overview interfaces and interactions · • should robots be designed to be human-like or...

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Chapter 6:Interfaces and interactions

Overview

• Paradigm

• Interfaces types

• Which interface is best for a given application or activity

Paradigms

• Refers to a particular approach that has been adopted by a community in terms of shared assumptions, concepts, values and practices– Questions to be asked and how they should

be framed

– Phenomena to be observed

– How findings from experiments are to be analyzed and interpreted

Paradigms in HCI

• In 80s:

–single user on the desktop

• In the mid 90s:

–virtual reality, multimedia, agent

interfaces, ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous Computing

• Any computing technology that permits human interaction away from a single workstation

– filling the real world with computers

• What HCI is in this context?

New thinking

• How to access and interact with information in any situation?

• Designing user experiences

• The right form to provide contextually-relevant information

• Ensuring that information is secure and trustworthy

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Interface types

1980s interfaces

Command, WIMP/GUI

1990s interfaces

Advanced graphical (multimedia, virtual reality, information visualization)

Web, Speech (voice), Pen, gesture, and touch

Appliance

2000s interfaces

Mobile, Multimodal, Shareable, Tangible

Augmented and mixed reality Wearable, Robotic

Command interfaces

• Efficient, precise, and fast

• Large overhead to learning set of commands

WIMP/GUI interfaces

• Windows

• Icons

• Menus

• Pointing device

GUIs

• Same basic building blocks as WIMPs but more varied

–Color, 3Dsound, animation,

–Many types of menus, icons, windows

• New graphical elements, e.g.,

– toolbars, docks, rollovers

Apple’s shrinking windowsSelecting a country from a

scrolling window

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Research and design issues

• Window management

• Attention and distraction

• Design principles

–spacing, grouping, and simplicity should be used

Menus

flat lists, drop-down, pop-up, contextual, and expanding ones, e.g., scrolling and cascading

iPod flat menu structure Cascading menu

Contextual menus

• Provide access to often-used commands that make sense in the context of a current task


• What are best names/labels/phrases to use?

• Placement in list is critical– Quit and save need to be far apart

• Many international guidelines

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Icon design

• easier to learn and remember

• compact

• populate

Simple icons

Simple icons plus labels Icon forms

• The mapping between the representation and underlying referent can be:

– similar (e.g., a picture of a file to represent the object file),

– analogical (e.g., a picture of a pair of scissors to represent ‘cut’)

– arbitrary (e.g., the use of an X to represent ‘delete’)

Early icons

Newer icons

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• Do not have to draw or invent icons from scratch

MultimediaResearch and design issues

• How to design multimedia to help users explore, keep track of, and integrate the multiple representations

Advanced graphical interfaces

• Users can access, explore, and visualize information– e.g. interactive animations, multimedia,

virtual environments, and visualizations

Virtual reality and virtual environments

• Enabling users to interact with objects and navigate in 3D space

• Create highly engaging user experiences

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Pros and cons

• higher fidelity

• sense of presence

• Provides different viewpoints

• Head-mounted displays are uncomfortable to wear, and can cause motion sickness and

disorientation


• Good for training

• Design issues– Level of fidelity

– Navigation

– Control and interaction

– Information

Which is the most engaging game of Snake?

Many mobile devices

Mobile devices for special needs

Simple or complex phone for you and your grandmother?

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Mobile challenges

• Small screens, small number of keys and restricted number of controls

• Interaction design– Cognitive

– ergonomics

• Usability vs preference

Have speech interfaces come of age?

Speech recognizer

Spoken

Utterance

Acoustic

processor

Feature

analysis

Pattern

matching

process

Dictionary Syntax

Speaker

Model

Language

process

Language Models

Task-specific words,

phrases or sentences

Text of the

sentences

ASR

Synthetic

speech Get me a human operator!

• What is your experience of such systems?

• Who shall take the control of the conversation?

• Would you assume that the system is like a human?


• How to design systems that can keep conversation on track

• Type of voice actor

Definitions of multimodality

• Multimodality is the use of two or more of the six senses for the exchange of information (Granström, 2002)

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Applications

Mobile environment

Personal devicesComplex industrial

systemsInformation services

via telephone

Military systems

Multi-modal vs. Multi-media

• Multi-modal

– Visual

– Aural

– Gesture

– …

• Input/output interaction channel

• Multi-media

– Video

– Text

– Animation

– Still images,

– …

Shareable interfaces

• Shareable interfaces are designed for more than one person to use

–multiple inputs

–simultaneous input

A smartboard

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DiamondTouch Tabletop

Advantages

• Can support flexible group working

• Can be used by multiple users

• Can support more equitable participation


• Multimodal interaction

• Size, orientation, and shape of the display design

• Horizontal surfaces vs vertical ones

• Work efficiency

Tangible interfaces

• sensor-based interaction

• direct manipulation on a physical object/s and causes a digital effect

• The effects can be in other media or place, even embedded in the physical object

UrpSteve Mann - pioneer of

wearables

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• Comfort

• Hygiene

• Ease of wear

• Usability

Robotic interfaces

• Four types


• How do humans react to physical robots?

• Should robots be designed to be human-like or robots-like?

• Should simulate human-human interaction, or

human-computer interaction?

Which interface?

• Is multimedia better than tangible interfaces for

learning?

• Is speech as effective as a command-based interface?

• Is a multimodal interface more effective than a monomodal interface?

• Will wearable interfaces be better than mobile interfaces

for helping people find information in foreign cities?

• Are virtual environments the ultimate interface for playing games?

• Will shareable interfaces be better at supporting

communication and collaboration compared with using

networked desktop PCs?

Which interface?• Will depend on task, users, context, cost,

robustness, etc.

• Technology development will have strong impact.

Summary

• Many innovative interfaces have emerged post the WIMP/GUI era, including speech, wearable, mobile, and tangible

• Many new design and research questions need to be considered to decide which one to use

• Web interfaces are becoming more like multimedia-based interfaces

• An important concern that underlies the design of any kind of interface is how information is represented to the user so they can carry out ongoing activity or task

overview interfaces and interactions · • should robots be designed to be human-like or...

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