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Development of the user interface
Development of user interaction component
Development of user interface software
component
Development of the interaction component, toward which most HCI
effort is directed, is substantially different from development of
the user interface software. The view of the user interaction
component is the user's perspective of user interaction: how
it works; how tasks are performed using it; and its look and feel
and behavior in response to what a user sees, hears, and does while
interacting with the computer.
In contrast, the user interface software component is the
programming code by which the interaction component is implemented.
The user interaction component design should serve as
requirements for the user interface software component. Design
of the user interaction component must be given attention at least
equal to that given the user interface software component during
the development process, if usability in interactive systems is to
be ensured.
The overview of HCI topics, issues, and activities that follows
is loosely divided into theory, interaction techniques, and
development methods. Reflecting its diverse roots, HCI is host to
activities in many topical areas, some of which are reviewed here.
An attempt has been made to capture a broad, inclusive cross
section of a very dynamic field, but this paper is not intended to
be an exhaustive survey, and no claims are made for completeness.
Emphasis is given to topics of most importance to the usability of
an every-citizen interface.
Theory
HCI theory has its avid proponents. If the proportion of
literature devoted to theory is to be taken as an indication,
theory plays a strong
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role in HCI, but in fact theory has not seen broad, direct
application in the practice of HCI.
Much theory comes to HCI from cognitive psychology (Hammond et.
al., 1987; Barnard, 1993). Norman's (1986) theory of action
expresses, from a cognitive engineering perspective, human task
performance-the path from goals to intentions to actions (inputs to
the computer) back to perception and interpretation of feedback to
evaluation of whether the intentions and goals were approached or
met. The study of learning in HCI (Carroll, 1984; Draper and
Barton, 1993) and Fitts Law (relating cursor travel time to
distance and size of target) (MacKenzie, 1992) also have their
roots in cognitive theory.
Task Analysis
To design a user interface (or any system) to meet the needs of
its users, developers must understand what tasks users will use a
system for and how those tasks will be performed (Diaper, 1989).
Because tasks at all but the highest levels of abstraction involve
manipulation of user interface objects (e.g., icons, menus,
buttons, dialogue boxes), tasks and objects must be considered
together in design (Carroll et al., 1991). A complete description
of tasks in the context of their objects is a rather complete
representation of an interaction design. The process of describing
tasks (how users do things) and their relationships (usually in a
hierarchical structure of tasks and subtasks) is called task
analysis and comes to HCI primarily from human factors
(Meister, 1985). There are various task analysis methods to address
various purposes. In HCI the primary uses are to drive design and
to build predictive models of user task performance. Because
designing for usability means understanding user tasks, task
analysis is essential for good design; unfortunately, it is often
ignored or given only minimal attention.
Models of Human Information
Processing
A significant legacy from cognitive psychology is the model of a
human as a cognitive information processor (Card et al., 1983). The
Command Language Grammar (Moran, 1981) and the keystroke model
(Card and Moran, 1980), which attempt to explain the nature and
structure of human-computer interaction, led directly to the Goals,
Operators, Methods, and Selection (GOMS) model (Card et al., 1983).
GOMS-related models-quantitative models combining task analysis and
the human user as an information processor-are concerned with
predicting various measures of user performance, most commonly task
completion time based on physical and cognitive actions of users,
with place holders and estimated times
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for highly complex cognitive actions and tasks. Direct
derivatives of GOMS include NGOMSL (Kieras, 1988) and Cognitive
Complexity Theory (CCT) (Kieras and Polson, 1985; Lewis et al.,
1990), the latter of which is intended to represent the complexity
of user interaction from the user's perspective. This technique
represents an interface as the mapping between the user's job-task
environment and the interaction device behavior.
GOMS-related techniques have been shown to be useful in
discovering certain kinds of usability problems early in the life
cycle, even before a prototype has been constructed. Some studies
(e.g., Gray et al., 1990) have demonstrated a payoff in a few
circumscribed applications where the savings of a small number of
user actions (e.g., a few keystrokes or mouse movements) can
improve user performance enough to have an economic impact, often
because of the repetitiveness of a task.
Nonetheless, these models have not achieved widespread
application within the tight constraints of industrial schedules
and budgets because of the labor intensiveness of producing and
maintaining these relatively formal and structured task
representations, the need for specialized skills, and the
difficulty in competing with the effectiveness of usability
evaluation using a prototype. Furthermore, these techniques
generally do not take into account individual differences in user
classes and are often limited to expert, error-free behaviors (not
representative of "every citizen" as a user). In any case, it is
generally agreed that this kind of analytical approach to usability
evaluation cannot be considered a substitute for empirical
formative evaluation-usability testing of a prototype with users in
a lab or field setting (see "User-Based Evaluation" below).
Human Work Activity
Another area feeding HCI theory and practice is "work activity
theory" (Ehn, 1990; Bodker, 1991). Originating in Russia and
Germany and now flourishing in Scandinavia (where it is,
interestingly, related to the labor movement), this view of design
based on work practices situated in a worker's own complete
environment has been synthesized into several related mainstream
HCI topics. For example, "participatory design" is a democratic
process based on the argument that users should be involved in
designs they will be using, in which all stakeholders, including
and especially users, have equal inputs into interaction design.
