Chapter Two

HUMAN in
HCI
 THE HUMAN
To develop usable interface we need to know:
 how humans perceive the world around them,
 how they store and process information and solve
problems, and
 how they physically manipulate objects.
 THE HUMAN
 Information i/o …
 visual, auditory, haptic, movement
 Information stored in memory
 sensory, short-term, long-term
 Information processed and applied
 reasoning, problem solving, skill, error
 Emotion influences human capabilities
 Each person is different

Slide
3
 Input and Output Channel
• A person’s interaction with the outside world occurs
through information being received and sent: input and
output.
• In an interaction with a computer the user receives
information that is output by the computer, and
responds by providing input to the computer
• So, the user’s output becomes the computer’s input and
vice versa.
• Input in the human occurs mainly through the senses
and output through the motor control of the effectors.
 Five major senses of the Human

1. Sight, Interaction Devices

2. Hearing, Input output devices of human
3. Touch, • Sight
4. Taste and • Sound
5. Smell. • Touch

Of these, the first three are the most important to HCI.

Taste and smell do not currently play a significant role in
HCI
 VISIO
N
 Two stages in visual perception

• physical reception of stimulus

• processing and interpretation of stimulus

Slide
6
 THE EYE - PHYSICAL
RECEPTION
 Vision begins with light
 Mechanism for receiving light and transforming it
into electrical energy
 Light reflects from objects and their Images are
focused upside-down on the back of the eye
 The receptors in the eye transform it into electrical
signals which are passed to the brain.
 Retina contains rods for low light vision and cones
for color vision
 Ganglion cells (brain!) detect pattern and
movement Slide
7
 INTERPRETING THE
SIGNAL
 Size and depth
 The size of that image is specified as a visual angle
 Visual angle indicates how much of view object occupies
(relates to size and distance from eye)

 Visual acuity is ability to perceive detail (limited)

 Familiar objects perceived as constant size

(in spite of changes in visual angle when far away)

Slide
8
Example: Visual Perception
 …INTERPRETING THE
SIGNAL
 Brightness
 Subjective reaction to levels of light
 Affected by luminance (amount of light emitted by an
object)
 Measured by just noticeable difference
 Colour
 Made up of hue, intensity, saturation
 Hue is determined by the spectral wavelength of the light.
Blues have short wavelengths, greens medium and reds
long.
 Intensity is the brightness of the color, and
 saturation is the amount of whiteness in the color Slide
10
 READIN
G
 Several stages:
 Visual pattern perceived
 Decoded using internal representation of language
 Interpreted using knowledge of syntax, semantics,
pragmatics

 Perception occurs during fixations

 Word shape is important to recognition
 There is evidence that reading from a computer
screen is slower than from a book .
Slide
11
 HEARIN
G
 Provides information about environment:
distances, directions, objects etc.
 Physical apparatus:
 outer ear – protects middle ear and amplify
some sounds
 middle ear – sound transmits as vibrations to
inner ear
chemical transmitters are released
 inner ear– and cause impulses in auditory
nerve
 Sound
 pitch – sound frequency
 loudness amplitude
– type or quality of sound Slide
12
 timbre
–
 …
HEARING
 Humans can hear frequencies from 20Hz to 15-
20kHz
 less accurate distinguishing high frequencies than low.

 Auditory system filters sounds

 can attend to sounds over background noise.
 for example, the cocktail party phenomenon.

Slide
13
 TOUC
H
 Provides important feedback about environment
 May be key sense for someone who is visually impaired

 Stimulus received via receptors in the skin:

 Thermoreceptors – heat and cold
 Nociceptors – pain
 Mechanoreceptors – pressure
• Rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors(respond
to immediate pressure)
• Slowly adapting mechanoreceptors(continuous)

 Some areas more sensitive than others e.g. fingers

Slide
14
 MOVEME
NT
 Time taken to respond to stimulus:
reaction time + movement time

 Movement time dependent on age, fitness

etc.

 Reaction
 visual time - dependent on stimulus type:
~ 200ms
 auditor ~ 150 ms
y ~ 700ms
 pain
 Increasing reaction time decreases accuracy in
unskilled operator but not in the skilled operator.
the Slide
15
 …
MLaw
 Fitts' OVEMENT
describes the time taken to hit a
screen
target:

Mt = a + b log2(D/S + 1)

 where: a and b are empirically determined

constants
 Mt is movement time
 D is Distance
 S is Size of target
Slide
16
 targets as large as possible
 distances as small as possible
 Memory
• Information processing system
• The use of past experience to influence of affect
human behavior.
• Describe how the process of the stage model of
HCI are interconnected.
• The ability to encode, store and remember
information and past experience in the brain
 MEMOR
 Y are three types of memory
There
function:

