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Question 1

Areas to consider

Answer 1

• Application of theory in HCI
• Goal-oriented interaction
• Designing smart systems (guest lecturer)
• Designing efficient systems
• Designing meaningful systems (guest lecturer)
• Evaluating interactive system designs
Designing complex systems

Question 2

Goal of HCI?

Answer 2

The goal of HCI is to make interaction with computers somehow ‘better’ - faster, more productive, more creative, more social, more fun etc.

Question 3

Underlying goals of HCI?

Answer 3

• How would you have gone about designing this user interface?
• Is this a good (or bad) user interface?
• How do we know that this user interface is good or bad?
How could we improve this user interface if we had the chance?
If you have opinions about whether a specific interface is good or bad, can you relate your opinions to scientific evidence or established theories of human behaviour?

Question 4

Stages of a design process

Answer 4

Scientific principles of this kind are applied within a design process, which is usually iterative, with phases of divergent (creative exploration) and convergent (selection and evaluation). HCI theories can be usefully applied in both kinds of phase.

Question 5

Purpose of HCI theories in the divergent phase

Answer 5

During the divergent phase, theories can provide a basis for invention, recognising new alternatives, or gaps in the range of options that have been considered.

Question 6

Use of HCI theories in the convergent phase

Answer 6

When converging, theory gives us a basis for critique - to compare relative benefits of possible designs, predict properties that are likely to work well, and those that might cause problems.

Question 7

Why were there three waves of HCI?

Answer 7

As computers have changed from being primarily commercial, scientific and industrial tools to a routine part of the everyday structure of life, the theories and research methods of HCI have had to change too, to ensure that they are able to contribute to the rather different design processes and stakeholder requirements in these different domains.

Question 8

Why are the earlier waves of HCI still relevant?

Answer 8

• Of course, computers are still used in science and industry too, so those earlier theories are still relevant, and continue to be actively developed. Within HCI research, the changing emphasis of the field is summarised as three ‘waves’ that emerged in different decades.

Question 9

What was 1st wave?

Answer 9

In the first wave (developed during the 1980s), the main theories were adopted from fields such as Human Factors Engineering, Ergonomics and Cognitive Science. At this time, the “user interface” was often a separate module, designed independently of the main system.

Question 10

Key design goal of 1st wave HCI

Answer 10

The primary design goal is efficiency (speed and accuracy) for a human operator to achieve well-defined tasks.

Question 11

Research methods used by 1st wave HCI

Answer 11

researchers typically used methods from cognitive science to model users’ perception, decision and action processes and predict usability.

Question 12

Example of 1st wave HCI inspired design

Answer 12

The example given in the lecture is a control panel with fixed switches, dials and lamps. Key principles for efficiency are grouping related information together, and using the inherent structure of operator tasks to ensure that specific sequences of operations can be facilitated (or avoided).

Question 13

What was second wave HCI?

Answer 13

In the second wave (developed during the 1990s), the main theories were adopted from social science fields such as Anthropology, Sociology and Work Psychology. This recognised that computers were only one part of a social system, and that the design of complex systems is a socio-technical experiment.
The system design needs to take account of other sources and channels of information including conversations, paper, and physical environment

Question 14

What research methods were relevant to 2nd wave HCI?

Answer 14

Research methods focused on studying the context where people work, and using ethnography and Contextual Inquiry to understand other people’s ways of seeing the world.
Diverse stakeholders are often integrated into the design process, where prototyping and participatory design workshops aim to empower users and acknowledge other value systems.

Question 15

What’s the relevance of social science to 2nd wave HCI? Give an example.

Answer 15

The methods of social science can be used reflexively to observe, analyse and understand the design process itself.
The example given in the lecture is a large open office space, with paper notes fixed to cubicle walls, noticeboards, document holders, and many other devices that have been designed to facilitate and coordinate collaborative work.

Question 16

What is third wave HCI?

Answer 16

In the third wave (developed during the 2000s), the main theories were adopted from fields that deal with culture and creativity, including Art, Philosophy and Design.
In this period, following the development of the Web and smartphones, user interfaces and became integral part of culture, and software application design increasingly concerned with “user experience”

Question 17

What are the key features which differ for 3rd wave compared to earlier two?

Answer 17

Ubiquitous computing technologies affect every part of our lives, mixing public and private.
Outside the workplace, efficiency is not a priority, and usage is discretionary.
Theoretical perspectives include emotional and subjective concerns of aesthetics and affect.
Design experiments become more like works of art, speculative and interpretive, with critical assessment of how this is meaningful within a particular tradition.

Question 18

Give an example of 3rd wave HCI

Answer 18

The example given in the lecture is the “blood bag radio” created by the Dunne and Raby studio. This kind of speculative design is created to provoke and question, and design criteria relate not to efficiency, but to how interesting or thoughtful the interaction will be.