Challenges of HCI and Visual Representation Flashcards
How do we ensure software is practically usable?
By ensuring it is:
- intuitive - easy to learn, easy to remember and easy to apply to new problems
- powerful - efficient and effective
What did computer displays resemble for many years?
Paper documents
How can information be structured on paper?
Information on paper can be structured using tabulated columns, alignment, indentation and emphasis, borders and shading.
How are traditional computer interactions restricted relative to those possible on paper?
It is only possible to perform the operations available on the typewriter rather than those available with a pencil. Keyboard interaction and not text itself is limited in comparison to what can be done with paper.
Why is most information on computer screens still represented as text?
Conventions of typography and graphic design help us interpret text as if it were on a page and readers can benefit from many centuries of refinement in text document design.
What conventions should be taken into account when designing screen representations?
- position on the page
- use of typographic grids
- genre-specific illustrative conventions
what do basic diagrammatic conventions rely upon?
A quantitative correspondence between a direction on the surface and a continuous quantity such as time or distance.
What do engineering drawing conventions allow?
Schematic views of connected components to be shown in relative scale with text annotations labelling the parts.
What does white space in the representation plane help the reader to do?
Distinguish elements from one another.
Resemblance Fallacy
Drawings are able to depict real objects or scenes because the visual perception of the flat image simulates the visual perception of the real scene. It is naive to treat screen representations as though they were simulations of experience in the physical world.
What do pictorial representations rely upon to give them meaning?
Shared interpretive conventions
Node-and-link connectivity diagram’s distinctive feature
The position of each node can be used to carry other information as it is irrelevant to a circuit’s operation.
Do most icons allow computer use without being able to read?
No, they instead simply add decoration to text labels and event those intented to be self-exxplanatory must be supported with textual tooltips.
What is the easiest option when designing simple, memorable icons?
Following established conventions.
Correspondences for symbols
Pictorial, symbolic, metonymic, bizarrely mnemonic. (Monolingual puns are a bad idea.)
