HCI Flashcards
It is a multidisciplinary field that involves different skill set depending on the objective they’re trying to attain.
Interaction Design
Interaction design’s main concern
Product to be usable
Refers to how a product behaves and is used by people in the real world
User Experience
Who said ““Every product that is used by someone has a user experience: newspapers, ketchup bottles, reclining armchairs, cardigan sweaters.”
Jesse Garret
UX sometimes refers by designers as UXD, where D meant to encourage
Design Thinking
Important aspects of the user experience are the following:
usability
functionality
aesthetics
content
look and feel
emotional appeal
the social resouces that develop and are maintained through social networks and social networks, shared values,goals, and norms
Social Capital
i.e. age, ethnicity, race, disability, family status occupation and education.
Cultural Identity
It is how simple, practical, and obvious it is for the user to achieve their goals.
Pragmatic
It is a concept that has only been commonly used since the early 1980s, but it has origins in more developed disciplines.
Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
It is how evocative and stimulating the interactions is to them.
Hedonic
It is how simple, practical, and obvious it is for the user to achieve their goals
Pragmatic
Ergonomics Research Society was founded in
1949
The researchers of Ergonomics Research Society were called
ergonomists
The Human Factors, however were concerned both the
Physical and Cognitive issues
Human Computer Interaction was originally called
Man-Machine Interaction
It played a big role in the development of HCI
Information science and technology
It should be defined as someone who is trying to get the job done using any kinds of technology
User
This could be any technologies which ranges from the a desktop computer systems to a large-scale computer systems, a process control system, or even an embedded system
Computer
Any communication, direct or indirect between a user and a computer
Interaction
They must understand how to think in terms of the end user’s challenge and how to translate that understanding into a working system.
System Designers
Involved knowledge about perception, cognitive, and problem –solving skills;
Psychology and cognitive science
Involved in Physical capabilities of the user
Ergonomics
Involved in understanding the wider context of the interaction
Sociology
Involved in building the necessary technology
Computer science and engineering
Involved for marketing
Business
Involved in more effective interface presentation
Graphic Design
Involved in producing manuals
Technical writing
It is known as an interdisciplinary topic, people tend to take a hard stand on one side or the other in practice.
HCI
In line with this, the three major concerns involved are the
(1) people, (2) computer, and the (3) tasks that are performed
Fourth Concern
System should support the user’s task in a usable manner
It should accomplish what is required, i.e. watch movie, format a document, ring the alarm;
Useful
Do it easily and naturally, without danger of error, etc.
Usable
Make people want to use it, be attractive, engaging, fun, etc.
Used
Learned from the past on how to achieve good results, avoiding the bad ones
Reuse lessons
It is a multidisciplinary field of study focusing on the design of computer technology and, in particular, the interaction between humans (the users) and computers.
Human-computer interaction
This __________________ allows us to reuse related concepts in similar situations, in much the same way that architects produce a bridge, knowing that it will stand, since it was based upon tried and tested principles.
Scientific Rationalization
True or False: The important thing is that the user is interacting with the computer in order to accomplish something
True
There are five major senses:
sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell
The three senses that are the most important to HCI
Sight
Hearing
Touch
It is a highly complex activity with a range of physical and perceptual limitations, yet it is the primary source of information for the average person.
Human Vision
Stages of Visual Perception
-Physical reception of the stimulus
-Processing and Interpretation of that stimulus
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
Steve Jobs
It involves examining and defining the interactions
Interaction Design (IxD)
“the goal of creating products that enable
the user to achieve their objective(s) in the best way possible.”
The Interaction Design Foundation
It strives to create more meaningful relationships between people and the products and services that they use.
Interaction Design
What happens on the screen
User Interface (UI)
What happens in front of the screen
User Experience (UX)
It makes a product useful.
Good Design
It is one which is not easy to understand, distracting, difficult to use and short lived
Bad Design
It involves the study, planning, and design of the interaction between
people (users) and computers.
Human Computer Interaction
Interaction Design is the practice of:
Understanding users’ needs and goals
Designing tools for users to achieve those goals.
What is the difference between interaction design and HCI?
IxD is much broader than HCI, because it includes all means of technology,
system, and products, while HCI concerns interactive computing
system.
When you’re designing for learnability
You have to be aware of how people actually learn
It is about creating effective user interfaces (UIs)
Usability
The conventional model for human memory has two components:
Working memory and Long-term memory
the capacity of working memory is ______ chunks
7+-2
The process of putting information and procedures into long-term memory
Learning
It seeks to make connections with existing chunks
Elaborative Rehearsal
It is where you do your conscious thinking
Working Memory
Distractions can easily destroy ________
Working Memory
It is repeating the items to yourself
Maintenance Rehearsal
It contains the mass of our memories. Its capacity is huge, and it exhibits little decay.
