An Hci Human Computer Interaction Design Information Technology Essay

Propose an HCI (human-computer interaction) design of the future. This requires creative thinking and understanding HCI trends, but should be based on known emerging technologies. The proposal should lead to a new generation of effective HCI design facilitating human-to-computer and/or human-to-human interaction.

• Introduction (what the report is all about?)

The World Wide Web has a massive and permanent impact on our lives in conomy, industry, education, healthcare, public administration, entertainment, etc. There is hardly any part of our daily lives which has not been pervaded by the Internet. First this paper makes a HCI design, and then this paper conducts literature research and finds the benefits and risks of the HCI design.

Consider this scenario: There is a shopping website that provides all the information, instruction and server-side support required to perform an on-line purchase. However, the users cannot figure out how to find the items they want to buy. We should find a measure of how quickly users can accomplish their objectives or finish their work using the system

From the perspective of theory, the development trend of human computer interaction is becoming closer to nature, the user can use natural ability, get convenience through special efforts and learning and the form of epistemic load to increase work efficiency. This kind of human-oriented technology becomes more and more important especially since the 1980s in human computer interaction.

Now we look into the future. In the information age, organic system will replace the original housing styles.Home is changing from living machines into a friendly and intelligent robots. In this environment of family,home decorations and household product design tend to gradually harmonize.They separate the individual from home to the road of integration. Modern intelligent home has been integrated into people’s daily lives. Future home will become a living interface, through which we exchange the data,images with others. The home environment has been beyond history,virtual reality and the limits of the world, and has been across the limited time and space.We pass it and enhance the interaction of the experience and can feel a new way of life.

What is HCI? HCI mainly research the design, evaluation and realization of interaction systems.

Human: Individual user, a group of users working together, a sequence of users in an organization.

Computer: Desktop computer, large-scale computer system, Pocket PC, embedded system (e.g., photocopier, microwave oven), software (e.g., search engine, word processor).

User interface: Parts of the computer that the user contacts with.

Interaction: Usually involve a dialog with feedback and control throughout performing a task (e.g., user invokes “print” command and then interface replies with a dialog box).

In the past, computers were expensive and computers were only used by technical people. Now, computers are cheap and used by more and more non-technical people who have different backgrounds, needs, knowledge and skills. Computer and software manufacturers have realized the importance of making computers user-friendly, which is easy to use and can save people time, etc.

In complicated systems, most errors and failures are attributed to humans making mistakes. Incomplete specifications, implementation errors and design defects such as software bugs and manufacturing defects, are all caused by human beings. However, when looking at human errors in the context of embedded systems, we tend to focus on operator errors and errors caused by the poorly designed human computer interface (HCI). Human beings have common failure modes and certain conditions that will make it more likely for a human operator to make mistakes. A good HCI design can encourage the operator to perform correctly and protect the system from common operator errors. However, there is no well-defined procedure for constructing an HCI for safety critical systems. In an embedded system, cost, size, power, and complexity are especially limited, so the interface must be relatively ordinary and easy to use without sacrificing system safety. Also, a distinction must be made between highly domain specific interfaces, like nuclear power controls or airplane pilot controls, and more general “walk up and use” interfaces, like automated teller machines or VCR onscreen menus [Maxion, Roy A.; deChambeau, Aimee L.,1995]. However, this is not a hard and fast difference, because there are interfaces such as the one in the common automobile that specifically require some amount of training and certification, most places in the world require a driver’s license test, but the interfaces are designed to be relatively ordinary and commonly used. However, not all cars have the same interfaces, and even small differences may cause the experienced drivers to make mistakes when operating an unfamiliar car, let alone the unexperienced drivers.

