NIKE78 - Nick Marsh | ‘NIKE Wiis’ from NIKE78 on Vimeo.

Uuum, I’m not sure about this. It looks like he’s having trouble standing up or something.

Two compelling interaction concepts

Krzysztof sent along links to two compelling interaction concepts that demonstrate alternative ways of interacting with computers than what most of us are using now. In the picture on the left is the ‘bumptop desktop’ by Anand Agarawala. This takes the typical desktop metaphor for organizing and interacting with files and stretches it to include physics, 3D rendering, and gestural interactions. The picture on the right shows the multitouch display developed by Jeff Han. This provides an intiutive method for interacting in a very direct way with the information presented on the screen.

Links to videos of the presentations:

• Bumptop desktop
• Multitouch display

Thanks for the links Krzysztof!

Blackboard: HCI concerns (top), usability problems (bottom)

Welcome to students attending my 2009 spring course on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). I will use this blog to post summaries of my lectures and other resources related to the course. Please feel free to post comments or questions using the links below. You can find me in person in the user centred design group on the fourth floor of Alsion.

The purpose of the HCI course is to give you a broad overview of some theories in the field of Human Computer Interaction. It is intended that by the end of the course, you will be better equipped to draw on theoretical knowledge as well as have developed practical skills to apply theory. See the course web page for more details, including a lecture plan, suggested readings and links to lecture slides.

This Week’s Lecture

(slides available)

The purpose of this week’s lecture was to give you an introduction to HCI, to explain some of the areas that HCI is concerned with and to give an understanding of why HCI is an important field to study.

We started by covering some of the practical details about the course, such as the format for lectures, the number of ECTS for the course and the format of the exam. Check the course web page if you need to refer to these.

The goal of the lecture, was this:

• You should be able to explain to your Grandfather what this HCI subject you are taking is, and why it’s worth taking.

HCI is an acronym which stands for Human-Computer Interaction. Referring to a picture of a young child using a computer, and an elderly man using a digital camera, we talked about the range of different people (humans), devices (computers) and interactions that this might entail. Whereas the first image that the word ‘computer’ calls to mind might be a desktop PC, many different kinds of devices these days include some kind of interactive computational component. Similarly, the people who use computers goes beyond office workers sitting at desks. We also need to consider the young, the old, groups of people, people on the move and so on. The range of fields that HCI touches upon has grown steadily throughout its history and continues to grow today.

A more general definition of HCI is given by Carroll (2003):

“HCI is concerned with understanding how people make use of devices and systems that incorporate or embed computation, and how such devices and systems can be more useful and more usable” (p.1)

We then talked about why HCI is a worthwhile field to study. I gave three examples.

The first was just a funny video from the internet of a man getting very angry at his computer. Actually, it turns out that this scene was staged, but we can all identify with the feeling of being completely infuriated by a computer. We should ask ourselves - “why do computers make us feel like this, what could be done to make them better?”

The next example was more serious. It was from the case of the Therac 25 accidents, in which six patients were given massive doses of radiation (up to 100 times what they should have been), three of whom died as a direct result. There were many contributing factors to these accidents, including mechanical design faults and software errors and also (relevant to us) interface design faults and a failure to take into consideration the change in performance of operators as they moved from novice to skilled use (Leveson & Turner, 1993). Consider the many safety-critical areas where people rely on computer interfaces to make decisions and take actions that could impact on the safety and well-being of others.

Therac 25 Radiation Therapy Machine

The final example was more positive. This was about the design of the original Palm Pilot, which was a case where attention to the design and usability of a device resulted in a very successful product, in a product category that had until then not seen much success. The reference for this story that I mentioned in class was chapter 4 of Bergman (2000) - see the reference below. The point here is that having a good understanding of HCI can also help to make products that are successful in the market.

Original Palm Pilot

After these examples, we had a class discussion where students shared their experiences with interfaces that are difficult or frustrating to use - or enjoyable to use. We discussed the factors which might be relevant to consider in discussing why these examples were more or less usable. We talked in particular about notions of:

• intuitiveness as a goal for interface design.
• consistency as a desirable quality in interfaces.
• conventions.
• differences between users.
• problems arising from interactions with systems of devices, rather than single devices.

We finished the class with a presentation of  six usability goals. These are taken from one of the readings for this week’s class, (Preece, Sharp & Rogers 2002) so you can read more about them there:

• Effective to use (effectiveness)
• Efficient to use (efficiency)
• Safe to use (safety)
• Have good utility (utility)
• Easy to learn (learnability)
• Easy to remember how to use (memorability)

Practical Task: ‘Usability Bug Hunt’

• Keep an eye out during the week for any ‘usability bugs’ you can find. That is, products that don’t work the way you expect them to, websites that are difficult to navigate, software that you can’t figure out.
• Document as much as you can about the ‘bug’. What was the situation when it occurred? What did you try to remedy it? Is it something that happens all the time, or something unexpected? If possible, bring the product with you to class. If it is too big, bring a photo.
• We will discuss everyone’s bugs in next week’s class.