Long-term Memory
It is probably the least understood part of human cognition
Long-term Memory
It lies behind the power of mnemonic techniques like associating things you need to remember with familiar places, like rooms in your childhood home
Elaborative Rehearsal
The elements of perception and memory are called
Chunks
Represents the activation of past experience.
Chunk
It is remembering something with no help from the outside world
Recall
It is remembering with the help of a visible cue
Recognition
Three major kinds of user interface styles for desktop computing
Computer with a screen, keyboard, and mouse
It is rarely the first choice of a user interface designer nowadays, they still have their place – often as an advanced feature embedded inside another interaction style.
Command Language
It presents a series of menus or forms to the user
menu/form interface
It is essentially a tree of menus
Menu Bar
Which are essentially forms
Dialog Boxes
Examples of this visual representation include: icons representing files and folders on your desktop; graphical objects in a drawing editor; text in a word processor; email messages in your inbox.
Continuous Visual Representation
It is the most direct kind of actions in direct manipulation – you’re interacting with the virtual objects in a way that feels like you’re pushing them around directly.
Physical Actions
You can drag the scrollbar thumb a little or a lot, and you see each incremental change
Incremental
It is visible as quickly as possible
Rapid
The user doesn’t have to do anything to see the effects
Immediately Visible
You can undo your operation
Reversible
It is the preeminent interface style for graphical user interfaces
Direct Manipulation (DM)
It is the model that the system presents to the user through its user interface (sometimes called manifest model)
Interface Model
Command languages are synchronous (first the user types a complete command, then the system does it).
Synchrony
It is a way of describing how the system works.
Model of a System
It is how the system actually works (sometimes called implementation model)
System Model
It is how the user thinks the system works (Sometimes called conceptual model)
User Model
Affordances and natural mapping are examples of a general principle of learnability:
Consistency
This is concerned with our sensory engagement
Sensual Thread
How does the user think it behaves
Mental Model
It refers to the perceived and actual properties of a thing, primarily the properties that determine how the thing could be operated.
Affordance
It is an essential principle – probably the most important – in communicating a model to the user
Visibility
It is an incredibly powerful direct manipulation technique
Drag & drop
What the system does when you perform an action
Feedback
There are three kinds of consistency you need to worry about:
- Internal consistency
- External consistency
- Metaphorical consistency
It is one way you can bring the real world into your interface.
Metaphors
This term is central to interaction design. It is how a product behaves and is used by people in the real world.
User Experience
Common examples of emotions that spring to mind are sorrow, anger, joy, and
happiness
Emotional Thread
A discipline which is concerned primarily with the physical characteristics of machines and systems and how these affects user performance.
Ergonomics
It is the internal thinking we do during our
experiences. This is concerned with the narrative part of an experience, as it unfolds, and the way a person makes sense of it.
Compositional Thread
Term that means “Easy to learn, Easy to Use.”
Usability
When was HCI become widespread?
1980
This refers to the space and time in which our experiences take place and their effect upon those experiences.
Spatio-temporal Thread
The process of interaction design involves four basic activities:
- Establishing requirements
- Designing alternatives
- Prototyping
- Evaluating.
The design process for UI that is widely accepted among UI practitioners.
User-Centered Design
The place where the user attention happens.
Locus of Attention
A principle which states that Simplicity is the key for a system to work in the best way.
Keep it Short and Simple
It is the term that describes on how well users can use the systems functionality.
Usability
It is called the principle of Least Surprise.
Consistency
It is the level where most designers choose as the unit for dividing streams?
Semantic
It is the level where it means low-level input events for dividing streams?
Lexical Level
It is the level where you would undo commands or onscreen button presses for dividing streams
Syntactic Level
It is the current state of the user’s interaction with the interface.
View State
A common technique for showing a selection highlight in text
Reverse Video
It might be tempting to find a single word to describe this category– Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options
Localization
Conveyed by the sense of touch.
Haptic Feedback
It is the actual result of the user’s action, like changing the state of the model.
High-level Feedback
It is often indicated by a cursor change.
Drag & Drop
Feedback is important, but don’t overdo it.
Unnecessary Feedback
It is one important kind of state to visualize – i.e., where am I now?
Navigation
Like the clicks that a keyboard makes – is another form
Audio Feedback
It is the decision about whether a hyperlink is worth following – i.e., does this smell good enough to eat?
Information Foraging
It is provided by a view object itself, like push-button feedback
Low-level Feedback
It claims that we ask similar questions when we’re collecting information: Where should I search? Which articles or paragraphs are worth reading?
Information Foraging Theory
The visible properties of a link that indicate how profitable it will be to follow the link.
Information Scent
It is a technique for making a command language more visible, helping the user learn the available commands and syntax.
Self-disclosure
It is a design pattern that keeps the top-level menu set constantly visible, without using much screen real estate
Standard Pullldown Menu Bar
It is a design pattern for providing a more descriptive label of a small control, and also a place for making other shortcuts visible.
