1. ITIS 3130 Human Computer Interaction
Dr. Heather Richter

2. Agenda Course Info & Syllabus Course Overview Introductions
HCI Overview

3. Course Information Books Web
Interaction Design by Preece, Rogers, and Sharp, Wiley 2002.
The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman, 2002.
Web
Overview
Grading and Policies
Syllabus and Lectures
Assignments
Swiki

4. Course Information Grading 10% Participation 10% Assignments
More next…
45% Project
More details to come…
15% Midterm
20% Final

5. Assignments Most done individually (a few at the end are not)
Post to the Swiki by NOON on the due date
Credit given for reasonable effort
Not graded, become a part of the project instead
Discuss in class on due date, bring print out so you can talk about it

6. Assignments Lead class discussion
10 minute discussion on the assignment, or on another topic
Counts as two assignments

7. Group project Theme: Encourage or support the use of public transit
3 parts
4-5 people per group, graded as a group
Original interface design and evaluation
Each part due by class time on the due date
Project notebook on Swiki with each write up
Theme: Encourage or support the use of public transit

8. Course Aims Consciousness raising Design critic Learn Design Process
Make you aware of HCI issues
Design critic
Question bad HCI design - of existing or proposed
Learn Design Process
Software interfaces and beyond
Improve your HCI design & evaluation skills
Go forth and do good work!

9. Course Overview Requirements Gathering Design Evaluation
How do you know what to build?
Human abilities
Design
How do you build the best UI you can?
Evaluation
How do you make sure people can use it?
Also web and visual design, dialogue paradigms, groupware, ubiquitous computing, assistive technology

10. How to do well Time and effort Attention to detail Communication
Do the reading and assignments
Attend class and participate
Spend time on the project
Attention to detail
Communication
Tell me what you learned and why you made decisions

11. Introductions – Dr. Heather Richter
Ph.D. in C.S. from Georgia Tech in May 2005
HCI, Ubiquitous Computing, and Software Engineering focus
Contact info:
preferred, put 3130 in title
Office: 305E Woodward
Office Hours:
Monday 1-3pm
By appointment

12. Introductions – Your Turn
Name, year, major
Previous HCI/interface experience?
A product/device/application you
Love to use and why
Hate to use and why

13. Now let’s get started
What is Human-Computer Interaction?

14. HCI
The interaction and interface between a human and a computer performing a task
Tasks might be work, play, learning, communicating, etc. etc.
Write a document, calculate monthly budget, learn about places to live in Charlotte, drive home…
…not just desktop computers anymore!

15. Why do we care?
Computers (in one way or another) now affect every person in our society
Tonight - count how many in your home/apt/room
We are surrounded by unusable and ineffective systems!
Its not the user’s fault!!
Product success may depend on ease of use, not necessarily power
You will likely create an interface for someone at some point
Even if its just your personal web page

16. Goals of HCI Allow users to carry out tasks Safely Effectively
Efficiently
Enjoyably

17. Usability Combination of: Ease of learning
High speed of user task performance
Low user error rate
Subjective user satisfaction
User retention over time

18. Design Evaluation Both subjective and objective metrics
Some things we can measure
Time to perform a task
Improvement of performance over time
Rate of errors by user
Retention over time
Subjective satisfaction

19. UI Design / Develop Process
User-Centered Design
Analyze user’s goals & tasks
Create design alternatives
Evaluate options
Implement prototype
Test
Refine
IMPLEMENT

20. Know Thy Users! Physical & cognitive abilities (& special needs)
Personality & culture
Knowledge & skills
Motivation
Two Fatal Mistakes:
Assume all users are alike
Assume all users are like the designer

21. Design is HARD!
“It is easy to make things hard. It is hard to make things easy.” – Al Chapanis, 1982
Design is more difficult than you think
Real world constraints make this even harder

22. And a little history… ? User Productivity ? Time WIMP (Windows)
Command Line
Batch ?
1940s – 1950s
1960s – 1970s
1980s - Present
Time

23. Batch Processing Computer had one task, performed sequentially
No “interaction” between operator and computer after starting the run
Punch cards, tapes for input
Serial operations

24. Paradigm: Networks & time-sharing (1960’s)
 Command line  teletype
increased accessibility
interactive systems, not jobs
text processing, editing
, shared file system
Need for HCI in the design of programming languages

25. Innovator: Douglas Englebart
Landmark system/demo:
hierarchical hypertext, multimedia, mouse, high-res display, windows, shared files, electronic messaging, groupware, teleconferencing, ...
Invented the mouse

26. Paradigm: WIMP / GUI Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers
Graphical User Interface
Timesharing=multi-user; now we need multitasking
WIMP interface allows you to do several things simultaneously
Has become the familiar GUI interface
Xerox Alto, Star; early Apples

27. PCs with GUIs Xerox PARC - mid 1970’s Alto
local processor, bitmap display, mouse
Precursor to modern GUI, windows, menus, scrollbars
LAN - Ethernet

28. Xerox Star
First commercial PC designed for “business professionals”
desktop metaphor, pointing, WYSIWYG, high degree of consistency and simplicity
First system based on usability engineering
Paper prototyping and analysis
Usability testing and iterative refinement

29. Xerox Star - 1981 Commercial flop $15k cost closed architecture
lacking key functionality (spreadsheet)

30. Apple Macintosh – 1984 “The computer for the rest of us”
Aggressive pricing - $2500
Not trailblazer, smart copier
Good interface guidelines
3rd party applications
High quality graphics and laser printer

31. Next Paradigms? What comes after Windows?
Ubiquitous Computing?
Mobile Computing?
3D Interaction?
What will be the next technological innovation?

32. Paradigm: Mobile Computing
Devices used in a variety of contexts
Laptop, cell phones, PDAs
How do devices communicate?
How to get information to each device when needed?
How to take advantage of context?

33. Paradigm: Ubiquitous Computing
Person is an occupant of a computationally-rich environment
Computers with ourselves, on our walls, in our appliances, etc.
How to do the “right” thing for the people in the environment? Can no longer neglect macro-social aspects

34. Course ReCap To make you notice interfaces, good and bad
You’ll never look at doors the same way again
To help you realize no one gets an interface right on the first try
Yes, even the experts
Design is HARD
To teach you tools and techniques to help you iteratively improve your designs
Because you can eventually get it right

35. Next time
Project details
Ethics, working with people
Read ID