In safety critical systems, the main objective of human computer interface is to prevent the operator from making mistakes and causing hazards. In most cases, usability is a supplemental objective. A highly usable interface will make the operator more comfortable and reduce anxiety. However, there are some tradeoffs between characteristics, which can make the interface usable, and characteristics which can make it safe. For example, a system that allows the user to commit a procedure by simply pressing the enter key a series of times may make it extremely usable, but allow the operator to neglect important safety checks or easily confirm an action without evaluating the consequences. This was one of the problems with the the rac-25 medical radiation device. Operators could easily overlook error messages on the terminal and continue to apply treatment, not realizing they were administering lethal doses of radiation to the patient. Also, the error messages were not particularly descriptive, which is also another problem with user interfaces providing appropriate feedback. It is also important to recognize that not all systems are safety critical, and usability is the main objective of the HCI in those cases. If the user must operate the system to perform a task, the interface should guide the user to take the appropriate actions and provide feedback to the user when operations succeed or fail.

However, human beings often need to be protected safe in an otherwise automated system. Even the most highly cultivated and precautionary operators are apt to getting tired when they are usually not needed for normal operation, and when an unusual situation occurs they feel scared, then their stress levels are raised and lives are at stake. The HCI must give appropriate feedbacks to the operators to allow them to make well-informed resolutions based on the freshest information on the status of the system. The operators should be experienced, diplomatic and knowledgeable. High inaccurate alarm rates will make the operators ignore a real alarm condition. Means for determining the effectiveness of a HCI, such as exploratory evaluation, epistemic presetting of routes, and experiential evaluations like protocol and agreement analysis exist but they are often unmanageable and do not provide decisive data on the safety and usability of the human computer interface. System designers must guarantee that the HCI is easy, instinctive and intuitive for human operators to use, but not so ordinary that it cheats the operators into a state of complacency and lowers their responsiveness and capability to emergency circumstances.

Because human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in conjunction, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human side. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages, and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and human factors are relevant. Engineering and design methods are also relevant. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of HCI, people with different backgrounds contribute to its success. HCI is also sometimes referred to as man-machine interaction (MMI) or computer-human interaction (CHI).

Attention to human-machine interaction is important, because poorly designed human-machine interfaces can lead to many unexpected problems. A classic example of this is the Three Mile Island accident where investigations concluded that the design of the human-machine interface was at least partially responsible for the disaster.[2] Similarly, accidents in aviation have resulted from manufacturers’ decisions to use non-standard flight instrument and/or throttle quadrant layouts: even though the new designs were proposed to be superior in regards to basic human-machine interaction, pilots had already ingrained the “standard” layout and thus the conceptually good idea actually had undesirable results.

• Background Research (what is the HCI issue you are dealing with? What are the current technologies? What are the shortcomings?)

Because of poorly designed human computer interface (HCI), human operators make many mistakes in many complicated systems. Computers and the web address the problems associated which require rapid prototyping and agile and quick methods with shorter latent period. The interactivity and visual nature of the medium and multimedia features of Web applications can make HCI aspects highly significant.

There are many HCI deficiencies in the devices. Owing to the fast development in the digital technology, the operation of human computer interface is becoming more and more complex. As a result, to catch up with the rapid and fleeting transformation, the user of digital interactive products can only keep on learning all kinds of operating interfaces, programming languages, and development environments. Nowadays, in our daily lives, we can hear and know more and more people complaining about the poor design in interaction interface. This problem is caused by both the bad design of the interactive products and the lack of users’ knowledge about the logics of the human-computer interaction design.

Based on the problems in HCI design for mobile devices mentioned above, we should find possible solutions to such problems in developing a good user-centered design. Therefore, it is very crucial for interface designers to make efforts to develop interactive products that are easy to learn, effective to use, and provide an enjoyable user experience. Nowadays, devices are widely used by different types of people who have different objectives of operating such interactive products. Designing applications for usable and useful devices to meet the requirement of different types of interface users encounter a couple of challenges.Users, designers, and technical practitioners should cooperate and collaborate to contribute to its success.

(1) The best method available is iterative design, evaluation, and redesign. 

If we can perform resultful evaluations and correctly recognize as many faults as possible, the interface will be greatly improved.  Also, precise estimate earlier in the process design stage can save money and time.  However, it is easier to find HCI flaw when you have a physical interface to work with.  It is also important to separate design of the HCI from other modules in the system, so defects in the interface do not reproduce faults through the system. [Burns, A., 1991, p. 168 – 174] In hard real-time systems outlines architecture for uncoupling the HCI from the application so that complexity is reduced and timing constraints can be dealt with.

