Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

What is HCI?
Human Computer Interaction (HCI), as the name suggests, is related to humans and computers, and the way they interact with each other. It is the art and science of making computer applications more usable for humans, rather then making humans adapt to computers.

Why do we need HCI?
Let us assume that you have to build a house. So, as an owner, you approach an architect and discuss your requirements. He designs the layout, colors and interiors, as per your budget and the space available. Next, you approach a civil engineer or contractor who works on calculating stress, beam length, municipal laws and other engineering aspects to finally build your house.

In much the same way, product management or clients or users give requirements to designers and they both work with developers to build software solutions. Refer figure 1.



Let us consider another example, an automobile company. Imagine that they only have an engineering department and are asked to make a bike. What will they do? They might be able to make a perfect technical design, which makes the bike move from one place to other. But it can hardly be used by anyone. Can you sit on it and drive?



Figure 2: Comparison of designs developed by a purely technical team and one by Industrial Designers

So, they also require Industrial Designers who work on human ergonomics, seating posture and aesthetics to finally make the bike beautiful and comfortable to ride.

Similarly, in a software company, if all you have are developers, they might be able to create a technically sound software application but that application might not be intuitive, user-friendly and attractive. Therefore, software companies do require HCI designers who look into user needs and design an easy-to-use aesthetic product. Here is what goes in the mind of users, developers and HCI designers.



Figure 3: What goes on in the minds of the user, designer and developer.

Why to invest in HCI?
For a service company or a small company, it has always been a question to justify cost for usability/HCI. However, if you have a dedicated HCI group associated with your client projects or product development, the quality and usability of your designs would be far superior than without them.

Some facts:
§ If people cannot understand something, they will not use it;
§ If it makes their life difficult, they will be frustrated (figure 4);



§ If they are your customers, they will not buy (from you at any rate);
§ If they are your employees, they will be less productive;
§ Technical developers are adept at understanding technical issues and, therefore, focus on what the software should do rather than how the user will use it;
§ You do not have developers write the documents, do all the testing and perform the marketing; and
§ It is no longer expected (usually) that developers design the user interface.

Benefits to users:
§ Users would be able to complete their task successfully and efficiently;
§ No or minimal training time;
§ Increased productivity; and
§ There is satisfaction instead of frustration.



Benefits for the company:
§ Decreased training and support costs;
§ Increased sales and revenues;
§ Reduced development time and costs;
§ Reduced maintenance costs;
§ Increased customer satisfaction;
§ Advantage over competitors;
§ Reduce unnecessary design cost;
§ Better accessibility; and
§ Gain and retain happy loyal customers.

A developer is not a designer!!
Historically, developers started writing programs and creating software applications. They also changed their hats to do testing, documentation and marketing.

Some companies try to put the HCI hat too on developers. This is not a good assumption. The situation has changed now and there is expertise available for every field. Developers are experts in writing complex algorithms, solving bugs, defining technical architecture and making things work. However they do not have the right skills or education when it comes to designing user interfaces.

HCI: Whose job is it anyway?
Because of a mistaken notion that GUI design is all about creating screen flows, buttons and colors, everyone thinks that they can do it. Companies assume that a developer, business analyst or project manager can do it. So, there have been many assumptions about who can do this job; but check out these facts:

Myths about HCI § Last minute enhancements; § Anyone can do it; § All art and no science; § Just colors, graphics and font; § Inconsequential when selling products; and § Just any UI. Facts § Early involvement; § Requires qualified personnel; § UCD (part of HCI) is a science; § Multidisciplinary activity; § One of the key elements to sell products; and § Provides a competitive edge.

Another group of people who moved into HCI were people with Art education (BFA). They are good at modern art paintings, print designing, illustrations, cartoons, advertisements, posters, and designing icons and images. They have a good aesthetic sense, but they lack the knowledge of designing for industrial products, users psychology and software engineering. Their curriculum did not include subjects that addressed these skills. So, they initially started as web designers and slowly moved towards HCI design.

