A fascinating aspect of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) for me

A fascinating aspect of  Human Computer Interaction (HCI) for me is the fact that Human Computer Interaction, as a field of research, is situated at the intersection of

• Computer Science
• Behavioral Science like Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Cognitive science etc. 
• Design
• Media studies and so many other field and industries

The first time I study about Human Computer Interaction I thought that HCI field has to do only about Computers, but in the pass of time I realize how many other fields and industries can be related with HCI. 

The following diagram shows how those different fields can be related with HCI

*You can find more about HCI from:

• the blog posts of Lana Yarosh, Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at University of Minnesota. 

Find the blog of Lana Yarosh in this link: http://lanayarosh.com/?s=HCI&submit=Search

• the blog posts of Jeffrey Bardzell, Associate Professor of HCI/Design in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University - Bloomington

Find the blog of Jeffrey Bardzell in this link: https://interactionculture.wordpress.com/author/jeffreybardzell/



References:

Carroll, J, M. (n.d). Human Computer Interaction- brief intro. [Internet]. Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/human-computer-interaction-brief-intro>. [Accessed on:29/3/2016]

Good and Bad design of interactive products

In order to categorize a product as interactive it needs to be usable:

• Easy to learn
• Effective to use
• Enjoyable user experience (Sharp, Rogers and Preece, 2015)

For the product to be considered usable we need to follow as many of the five  HCI principles as possible:

1. Visibility 
2. Feedback
3. Affordance
4. Constrains
5. Consistency (Sharp, Rogers and Preece, 2015)

*more details about that you can find on my previous block post on the following link:

http://hci0013blog.blogspot.com.cy/2016/02/hci-blog-welcome-to-my-hci-blog-here-i.html

An example of Good design is the following Beer Dispenser:

• The designer well considered both the usability and the aesthetic of the dispenser.
• The size and the position of the handled hint the user that he has to operate by hand (affordance).
• The space between handles give the sense of direction to operate.
• The appearance of the handles (shape and colors of each handle represent the brand of the beer)
• The different shape of the handles prevent user from mistakes
• The user who frequently use the dispenser can easily find out if he wrongly pick a handle by the feeling from his hand.User will notice the error before he actually operate it. 
• The different of shape of handles is also applied for equipment in operations that mistakes are unacceptable such as power plants (kanrawi, 2016)

An example of Bad Design is the following fire alarm

• Will take time for user to find out when s/he needs it, in emergency situations
• the problem is the color:
• not attractive
• too similar to the color of the wall
• Difficult to find out how it works and how you can use it
• Not sure where should you pull the top or the bottom
• The keyhole convinced you to think that the box was nailed to the wall at that position
• Not sure if there was a psychological reason behind the design to prevent unintentional actions (kanrawi, 2016)

=> Poor affordance

=> Poor visibility

* To conclude, in order to design an interactive product not only do you have to follow the HCI principles but also you need to see some examples of good and bad designs. As a result you could identify what are the do's and what the don'ts for the interactive product design. 

References:

kanrawi. (2016).  Archive for the Good/Bad Interface Design Category. [Internet]. Available at: < https://kanrawi.wordpress.com/category/goodbad-interface-design/ >. [Accessed on: 24/2/2016].

 Rogers, Y., Preece, J.,  Sharp, H. (2015).  Interaction Design:  Beyond Human-computer Interaction. 4th Edition. Wiley. 

Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Welcome to my HCI blog,

Here I will state some key terms of the HCI and the HCI principles.

HCI stand for the Human Computer Interaction and is a study of how we can design products that will be interactive in order to support the way people communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives (Sharp, Rogers and Preece, 2015).

The central concern of HCI is to develop interactive products that are usable which means: 

• Easy to learn 
• Effective to use and
• Enjoyable user experience.

With users experience we mean how the product behaves and how it is used by people in the real world.

 There are five design principles that if the designer tries to implement the most of those principles on the product design then the product design will be more successful.

The five design principles are:

1. Visibility - can is see it?
2. Feedback - what is it doing now?
3. Constraints - Why can't I do that?
4. Consistency - I think I have seen this before
5. Affordance -  How do I use it? (InSideShare, 2008)

If the user of a product or website answer the above questions then the user will be satisfy with the product design (Sharp, Rogers and Preece, 2015).

The following Figure Illustrates the nature of the Human Computer Interaction.

 References:

 Rogers, Y., Preece, J.,  Sharp, H. (2015).  Interaction Design:  Beyond Human-computer Interaction. 4th Edition. Wiley. 

InSideShare. (2008). Design Principles.  [Internet]. Available at: <http://www.slideshare.net/gelvan/design-principles>. [Accessed on: 18/12/2016].