(2) Another usability inspection method is the epistemic presetting of a route.

Like the exploratory evaluation, the epistemic presetting of a route can be put into use to a user interface design without actually operating a constructed interface. However, the epistemic presetting of a route evaluates the system by focusing on how a theoretical user would go about performing a task or objective using the interface. Each step the user would take is examined, and the interface is judged based on how well it will guide the user to perform the correct action at each stage [Wharton, Cathleen, Rieman, John, Lewis, Clayton, Polson, Peter,1994]. The interface should also provide an appropriate level of feedbacks to ensure to the user that progress is being made on his or her objective.

Since the epistemic presetting of a route focuses on steps necessary to complete a specific task, it can uncover disparities in how the system users and designers view these tasks. It can also uncover poor labeling and inadequate feedback actions. However, the method’s tight focus loses sight of some other important usability aspects. This method cannot assess global consistency or extensiveness of features. It may also judge an interface that is designed to be comprehensive poorly because it provides too many choices to the user.

(3)Several inspection means should be applied.

There is a trade off between how drastically the interface is inspected and how many resources are able to be committed at this early stage in the system life cycle. Experiential means can also be put into use at the prototype stage to actually watch the performance of the user interface in action.

(4)Avoid unnecessary input

In human computer interaction, in addition to the user use the keyboard etc, it can input means using speech recognition, gestures, facial recognition as input, and the identification of input method is more advanced than the keyboard input. Although it is technical level is enough to support embedded equipment for daily use, but in all conditions permit shall, within the scope of the top priority by the input mode, because they improve the speed of user interaction.

In a graphical user interface design, avoid input can be used to select list, fuzzy query, additional information display mode, can input keyword search target or contains a list of objectives for users to select, or according to the user’s intention, provide customer need inquires ahead of the target or related information, simplify the operation and improve user use efficiency.

(5)Interface design in ease of navigation is an important role, a software, a web site can provide information to users and allow users to browse the non-linear way. Due to the complexity of existing structures, and interface node and key chain while increasing number, users will face a potential problem – lost. User may lose direction, don’t know where to know the operation or back to the starting point. Then I think a lot of people feel there are also have perplexed, be fooled, eventually give up. Therefore, the design must be based on content before building to determine the navigation menu of all kinds of levels.

(6)Fun and sense of humor.

You can see a picture of Google search results. Usually the interest and humor is the product through innovation, actually making the form of boring data into interesting, humorous and not hard data, GOOGLE company uses a humorous way of joy in logo and search. Some people sometimes want to see how long the GOOGLE OOOOO use GOOGLE. While GOOGLE fonts are often full of humor, anniversary of the festival, which makes people feel very interested. The changes in Google are also very attracting people’s attention. Watching the changes of the font, we can find that designers often use figure character based on the font by increasing the graphics or glyph graphical and then process to get the desired effect.

(7)Using visual metaphor elements which expresses the function.

In Figure10, there are some designs which can clearly express products’ functions. Choose some plants, animals, or forms for the reference, and after summary, refining and appropriate deformation¼Œthey can be used in the interface design, still can make interface design of the linear modelling of original curve and surface smooth and fuzzy boundaries, strengthen the graphic interface, or the fullness of the icon, the thick fat to overall look round, honest, lovely, funny and interest sex. I think the design can best embody the icon from bionics design or “chubby” of a sense of humor.

• Emerging Technologies

Natural User Interface¼Œgood solid user Interface¼ŒGraphics user Interface。

• Proposal Design

A basic goal of HCI is to improve the interactions between users and computers by making computers more usable and receptive to the user’s needs. A basic goal of HCI is to improve the interactions between users and computers by making computers more usable and receptive to the user’s needs.

In Figure 1, this product is a multi-function intelligent electric pressure cooker which was invented by a famous appliance brand. The tank of the cooker is made of stainless steel, and in the bottom of a pan there are three layers which are used to transfer heat. Moreover, to meet consumer tastes, the high-end product introduced is “one-button”. The price is about 420 yuan and it is an intermediate product. This product has three cooking function: steaming, stewing, boiling. Eight food modes: soup, porridge, Meat/chicken, rice and beans/leg-muscles, rice porridge, cake, grains. Three choices: fragrance, standard, enriched flavour. Two user customization features: appointments and customize pressure.

