Encounters with HCI Pioneers


Book Description

The huge success of personal computing technologies has brought astonishing benefits to individuals, families, communities, businesses, and government, transforming human life, largely for the better. These democratizing transformations happened because a small group of researchers saw the opportunities to convert sophisticated computational tools into appealing personal devices offering valued services by way of easy-to-use interfaces. Along the way, there were challenges to their agenda of human-centered design by: (1) traditional computer scientists who were focused on computation rather than people-oriented services and (2) those who sought to build anthropomorphic agents or robots based on excessively autonomous scenarios. The easy-to-learn and easy-to-use interfaces based on direct manipulation became the dominant form of interaction for more than six billion people. This book gives my personal history of the intellectual arguments and the key personalities I encountered. I believe that the lessons of how the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and the profession of User Experience Design (UXD) were launched can guide others in forming new disciplines and professions. The stories and photos of the 60 HCI pioneers, engaged in discussions and presentations, capture the human drama of collaboration and competition that invigorated the encounters among these bold, creative, generous, and impassioned individuals.




HCI Design Knowledge


Book Description

This is the first of two books concerned with engineering design principles for Human-Computer Interaction-Engineering Design Principles (HCI-EDPs). The book presents the background for the companion volume. The background is divided into three parts and comprises—"HCI for EDPs," "HCI Design Knowledge for EDPs," and "HCI-EDPs—A Way Forward for HCI Design Knowledge." The companion volume reports in full the acquisition of initial HCI-EDPs in the domains of domestic energy planning and control and business-to-consumer electronic commerce (Long, Cummaford, and Stork, 2022, in press). The background includes the disciplinary basis for HCI-EDPs, a critique of, and the challenge for, HCI design knowledge in general. The latter is categorised into three types for the purposes in hand. These are craft artefacts and design practice experience, models and methods, and principles, rules, and heuristics. HCI-EDPs attempt to meet the challenge for HCI design knowledge by increasing the reliability of its fitness-for-purpose to support HCI design practice. The book proposes "instance-first/class-first" approaches to the acquisition of HCI-EDPs. The approaches are instantiated in two case studies, summarised here and reported in full in the companion volume. The book is for undergraduate students trying to understand the different kinds of HCI design knowledge, their varied and associated claims, and their potential for application to design practice now and in the future. The book also provides grounding for young researchers seeking to develop further HCI-EDPs in their own work.




Statistics for HCI


Book Description

Many people find statistics confusing, and perhaps even more confusing given recent publicity about problems with traditional p-values and alternative statistical techniques including confidence intervals and Bayesian statistics. This book aims to help readers navigate this morass: to understand the debates, to be able to read and assess other people's statistical reports, and make appropriate choices when designing and analysing their own experiments, empirical studies, and other forms of quantitative data gathering.




Toward Engineering Design Principles for HCI


Book Description

This is the second of two books by the authors about engineering design principles for human-computer interaction (HCI-EDPs). The books report research that takes an HCI engineering discipline approach to acquiring initial such principles. Together, they identify best-practice HCI design knowledge for acquiring HCI-EDPs. This book specifically reports two case studies of the acquisition of initial such principles in the domains of domestic energy planning and control and business-to-consumer electronic commerce. The book begins by summarising the earlier volume, sufficient for readers to understand the case studies reported in full here. The themes, concepts, and ideas developed in both books concern HCI design knowledge, a critique thereof, and the related challenge. The latter is expressed as the need for HCI design knowledge to increase its fitness-for-purpose to support HCI design practice more effectively. HCI-EDPs are proposed here as one response to that challenge, and the book presents case studies of the acquisition of initial HCI-EDPs, including an introduction; two development cycles; and presentation and assessment for each. Carry forward of the HCI-EDP progress is also identified. The book adopts a discipline approach framework for HCI and an HCI engineering discipline framework for HCI-EDPs. These approaches afford design knowledge that supports “specify then implement” design practices. Acquisition of the initial EDPs apply current best-practice design knowledge in the form of “specify, implement, test, and iterate” design practices. This can be used similarly to acquire new HCI-EDPs. Strategies for developing HCI-EDPs are proposed together with conceptions of human-computer systems, required for conceptualisation and operationalisation of their associated design problems and design solutions. This book is primarily for postgraduate students and young researchers wishing to develop further the idea of HCI-EDPs and other more reliable HCI design knowledge. It is structured to support both the understanding and the operationalisation of HCI-EDPs, as required for their acquisition, their long-term potential contribution to HCI design knowledge, and their ultimate application to design practice.




IT Girls


Book Description

A celebration of the women who furthered computer technology, from the nineteenth century to the present day.