Slide
18
 Sensory Memory
 Buffers for stimuli received through senses
 iconic memory: visual stimuli
 echoic memory: aural stimuli
 haptic memory: touch stimuli
 Examples
 “sparkler” trail
 stereo sound
o These memories are constantly overwritten by
new information coming in on these channels.
 SHORT-TERM MEMORY
(STM)
 Scratch-pad for temporary recall
 rapid access ~ 70ms
 rapid decay ~ 200ms
 limited capacity - 7 ± 2 chunks

Example

01241401212626

012 414 0121 2626

Slide
20
 LONG-TERM MEMORY
(LTM) for all our knowledge
 Repository
 slow access ~ 1/10 second
 slow decay, if any
 huge or unlimited capacity

 Two types
 episodic – memory of events and experiences in a
serial form.
 semantic – structured memory of facts,concepts,
skills
Slide
 semantic LTM derived from episodic LTM 21
 …LONG-TERM
MEMORY
 Semantic memory structure
 provides access to information
 represents relationships between bits of information
 supports inference

 Model: semantic network

 inheritance – child nodes inherit properties of parent
nodes
 relationships between bits of information explicit
 supports inference through inheritance
Slide
22
 Reasoning

 reasoning is the process by which we use the knowledge

we have to draw conclusions or infer something new about

the domain of interest.

 There are a number of different types of reasoning:

deductive, inductive and abductive

.
 DEDUCTIVE
REASONING
 Deduction:

derive logically necessary conclusion from given

premises.
e.g If it is Friday then she will go to
. work
It is Friday
Therefore she will go to work
 Logical conclusion not necessarily true:
e.g
. If it is raining then the ground is dry
It is raining
Therefore the ground is dry

Slide
24
 …
D EDUCTION
 When truth and logical validity clash …
e.g Some people are babies
. Some babies cry
Inference - Some
 Correct? people cry

 People bring world knowledge to bear

Slide
25
 INDUCTIVE
REASONING
 Induction:
 generalize from cases seen to cases unseen
 e.g. all elephants we have seen have trunks
therefore all elephants have trunks

 Unreliable:
 can only prove false not true

… but useful!

Slide
26
 ABDUCTIVE
REASONING

 Reasoning from event to cause

 e.g. If we see saron driving too fast we may infer that she has
been drinking. Of course, this too is unreliable since there may be
another reason why she is driving fast: she may have been called to
an emergency, for example.

 Unreliable:

 can lead to false explanations

Slide
27
 PROBLEM
SOLVING
 Process of finding solution to unfamiliar task using
knowledge.

 Problem space theory

 problem space comprises problem states
 problem solving involves generating states using legal
operators
 heuristics may be employed to select operators
e.g. means-ends analysis
 operates within human information processing
system
e.g. STM limits etc. Slide

 largely applied to problem solving in well-defined 28

areas
 ERRORS AND MENTAL
MODELS
 Types of error
 Slips
 right intention, but failed to do it right
 causes: poor physical skill,inattention etc.
 change to aspect of skilled behaviour can cause slip

 Mistakes
 wrong intention
 cause: incorrect understanding
 humans create mental models to explain behaviour.

 if wrong (different from actual system) errors can

Slide

occur 29
 EMOTIO
N
 Various theories of how emotion works
 James-Lange: emotion is our interpretation of a
physiological response to a stimuli
 Cannon: emotion is a psychological response to a
stimuli
 Schacter-Singer: emotion is the result of our evaluation
of our physiological responses, in the light of the whole
situation we are in

 Emotion clearly involves both cognitive and

physical responses to stimuli
Slide
30
 …
EMOTION
 The biological response to physical stimuli is
called affect

 Affect influences how we respond to situations

 positive  creative problem solving
 negative  narrow thinking

 “Negative affect can make it harder to do even easy

tasks; positive affect can make it easier to do difficult
tasks”
 (Donald Norman)
Slide
31
 …
EMOTIONfor interface design
 Implications
 stress will increase the difficulty of problem solving
 relaxed users will be more forgiving of shortcomings
in design
 aesthetically pleasing and rewarding interfaces
will increase positive affect

Slide
32
 Summary on Humans
• Humans are limited in their capacity to process
information. This has important implications
for design.
• Information is received and responses given via
a number of input and output channels:
 visual channel
 auditory channel
 haptic channel
 movement.
 Summary on Humans
• Information is stored in memory:
 sensory memory
 short-term (working) memory
 long-term memory.
• Information is processed and applied:
 reasoning
 problem solving
 skill acquisition
 error.
• Emotion influences human capabilities.
• Users share common capabilities but are
individuals with differences, which should not be
ignored.