Figure 1 A multi-function intelligent electric pressure cooker

• Benefits and Risks

My proposal is good for the future. To invest in my proposal is a good choice.

Target user group: not clearly defined

Product image: no clear image

Objectives: a brand household electric pressure cooker

Task: usability testing and the improvement plan

According to the function design of the products and the basic functions which are often used by people, the target user common samples are to complete the following tasks:

(l) cook a pot of rice

(2) make an appointment of three hours to cook porridge

(3) modify the appointment time, add 50 minutes on the basis of 3 hours

(4)boil a pot of chicken soup which has enriched flavour

Note: Tell the user privacy statement and the data clearly. Try to create natural true cooking space for users, avoid users from being monitored. Explain to the users that the test is for the product and the test is not for experience and ability, and reduce the difficulty of the task during operation

Through the test of the product, we find that the functions of the product are reasonable, the interface is beautiful, the message is clear and it is simple and safe for users to operate. Therefore, it is a good HCI design.

• Conclusion and Discussion

Human computer interaction and computer user interface based on character have just passed the command of language manner, and is currently in the interface graphical user interface. Computer scientists, however, are not satisfied with the status; they are actively exploring new styles of human computer interaction.

In the following, I give some important ideas:

(1)Humans are the most unexpected part of many systems and have higher failure rates under pressure, but humans can have strategies to recover from emergency situations and underlying disasters. Therefore, to shorten user perception of system response time by way of effective HCI design can be another way to improve user satisfaction and system usability.

(2) Aiming at solving some problems in the poorly HCI design for the product with new means, the HCI must provide an appropriate level of feedbacks without overloading the operator with too much information If the human operator is out of the control loop in an automated task, the operator will tend to adapt to the normal operation mode and not pay close attention to the system. When an emergency condition occurs, the operator’s response will be degraded.

(3) Everybody generally think the science and technology in UI interface design is the only important one,think in UI interface design based on scientific and technological high development,the emotion needn’t be considered,otherwise the designer’s interface is considered to be unwisely and lack。Design the emotion of reviewing to refer to some information that the products transmit,after causing people’s association,sympathetic response and thinking, experience a kind of advance。From”products”to a series of development that” thinks”and then to”experience”.The important ones include the following several points;Understand(culture and ideology and symbol),remember and feel oneself,the individual character of the product

Human computer interaction and computer user interface based on character have just passed the command of language manner, and is currently in the interface graphical user interface. Computer scientists, however, are not satisfied with the status, they are actively exploring new styles of human computer interaction.

Interface between different products is embedded in our life in various content, the fundamental purpose ofthe design is to make people get rid of barriers from product technology and operation. The usability research is a necessary means to reach the purpose. User-centered design will change the way we live, a pursuit of “harmonious interface” is closer to us.

• References

Burns, A., “The HCI component of dependable real-time systems.” Software Engineering Journal, July 1991, vol. 6, no. 4, p. 168 – 174. Discussion about the importance of the user interface in a real-time system.  The interface between the HCI the rest of the software in the system is examined in detail and an architecture for specifying this interface is detailed.

L. Wang and A. S. M. Sajeev, “Roller interface for mobile device applications,” in Proceedings of the Eight Australasian Conference on User Interface, 2007, p. 7-13.

Maxion, Roy A.; deChambeau, Aimee L., “Dependability at the User Interface.” 25th Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing, June 1995, p. 528 – 535. A discussion about designing dependable user interfaces, why they are important to designing dependable systems, and a proposal for a methodology for empirical testing of user interfaces.

Wharton, Cathleen; Rieman, John; Lewis, Clayton; Polson, Peter, The Epistemic Presetting of a route Method: A Practitioner’s Guide, in Usability Inspection Methods, Jacob Nielsen and Robert L. Mack, (Eds.). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994. p. 105 – 140, Ch. 5. Chapter about the epistemic presetting of a route method and how it is used to assess a user interface.

• Appendices