Human Computer Interaction the Basics

This new book aims to bring this rich and important field to any interested reader, explaining the key issues and signposting ways to develop knowledge more deeply for those who want to take another step in specific areas.  The book follows through the main phases of the practical applications of HCI, including the importance of understanding the human context into which systems will be deployed, methods and heuristics for design and evaluation, and the ways in which human-focused software is built and deployed.  The later chapters then look at the societal and ethical impact of HCI and some of the undergirding theory and research including aspects of psychology and social science.

The book will help you understand the way in which the systems around you have been designed – more or less well, and, if you are involved in that design process, how to do it better!

In the early days of HCI, the focus was on an individual with a single screen and keyboard, often in an office. Now the most obvious applications are on smartphones but also include voice-based systems, smart TVs, and AI driven by passive sensing in environments. There are many rich human roles across the design, development and deployment of these systems: user researchers, designers, front-end developers, product managers, local experts, families and friends. The design discipline has reinvented itself over the years; you might see the terms user interface design, interaction design, or now most commonly user experience design. All share a common focus on helping the people who live and work with the digital systems that surround us.

Every digital system is deployed in a rich and complex human, social and technological context. This chapter introduces some of the important elements: who is involved, both direct users and wider stakeholders; where it is situated both physically in space and also technically and socially; and when, especially the way that systems, people and context evolve over time. We’ll also look at how researchers study this context and then record it for others to use later.

Having understood people in their contexts, we want to use this knowledge to create new applications or fundamental technologies that allow them to work or live better. However, whether this is a screen-based application or digital device, it is only part of the story. Fundamentally one always designs interventions, the application or device will change the overall socio-technical system, and it is these changes that matter. On occasion this may mean no additional computational application at all, such as better on-line help for an application. It could also mean making modifications to the physical environment, for example improved signage around an existing device. As we dive into the details of digital design it is always important to keep this wider picture at the back of our minds.

Evaluation is one of the central features of both UI practice and HCI research, but perhaps also one of the most contested. It is easy to have bright ideas about what is an effective way for humans to work with digital technology – new applications, novel devices or modes of interaction – but do they actually work with real people in real situations?

This chapter introduces the different roles of evaluation(summative, formative and exploratory) and how these may be used at different points within wider design process. It will also explore different types of evaluation lab-based vs in the wild, qualitative vs quantitative, with or without users, and how they may be used together to create rounded evaluation that can address why as well as what questions. Evaluation sessions are usually short, an hour at most per participant, but some aspects of interaction may take days, week or longer to evolve. We’ll look at strategies for long-term evaluation and how this may continue even after a product has been deployed.

The whole purpose of studying rich user contexts, designing and evaluating a prospective system is so that it is eventually used. Detailed design concepts need to be transformed into a running system that is deployed in the world, as in the end a system that is unused is worthless.

Sometimes it is assumed that the internal details of software don’t matter, so the chapter begins by describing some of the ways the ‘bits leak out’ — how architectural decisions and low-level features have a direct impact on user experience; followed by examining some of the issues involved in making those decisions. We will then move on to deployment itself, how to encourage adoption and ensure that a system remains useful and used so long as it is of value for the users. We’ll also see that this is not the end of the process as feedback from the deployed system can influence ongoing redevelopment and create fresh insights.

In this chapter we step outside the immediate concerns of creating a digital product that works for users and think about the wider ways in which a product or the very nature of digital technology has an impact on social, ethical and political issues. This is not divorced from the design of specific artefacts; indeed, we will consider how products might be ‘good’ in more ways than good for the end-users or customers. However, there are also wider considerations, some technologies, and computing is one, radically change the nature of society, just as the printing press transformed politics and religion in the fifteenth century.

In this chapter we look at some of more fundamental theoretical approaches that have influenced HCI and in many cases used practically within user experience design. As we noted at the beginning of this book, HCI is an area where theory and practice interweave more fluidly than in many areas.

This chapter is focused primarily on academic research methods, but, as noted previously, there is a substantial overlap between academic research and commercial user research. Because of this many aspects have already been covered earlier in the book, especially in Chapter 2, Users and Context, so are only referenced briefly in this chapter. Also, many of the things here, for example research ethics, apply equally to commercial and academic research.

The previous chapter dealt with key topics of HCI research, what is studied, while this chapter is about how and why that research is conducted.