Advanced Research in Technologies, Information, Innovation and Sustainability


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Conference on Advanced Research in Technologies, Information, Innovation and Sustainability, ARTIIS 2021, held in La Libertad, Ecuador, in November 2021. The 53 full papers and 2 short contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 155 submissions. The volume covers a variety of topics, such as computer systems organization, software engineering, information storage and retrieval, computing methodologies, artificial intelligence, and others. The papers are logically organized in the following thematic blocks: ​Computing Solutions; Data Intelligence; Ethics, Security, and Privacy; Sustainability.




Human-Computer Interactions in Museums


Book Description

Museums have been a domain of study and design intervention for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for several decades. However, while resources providing overviews on the key issues in the scholarship have been produced in the fields of museum and visitor studies, no such resource as yet existed within HCI. This book fills this gap and covers key issues regarding the study and design of HCIs in museums. Through an on-site focus, the book examines how digital interactive technologies impact and shape galleries, exhibitions, and their visitors. It consolidates the body of work in HCI conducted in the heritage field and integrates it with insights from related fields and from digital heritage practice. Processes of HCI design and evaluation approaches for museums are also discussed. This book draws from the authors' extensive knowledge of case studies as well as from their own work to provide examples, reflections, and illustrations of relevant concepts and problems. This book is designed for students and early career researchers in HCI or Interaction Design, for more seasoned investigators who might approach the museum domain for the first time, and for researchers and practitioners in related fields such as heritage and museum studies or visitor studies. Designers who might wish to understand the HCI perspective on visitor-facing interactive technologies may also find this book useful.




Geographical Design


Book Description

With spatial technologies ranging from mapping software to the use of location-based services, spatial knowledge is often acquired and communicated through geographic information technologies. This book describes the interplay between spatial cognition research and use of spatial interfaces. It begins by reviewing what is known about how humans process spatial concepts and then moves on to discuss how interfaces can be improved to take advantage of those capabilities by disambiguating cognitive aspects, conceptual aspects, computational aspects, and communications aspects. Special attention is given to a variety of innovative geographical platforms that provide users with an intuitive understanding and support the further acquisition of spatial knowledge. Alternatives to shortest-path algorithms to explore more scenic routes, as well as individual user differences that can emerge from previous experiences with virtual spaces, are also discussed. The book concludes with a discussion of the number of outstanding issues, including the changing nature of maps as the primary spatial interface, concerns about privacy for spatial information, and looks at the future of user-centered spatial information systems.




Data-Driven Personas


Book Description

Data-driven personas are a significant advancement in the fields of human-centered informatics and human-computer interaction. Data-driven personas enhance user understanding by combining the empathy inherent with personas with the rationality inherent in analytics using computational methods. Via the employment of these computational methods, the data-driven persona method permits the use of large-scale user data, which is a novel advancement in persona creation. A common approach for increasing stakeholder engagement about audiences, customers, or users, persona creation remained relatively unchanged for several decades. However, the availability of digital user data, data science algorithms, and easy access to analytics platforms provide avenues and opportunities to enhance personas from often sketchy representations of user segments to precise, actionable, interactive decision-making tools—data-driven personas! Using the data-driven approach, the persona profile can serve as an interface to a fully functional analytics system that can present user representation at various levels of information granularity for more task-aligned user insights. We trace the techniques that have enabled the development of data-driven personas and then conceptually frame how one can leverage data-driven personas as tools for both empathizing with and understanding of users. Presenting a conceptual framework consisting of (a) persona benefits, (b) analytics benefits, and (c) decision-making outcomes, we illustrate applying this framework via practical use cases in areas of system design, digital marketing, and content creation to demonstrate the application of data-driven personas in practical applied situations. We then present an overview of a fully functional data-driven persona system as an example of multi-level information aggregation needed for decision making about users. We demonstrate that data-driven personas systems can provide critical, empathetic, and user understanding functionalities for anyone needing such insights.




Usability Testing


Book Description

It is all too common for products, such as consumer appliances, information systems, mobile apps, and websites, to cause trouble and frustration. For example, products are often difficult or dull to use, make tasks less flexible or more tedious, shift attention away from important or gratifying activities, and simply fail to deliver expected benefits or experiences. By identifying such trouble and frustration in the lab prior to widespread use, usability tests have proven a valuable method for informing redesign efforts. A usability test consists of having test users exercise a product and think aloud about their experience using it, while an evaluator observes the users and listens in on their thoughts. On this basis the evaluator identifies usability problems and assesses the user experience. This book describes how to conduct usability tests. After providing context about concepts and testing, the main chapters of the book cover the steps involved in preparing for a usability test, executing the test sessions, and analyzing the test data. Throughout the chapters, concrete guidance is balanced against more complex issues with an impact on the robustness, validity, completeness, impact, and cost of a usability test. The book concludes with an outlook to variations of usability testing and alternatives to it.