CS/Psych 6750Human Computer Interaction

Jim Foley Kerry Youngfoley@cc.gatech.edu kerryyoung@gatech.edu

This material has been developed by Georgia Tech HCI faculty, and continues to evolve. Contributors include Gregory Abowd, Jim Foley, Elizabeth Mynatt, Jeff Pierce, Colin Potts, Chris Shaw, John Stasko, and Bruce Walker. Comments directed to foley@cc.gatech.edu are encouraged. Permission is granted to use with acknowledgement for non-profit purposes. Last revision: January 2012.

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Agenda for Today

• Introductions• Course Information• Project Information• Homework

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Introductions - Jim Foley

• Founded GVU Center @ GT in 1991• Industry and consulting and education• Direct MS-HCI and Barcelona Summer

Program• Research Interests

HCI - now focused on technology in education Information Visualization Computer Graphics

• Office hours MWF 12-1 in CCB, location TBA Or by email arrangement in TSRB355; foley@cc.gatech.edu

• Something about me …..

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Introductions – Kerry Young

• Second-year MS-HCI Student Research in BrainLab

• GTA for 3750 (undergrad version) last semester

• Several years work experience• kerryyoung@gatech.edu• Office hours / location TBA• Something about Kerry

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Textbooks

• Interaction Design – beyond human-computer interaction, Third Edition, by Preece, Rogers and Sharp. Wiley, 2011. Second edition, 2007, also OK

• The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman. Currency/Doubleday. Any edition OK

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Course Information

• Grading Mid-term 18% Final exam 18% Homework 20% Group project (4 parts) 44%

– 11% per part

• Attendance and participation Expected

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Policies

• No late homework accepted without documented personal issues (serious illness, family emergency, etc.) Late = 0

• Individual HWs and LHWs done individually• Group projects are the work of your group alone

Talk to others for feedback; look at other systems for ideas; group synthesizes an original design

• Review the Georgia Tech Academic Honor Code http://www.deanofstudents.gatech.edu/Honor/

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Web Site

• Grades and turn-ins on t-square web site: t-square.gatech.edu

• Lecture notes, supplemental materials, assignments on regular web site at URL TBA prior to Wednesday.

• Project description on t-square under resources.

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Course Goals

• Learn a four-step process for designing, prototyping and testing user-computer interfaces

• Learn theories, principles and methods relevant to the four steps How to understand users and their needs Principles involved in designing useful and usable

user-computer interfaces. UI styles and technologies Human perceptual and cognitive capabilities and how

they apply to UI design Critique UIs in the context of user goals and objectives

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Course Topics

• Requirements Gathering• Human abilities• Design• Prototyping• Evaluation (without users)• Evaluation (with users) • Dialog & interaction styles

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HW0- Due Wednesday

• Put up on the class T-Square Wiki A paragraph about yourself

– Home town / state / country– Undergrad major / school– GT major– Work experience – both general and UI-related– Programming languages / tools– Design skills / tools– Something most people don’t know about you– Picture of yourself

One-paragraph description of a project idea Count of number of computers in your home

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And we’re off!

• What is the User Interface? Is it the screen layout? Is it the documentation? Is it the interaction devices and

techniques? Is it what the application does? Is it the help system? Is it the code?

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UI

• UI is at the interface between a human and a computer performing a task Task - write document, calculate budget, solve

equation, learn about Bosnia, drive home, find a friend...

Task might be work, play, learning, communicating, etc etc

• Essential user activities: Express task (execution) Interpret results (evaluation)

• Not just on the desktop! Everywhere!• How many computers in your family home?

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Who Cares?

• Computers (in one way or another) now affect every person in our society Increasing % utilize computers at work and

home– Tonight - count how many in your home/apt/room

• Product success may depend on ease of use, not necessarily power But not always – Macintosh OS vs. Microsoft

Windows

• Goal – increase satisfaction, utility, efficiency, and safety

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UI Influences Product Ratings

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Goals of HCI

• Allow users to carry out tasks Safely (Three-mile Island, ATC) Effectively Efficiently Enjoyably

• Bottom line Lives or dollars or intangibles

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What is difference between

• User-friendly interfaces and• Programmer-friendly interfaces?