In western countries, HCI designers were readily available as their universities have HCI education. They even have PhD programs since many years. However, in India, we did not have dedicated HCI courses until 2000. Institutes like the Industrial Design Center, IIT Bombay (www.idc.iitb.ac.in) and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, (www.nid.edu) have been offering courses in Industrial Design and Visual Communications for the past 30 years. These courses teach design basics that can be used in any industry, such as advertising, films, hardware and consumer electronic products. It was assumed that people in Industrial Design would take up HCI design in software companies. However, as demand grew, the need for a special masters course in HCI targeted at the software industry was felt.

HCI has wide interdisciplinary aspects in Aesthetics, Anthropology, Ethnography, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Industrial Design, Ergonomics, Human Factors, Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology. Now, can you find a person who knows all this? It is difficult. However, if you hire someone from Industrial Design or Masters in HCI, they may have covered most of these subjects in their academics. Ideally, you need to build a team of people with expertise in each of these domains.

You need to have an industrial designer to design the page flows and business processes, a graphic designer to add good aesthetics and an HCI graduate or psychologist to perform usability testing.

What do HCI designers do?
HCI designers can perform many activities like research, analysis, design and testing, depending on the company, project requirements, schedule and cost. HCI designers normally do not do coding. However, they are expected to know the overall technology limitations and possibilities. Their deliverables are mostly in the form of document or an html/flash/ppt prototype. They interact with product management, clients or marketing and sales personnel to understand the requirements. They talk with the development team to understand the building technology and then they create User Interaction screens. Next, they validate the user interfaces with actual users by way of usability testing. The chart (figure 7) maps HCI activities with developer activitie



Figure 7: HCI mapped to SDLC

User Centered Design

Figure 8: UCD elements

In HCI, a process called User centered Design (UCD) is very important. Earlier, all software products were technology driven, but now just technology cannot make the product successful. The truth is that products are user-driven. So, UCD reminds designers to consider the user at every stage of the design process. Since most competitors have almost similar technologies, the differentiating factor is how efficient and user friendly your product is. This has introduced one more aspect into HCI called Usability Engineering.

Usability Engineering:
It is easy to show mathematical results, but when it comes to measuring user friendliness, it becomes difficult. Usability is a measure of how satisfying or how usable a product is. Usability is not limited to software products but to any human-made product. Usability focuses on, but is not limited to, the following:
§ Effectiveness
    o Completeness: Was the task fully completed? Were the user's goals met? 
    o Accuracy: Was the task completed successfully? Did the user get the right/correct result? How well was the work done?
§ Efficiency
    o Speed: Was the user able to complete the task quickly?
    o Effort: Was the user able to complete the task without undue cognitive effort?
§ Engaging
    o Pleasurable: Did the user have a pleasant experience when working on the task?
    o Satisfaction: Was the user satisfied by the way in which the application supported his/her work?
§ Error tolerant
    o Error prevention: Did the user interface help users avoid making errors? Were the errors committed minor or major?
    o Error recovery: If users made errors, did the interface assist them in making a successful recovery?
§ Easy to learn
    o Predictability: Was the user able to work with some certainty?
    o Consistency: Was the interface consistent so that once a user learnt how to use part of the application, they were able to easily learn how to use the other part?

In this article, we talked about Usability, UI Design, Graphic Design, UCD, etc. These are all subsets of the larger HCI field. HCI is now a matured field that blends Art and Engineering processes. This field cannot be neglected or taken for granted while designing software applications.

This was a very short overall view of HCI to create awareness. Do let me know your views and queries. Depending on the response, I shall write more on specific HCI aspects. Some words that indirectly represent HCI are: UI/GUI Designer, Usability Engineer, Information Architect/Designer, Product Designer, Interaction Designer, Human Factors Engineer, Ergonomist, Anthropologist, Ethnography and User Experience.

Reference
Books: “Usability Engineering” by Jackob Nelson;
“Human Computer Interaction” by Alan Dix; and
“The Essentials of Interaction Design” by Alan Cooper.
Websites: www.sameerchavan.com/web_hci.htm;
www.useit.com; and
http://hcibib.org/.

Sameer Chavan has a Master’s Degree in Industrial Design from IIT-Bombay and a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently the Manager of User Experience at Oracle, Hyderabad. You can reach him at: Sameerhere@yahoo.com.