of the computer out of specialized clubs
and enthusiasts' groups and into the hands of the masses is not arbitrary.
Computers are useful, and humans will spend money on valuable
products. Just like the adding machine helped people execute math faster,
the personal computer is that same idea times a thousand.
• 21st-century computing skills as part of my base education, including
access to computers to learn to type, play games, learn math, and do art.
• When computers started being used, they were the size of entire
rooms. Over time, they got smaller and faster. The Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC) became a catalyst for many of the ideas that
propelled computers into the homes of billions of users. The Xerox
Alto systems pioneered the power of a GUI and were used for a
variety of research purposes into the fields
of human-computer interaction and computer
usage:
Research computers at Xerox PARC inspired Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and
others to design a GUI for Apple computers. Some HCI pioneers that came out of
Xerox PARC are the following:

• Butler Lampton (1943-present): A computer scientist and founding member of Xerox PARC
who was instrumental in developing the Xerox Alto in 1973 with a three-button mouse and
GUI.
• Charles "Chuck" Patrick Thacker (1943-2017): A computer scientist who helped create an OS
that allowed users to interface with a computer and a computer mouse through a GUI. The
GUI was implemented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and their colleagues at Apple into the
1984 Macintosh.
• Alan Kay (1940-present) is a pioneering computer scientist well known for his work on object-
oriented programming and Windows-based user interfaces.
• Mark Weiser (1952-1999) was the CTO at Xerox PARC and is considered the father of
ubiquitous computing (ubicomp).
The 21st century – the internet, smartphones, cloud computing, and IoT

• The origins of the internet has its roots in Cold War government research going
as far back as the 1960s and programs like DARPA but in 1991, Tim Berners Lee
invented the World Wide Web and thus the consumer internet, allowing
computers to communicate over a network through HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP). The world was then fundamentally altered. Using HTML (Hypertext
Mark-Up Language), websites could publish their content for all the world to see
through a web address. HTML was limited as a coding language and was then
augmented by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which impacted the look and feel of
a web page, and then JavaScript (JS), which impacted their behavior. This built
the foundation for modern web pages that both function well and look good.
The internet is loved by many because of a combination of standardized computer code
(HTML/CSS/JS) plus a way to quickly deliver content around the globe through content
delivery networks (CDNs):
• Computers thus moved from devices of business to points of access and entertainment.
• Connecting users around the world through computer networks have altered how we
communicate, exchange ideas, and think.
• The acceleration toward smaller and smaller computers exploded alongside the expansion
of the internet, and the communication technologies of Wi-Fi and cellular technology.
• This has resulted in the acceleration of smartphone technology, cloud-based application
infrastructure, and the proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT).
• IoT is the ability of everything to be networked and connected to the internet, which allows
all things to communicate and collect data. All this change has occurred in half a century.
The potential of what the next half-century has to offer is where we will pick up the torch.
Evolving from T-person into a π person

A T-person is based on two factors:

1. the horizontal
2. the vertical
• The horizontal factor represents the breadth of knowledge.
• This is the knowledge that can be obtained through life experience, curiosity
about people, and cultural education, and is the knowledge that can produce
insight.
• Insight can then travel down the vertical stem of the T, which represents the
depth of knowledge, and becomes connected to speciality knowledge.
• Depth of knowledge is a concept that applies to any specific domain,
• for example, a General Practioner (GP) represents the horizontal bar, whereas a
cardiologist (the specialist medical skill of understanding the heart) would
represent the stem of the T.
• Being skilled at your profession requires considering what your breadth and
depth of knowledge concern.
• For HCI, this means having and understanding an extensive knowledge about humans
and computers, which allows you to then funnel those experiences down into specific
skills relevant to your software development roles, and hopefully wider society.
• As an HCI designer if you have a breadth of knowledge without any depth in the skill
you will carry a limited ability to be as sought after in our world.
• The saying, A jack of all trades is a master of none calls out the folly of focusing only
on the breadth of your knowledge.
• Luckily HCI has many stems to focus on and create a depth of knowledge.
• This makes HCI practitioners more like π people.
• The number π (pi) is a mathematical constant and appears in many formulae in all
areas of mathematics, physics, and computer science. It is approximately equal to
3.14159.
A π person has a stable two-legged base:
• This lesson is committed to helping you grow your stems with specific
skills in HCI.
• However, the nature of HCI is not just about in-depth specific
knowledge only.
• To be human-centered, it will require growing your breadth of
knowledge and improving your ability to approach the problem that
the computer can solve with your user at the center.
• The goal of this book is to stretch your knowledge in all directions and
help you develop your curiosity about just how we use computers.
• Gaining depth in the stems of the topics of computers and interaction is no easy
task, and knowledge of humans takes a lifetime to build.
• The reality is that gaining knowledge takes time.
• However, that time has to be dedicated and allocated so that the experience can
be consumed, practiced, and ultimately redesigned.
• You will not become an expert instantly, and reading this book alone will not
guarantee that expertise, though it will hopefully help to move the needle a little.
As you learn HCI throughout this book, you will find we use a hermeneutic loop.
Hermeneutic loops

• Hermeneutics is a thinking framework that loops through synthesis and analysis,

based on the idea that multiple parts build a whole.
• As a framework, hermeneutics has its roots in the beginnings of
western philosophy and is a process that you can use to think and talk
about knowledge and understanding.
• The word has its origins in the ancient Greek word for interpretation.
• The loops we are on are continuous and will last far beyond the
completion of this book.
• However, using a hermeneutic loop will be a useful framework as you
progress and increase your HCI skills.
HCI requires a lot of practice:
HCI is a vocation

• A vocation is a job that is particularly worthy and rewarding to a person and typically
requires great dedication and passion. Great dedication requires time, effort, and
enthusiasm.
• HCI will work on a wide range of content. Your ability to become an expert quickly in
the software problems you are solving will help you throughout your career. The value
an HCI designer brings is their thinking and skills.
• HCI is not only relevant to, but crucial to any business and the ability to use user
research to identify problems, understanding their users' experiences, diagnosing what
needs improvement, and helping communicate the values of human-centred thinking
to their business and their users are the reasons why you should want to learn HCI.
The HCI professions

• Thousands of new job titles have been created to accommodate the skills that
have been created associated with computers and the essential roles they play in
modern business. Rapid technological change is modifying the skill requirements
for most jobs. HCI is responsible for some of this technological change. As the
computer has come to dominate modern business, the role of the products and
services that support humans' use of computers has also skyrocketed, which has
to lead to the shift in roles and job titles that are filling modern businesses.
The field of HCI is made up of many growing professions:
• In the business landscape, this results in job titles that span a super wide range of
job opportunities.
• From user experience designer to systems architect, to frontend/backend
engineer, the reality is that HCI skills have never been in higher demand than they
are today.
• Every company from Ford to Fage Greek Yogurt has software systems, web pages,
business practices, and customers who interface with their products or services
through a computer.