Readings

• Preece, J., Sharp, H. & Rogers, Y., 2002. “Interaction design : beyond human-computer interaction”, New York: J. Wiley & Sons. Chapter 1
• MacKenzie, S., 2003 “Motor Behaviour Models for Human-Computer Interaction” in Carroll, J (ed) “HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks” London, Morgan Kaufman.

References

• Bergman, E., 2000. Information Appliances and Beyond 1st ed., Morgan Kaufmann.
• Carroll, J.M., 2003. HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Toward a Multidisciplinary Science 1st ed., Morgan Kaufmann.

• Leveson, N. & Turner, C., 1993. An investigation of the Therac-25 accidents. Computer, 26(7), 18-41. 
  

Some quick notes on what I did to get Basic Stamp 2 modules running on a USB Board of Education development board running on OSX Tiger.

1. Download FTDI virtual COM port drivers. Drivers for OSX Intel are about half way down the page. This driver is needed for the computer to talk to the serial interface of the stamp via the mini USB connection on the Board of Education development board.
2. Mount the disk image and double-click the package to install. This will require a restart.
3. Download MacBS2. This program allows you to program the stamp from OSX . The official editor only works on windows.
4. Install MacBS2 by dragging it to your Applications folder.
5. Start MacBS2 by double-clicking. It will offer to automatically install the PBasic tokeniser for you. Say yes.
6. Attach your Board of Education to the USB port of the computer and power it with a battery or power pack.
7. In MacBS2, choose the serial port from the drop-down on the top-right side. It will probably look something like ‘usbserial-…’.
8. you should be able to click the ‘ID Stamp’ button to check that the stamp is connected and responding.
9. Type in a simple program (e.g. DEBUG “Hello World”) and click the ‘Run’ button to download it to the stamp. You should see ‘Hello World’ printed in the console at the bottom of the window.

Two fascinating projects involving audio feedback from an industrial design student at the Technical University, Eindhoven, Bram van der Vlist.

Extend your senses project (image credit Bram van der Vlist)

The image above comes from a project called ‘Extend Your Senses‘. In this project, Bram explored how sound could be used to provide athletes with added feedback about the movements they made. The sounds were generated based on signals from acceleration sensors attached to the equipment or bodies of athletes. The intention was that the audio feedback could support the athletes in learning and refining their movements, especially in relation to the kinaesthetic sense. This is the sense we have of the relative position of the parts of our body.

Bat Biker project, (image credit Bram van der Vlist)

In another project, called Bat Biker, Bram developed a system to give feedback for blind mountain bikers. In the design, the bike in front is ridden by a sighted cyclist and equipped with a loud-speaker that changes sound depending on the kind of terrain the bike was riding over. The cyclist on the bike riding behind could learn to interpret these sounds and adapt their riding accordingly.

(Image credit Duo de Hale).

Did you ever play the game ’statues’? The object is to stay as still as you can and the winner is the one who can stay still for the longest. It’s difficult and unusual for people to remain still like this (unless you’re a street performer). On the other hand, statues and other kinds of sculpture usually do stay still. But not always.

Below are some links to artists and designers who have worked with movement in interesting ways. This might be interesting as inspiration for students in Experience Design when creating ‘interactive mobiles’ or tinkering interaction concepts.

If anyone has examples of other artists’ work, please post them in the comments.

(Image credit Arthur Ganson)

Arthur Ganson makes wonderfully evocative and poetic mechanical scuptures. Check the page of videos on his website. I particularly liked the ‘Machine with Wishbone’ (image above).

(Image credit Ben Hopson).

Ben Hopson has been carrying out a series of experiments into ’sketching motion concepts’. He achieves amazingly precise, intricate and delicate sequences of movements from very simple materials. He also does a very good job of documenting his work. The image is above is from a video on his website for a piece called ‘3-boxes‘. He also has a list of links to other people and groups who have done interesting work in the same area.

(Image credit Theo Jansen).

Finally, Theo Jansen is a dutch artist who makes incredible walking sculptures that he calls strandbeests. Watching the videos, it’s easy to imagine that these are in fact gigantic creatures that have lumbered up from the sea. Click the image above to see more photos from his website.

(Thanks to Marcelle for the links.)