Human Computer Interaction Investigation

Summary

This report has presented many problems too me in a subject which I was not familiar.

Starting at the beginning I have utilised resources from many different areas including books, journals and the World Wide Web to gather resources to tackle problems and achieve my objective.

HCI was a subject I was unfamiliar with and one I was only just beginning to get to grips with following my lectures. However I felt that these lectures did not provide me with the necessary information I required to start looking at the project I needed to complete.

Having researched the topic in the library and on the internet it became apparent that there was a multitude of resources available on the subject so I began to sieve through them to identify the article that were of greater importance than the rest.

Once I had completed my preliminary research I read all the articles and started to plan how I was going to design the interface required for this project, what would need to be measured and how I could do this.

Most of this design work is left out of this report as I feel it does not contribute to the overall aim of this report which is to document how I tackled the task of approaching such a project.

After identifying the programming language I would use I set about programming the interface, this task is fairly separate from the project but still took a fair amount of time to complete.

User testing took on the task of trying out the interface and seeing how it worked in practice and noting any major changes that needed to be made.

Second Phase development took care of the changes that became apparent from the 1st phase testing, and obviously I tested these to see if the changes had made a difference.

These changes were notes and conclusions drawn from them to decide whether the interface I had developed was sufficient for the task I had been set, and what changes had altered which HCI principles.

The entire project was then evaluated taking into account all the different challenges I faced and how these may have affected my project as a whole.

Overall this project was an interesting one to carry out on a subject matter I was very unfamiliar with. Linking the research to the actual project was the hardest task as I have not completed many projects where such free reign has been given on the sources of knowledge and where we obtained them from, but again this challenge was accepted with vigour.

Cutting down the report to a readable length was also a challenge but I hope I have managed to keep it in a sensible and readable format.

Method and Research

Developing an interface for a Mars explorer is an exciting prospect! It provides many challenges and is a hard project to approach. Having never really studied or developed an interface on this level before so I decided that researching the subject to begin with would be the key to making a successful report, remembering all the time that "the key factor in interfaces is usability". (B S Doherty, HCI, Overview, Slide 5, http://www.aston.ac.uk/~dohertbs/HCI/overview.pdf)

I carried out my research from a broad variety of sources including Online Articles, Journals and Books. I found a massive amount of qualitative information that I read through to try and find information specifically related to the assignment that had been set. I have split my findings into [ ] sections making it easier to read, however the information has come from a wide number of sources and is merely collated this way to be pleasing on the eye, after all, this document is a type of interface.

Prototypes

It became apparent very quickly that most interfaces go through a prototype phase just as my Robot Interface program will. David Steele said "The use of prototypes for interfaces and actions is recommended as a means of gauging user acceptance and potential productivity." (HCI, Steele, p. 36) In the case of my project the objective is pushed more towards error avoidance, but the principles are much the same.

The book by David Steele which was published by the British Standards Committee also commented on what they would push for in good interface design.

Good user interface standards will deliver:

- Consistency

- Transparency

- User-control

- Tolerance to errors

- Ease of reversal of actions

- Visual Interaction

- Immediate Feedback to User

(HCI, Steele, p. 35)

Everything in this list is relevant to my project and I intend each factor to be considered when I design my interface.

People

People have limitations, strengths, weaknesses and most importantly, differences; it is important I consider all of these when designing my prototype. Some hidden factors may not become apparent until the prototype has been completed, but this after all is the purpose of the prototype.

After looking online for examples of where similar system to the one I would be developing had been made I stumbled upon a paper that documented the creation of an interface for the American Military. Under the section Human Performance Modelling I found a list of some figures that could be monitored in order the gauge the effectiveness of my interface.

- Where were instances of peak workload and how frequently did they occur?

- Where were instances of operator overload and how many instances of operator overload occurred?

- What mission demands caused these instances?

- What tasks were being performed during these instances?

- What mission demands caused the longest delay in reaction?

(Human Machine Interface Design for Control of Robotic Systems, David Dahn, p.8)

Obviously the interface I design will not allow for all the factors listed to be monitored but I have highlighted in bold the two areas I believe