Tooltips
True or False: Technical jargon should only be used when it is specific to the application domain and the expected users are domain experts
True
It indicate that you can see more choices if you click on the arrow
Downward-point arrows
Objective Hick-Hyman Law
“Try and simplify the decision making process, not eliminate the process entirely”
This is a basic rule for _______. “Use it if you have one, but don’t stretch for one if you don’t. “
Metaphors
It is due to failures of memory, particularly the short-term memory that is managing the execution of a procedure.
Lapses
It is applied to the design of the interactive objects in graphical displays.
Fitt’s Law
First glimpse the user will have of the site.
Landing Page
Variables to measure Hick-Hyman Law Application
Time on site
Page Views
Breaking up long or complex processes into screens with fewer options.
Obscuring Complexity
States that “the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target.”
Fitt’s Law
It states that the more stimuli (or choices) users face, the long it will take them to make a decision.
Hick-Hyman Law
Enabling users to find items from higher categories, as if they were looking under sections in a library.
Categorizing Choice
It is an error made in planning or rule application.
Mistake
It is the result of any action whose consequences are not what was intended by the person performing the action.
Human error
It is a failure of execution or control – for example, substituting one action for another one in the procedure. A lapse is a failure of memory – for example, forgetting the overall goal, or forgetting where you are in the procedure.
Slip
The ability to cancel an operation, even if it was something they asked for.
Veto
Another kind of error, clearly due to user interface
Mode error
It is a familiar pattern for improving the learnability of a complex interaction, by structuring it as a step-by-step process, with each step in a dialog.
Wizard design pattern
The most important element of usability engineering
Iterative Design
It was one of the earliest carefully-articulated design processes for software development. It models the design process as a sequence of stages.
Waterfall Model
Choosing which
goals or constraints
can be relaxed so
that others can be
met.
Tradeoff
We ask the users what they needed at the beginning
Requirements Analysis
a term coined by Jakob Nielsen
User control and freedom
It is the idea that in the give and take between the user and the system, the user should have ultimate control.
User control and freedom
It suggests that something can be clicked and dragged – relying on the physical metaphor, that physical switches and handles often have a ridged or bumpy surface for fingers to more easily grasp or push.
Texture
Golden rule of design:
Understand your materials
The object visibly responds to the presence of the mouse, it suggests that you can interact with it by clicking
Visible Highlighting
Forms can put users off registration. So, use this sign-up pattern to let users sample what your site/app offers for free or familiarize
themselves with it.
Lazy Registration
– Use linked labels to provide secondary navigation that shows the path from the front to the current site page in the hierarchy
Breadcrumbs
Make buttons stand out with color so users know what to do
Clear Primary Action
Let users enter data in various formats (e.g., city/town/village or zip code).
Forgiving Format
Show users only features relevant for the task at hand, one per screen. If you break input demands into sections, you’ll reduce cognitive load (e.g., “Show More”).
Progressive Disclosure
Abstract, vocal, concrete, or musical cues
Sound
Hide nonessential information on detailed pages to let users find relevant information more easily.
Hover Controls
Designers typically combine this with a wizard pattern.
Steps Left
This pattern is risky because user mistrust and feedback can destroy a brand’s reputation overnight.
Dark Pattern
The importance of color is to
Communicate
It suggests using strong contrasts in value and chroma to draw the user’s attention to the most important information
Color Emphasis
It includes only the elements that are most important for communication. It should also be as unobtrusive as possible.
Simplicity
What are the four views of consistency:
real-world consistency
internal consistency
when not to be consistent
external consistency
Provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure
Organize
Do the most with the least amount of cues
Economize
The overall approach to visual storytelling
Sequencing
The overall decisions as to how the corporation or the product line expresses itself in visible language.
Visual Identity
Formats, proportions, and grids
Layout
It suggests using a maximum of 5+/-2 colors where the meaning must be remembered. The fundamental idea is to use color to augment black-and-white information, i.e. design the display to first work well in black-and-white.
Color Economy
It pertains to consistency of color code that should be applied to screen displays, documentation, and training materials.
Color Organization
There are three factors that should be considered for the design of a successful user interface;
development factors, visibility factors and acceptance factors.
It is an experimental process where design teams implement ideas into tangible forms from
paper to digital.
Prototyping
These are usually used at the very beginning of a project. These are mainly used to validate a first concept
or an idea
Lo-fidelity prototypes
These are finished websites, apps, or pixel-precise visual designs. The more perfected a prototype is, the less it is questioned purely in terms of content. I
Hi-fidelity prototypes
It is considered the complete version, which is not yet ready for the end-user due to the
lack of tests in real conditions and incorrect errors
Beta Version
It provide multiple perspectives on the display of complex structures and processes.
Multiple Views
It deals with legibility, including using appropriate colors for the central and peripheral areas of the visual field.
Color Communication