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Famous Quotations

“It is easy to make things hard. It is hard to make things easy.” (Al Chapanis, 1982)

“Learning to use a computer system is like learning to use a parachute – if a person fails on the first try, odds are he won’t try again.” (anonymous)

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How Does UI Design Fit in Overall Software Development Process?

• UI design MUST start at beginning Do NOT wait ‘til the end Good UI can not be pasted on top of poorly-

designed functionality• Integrate UI design methods, techniques

and knowledge into standard software development methodologies

• Good paper “How To Get Amazing Software Out The Door Fast” from Macadamian To retrieve, Google “How To Get Amazing

Software Out The Door Fast”

The Evolving Role of HCI

• In the early days: Please evaluate our user interface and make it easy to use

• The early enlightenment: Please help us design this user interface so that it is easy to use

• The age of reason: Please help us find what the users really need so that we know how to design this user interface

• The VC dream: Look at this area of life and find us something interesting

Panu Korhonen as reported by Liam Bannon “Reimagining HCI: Toward a More Human-Centered Perspective,”ACM Interactions, July+August 2011

Where Does Steve Fit in?

Where Does Steve Fit In?• …when a reporter asked Jobs how much

market research Apple had done before introducing the iPad, he responded, “None. It isn’t the consumers’ job to know what they want.”

– http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/opinion/the-man-who-inspired-jobs.html?emc=eta1

• “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”

– http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/10/steve-jobs-pixar.html#ixzz1aINBFKjx

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UI Design / Develop Process

• User-Centered Design Analyze (or imagine) user’s goals &

tasks Create design alternatives Evaluate options (fail early, fail

often) Implement prototype Test Refine IMPLEMENT THE REAL SYSTEM Be prepared for further iterative

refinement

• This is NOT the classic waterfall development process!!!!!

If you are Steve

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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 you

– Please leave your ego at the door

You Are Here

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User Expectations (1)

Some users expect the computer-based system to be just like the old system….

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User Expectations (2)

Other users expect the system to work magic…..

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Design Evaluation

• “Looks good to me” is not good enough!• Both subjective and objective metrics• We can measure

Time to learn Speed of performance Rate of errors by user Retention over time Subjective satisfaction

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Characteristics of Great UIs?

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Characteristics of Great UIs?

1. Aaa2. Bbb3. Ccc4. Ddd5. Etc

And now – more about that project

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Project Theme this Semester

• Health IT Unless you are passionate about

something else

• Post idea on Wiki for Wednesday• You choose platform

Computer, tablet (such as iPad), smart phone (such as iPhone), Kiosk, new type of device

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Project Groups

• 4 people Self-forming but MUST be diverse w/r to

– Skills, gender, major Group formation facilitated in next few

classes

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Project Structure

• Design and evaluate an interface 0 - Team formation & topic choice 1 - Understand the problem 2 - Design alternatives 3 - Prototype & evaluation plan 4 - Evaluation

• Parts 1-4 count 11% each

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Project Details

• Part 0 - Topic definition Identify team & topic, create web

notebook

• Part 1 - Understanding the problem Describe tasks, users, environment,

social context

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Project Details

• Part 2 - Design alternatives Storyboards, mock-ups for multiple different

designs Poster session 1-3pm (combined with a 3750

section)

• Part 3 - System prototype & eval plan Semi-working interface functionality - enough

to evaluate Plan for conducting evaluation In-class walkthrough

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Project Details

• Part 4 Conduct evaluation with typical users Characterize pros and cons of the UI Fix the easy to fix UI problems

• Present results to class – poster session(s) last one or two days of class With 5-minute PPt

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Project Ideas

• On Wednesday I will talk about a few project ideas• Convergence Innovation Competition projects welcome

One category is Health IT http://cic.gatech.edu/drupal/categories

• Past projects include: Automobile navigator Improved cell phone UI Wardrobe planner Teacher-parent communicator Tourist guide Vacation planner Menu planning / grocery list creation Self-service restaurant ordering system Basketball scoring system Shopping list creator and store guide Roommate task management system Calendar agent (speech) Audio / Web sites

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Introductions - You

• Name, major, area of specialization, home town

• Previous HCI experience• An interesting fact about yourself• Project idea (optional)

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Coming up

• Wednesday – sit where you expect to sit for rest of semester Helps me associate names and faces :-)

• Be on look-out for really good or really bad UIs Hall of Fame / Hall of Shame