Muller (1991) and others have operationalized participatory design
in an approach called PICTIVE, which supports rapid group prototype
design using Post-It(tm) notes, marking pens, paper, and other
"low-technology" materials on a large table top.
This interest in design driven by work practices in context has
led to the eclectic inclusion in some HCI practice of ethnography,
an investigative
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field rooted in anthropology (LeCompte and Preissle, 1993), and
other hermeneutic (concerned with ways to explain, translate, and
interpret perceived reality) approaches as qualitative research
tools for extracting design requirements. Contextual inquiry /
design (Wixon et al., 1990) is an example of an adaptation of this
kind of approach, where design and evaluation are conducted
collaboratively by users and developers, while users perform normal
work tasks in their natural work environment. Much of this
collaboration is based on interviews that seek to make implicit
work practices more explicit and to draw out structure, language,
and culture affecting the work.
The task artifact framework of Carroll and Rosson (1992) and, to
some extent, scenario-based design follow an ethnographic focus on
task performance in a work context. Scenarios are concrete,
narrative descriptions of user and system activity for task
performance (Carroll, 1995). They describe particular interactions
happening over time, being deliberately informal, open ended, and
fragmentary. Scenarios often focus on interaction objects, or
artifacts, and how they are manipulated by users in the course of
task performance.
Formal Methods
While not theory per se, formal methods have been the object of
some interest and attention in HCI (Harrison and Thimbleby, 1990).
The objectives of formal methods-precise, well-defined notations
and mathematical models-in HCI are similar to those in software
engineering. Formal design specifications can be reasoned about and
analyzed for various properties such as correctness and
consistency. Formal specifications also have the potential to be
translated automatically into prototypes or software
implementation. Thus, in principle, formal methods can be used to
support both theory and practice; however, they have not yet had an
impact in real-world system development, and their potential is
difficult to predict.
Devices, Interaction Techniques, And
Graphics
In contrast to theory, the influence of interaction devices and
their associated interaction techniques represents a practical
arena of real-world constraints as well as hardware design
challenges. "An interaction technique is a way of using a
physical input/output device to perform a generic task in a
human-computer dialogue" (Foley et al., 1990). A very similar term,
interaction style, has evolved to denote the behavior of a
user and an interaction object (e.g., a push button or pulldown
menu) within the context of task performance. In practice, the
notion of an interaction
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technique includes the concept of interaction style plus full
consideration of internal machine behavior and software aspects. In
the context of an interaction technique, an interaction object (and
its supporting software) is often referred to as a "widget."
Libraries of widgets-software that supports programming of
graphical user interfaces (GUIs)-are an outgrowth of operating
system device handler routines used to process user input and
output in the new ancient and impoverished interaction style of
line-oriented, character-cell, text-only, "glass teletype" terminal
interaction. At first, graphics packages took interaction beyond
text to direct manipulation of graphical objects, eventually
leading to new concepts in displays and cursor tracking. Of course,
invention of the mouse and advent of the Xerox Star and Lisa
Macintosh by Apple accelerated the evolution of the now-familiar
point-and-click interaction styles. It is not surprising that many
of the computer scientists who developed early graphics packages
also introduced GUI interaction techniques as part of their
contribution to the HCI field (Foley and Wallace, 1974; Foley et
al., 1990). To some extent, standardization of interactive
graphical interaction techniques led to the widgets of today's GUI
platforms and corresponding style guides intended for ensuring
compliance to a style but sometimes mistakenly thought of as
usability guides.
This growth of graphics and devices made possible one of the
major breakthroughs in interaction styles-direct manipulation
(Shneiderman, 1983; Hutchins et al., 1986; Weller and Hartson,
1992)-changing the basic paradigm of interaction with computers.
Unlike previous command-line-oriented interaction in which users
plan tasks in terms of hierarchies of goals and subgoals, entering
a command line for each, direct manipulation allows opportunistic
and incremental task planning. Users can try something and see what
happens, exploring many avenues for interactive problem solving.
This kind of opportunistic interaction is also called
display-based interaction (Payne, 1991).
Development Methods And Software
Engineering
The difference between user interaction and user interface
software, mentioned in the Introduction, results in a need for
separate and fundamentally different development processes for the
two components of a user interface.
Development Life Cycles
Studies deriving principles for user interaction development
(e.g., Gould et al., 1991) vary, but all agree that interaction
development must
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involve usability evaluation. Just adding some kind of "user
testing" to an existing software process is not enough, however.
Usability comes from a complete process, one that ensures usability
and attests to when it has been achieved (Hix and Hartson, 1993a).
Most researchers and practitioners also agree that an interaction
development process must be iterative, unlike the phase-oriented
"waterfall" method, for example, for software development. Although
software can be correctness driven, user interaction design-because
of infinite design possibilities and unpredictable, dynamic, and
psychological aspects of the human user-must be self-correcting.
Thus, interaction development is an essentially iterative process
of design and evaluation, one that must, in the end, be integrated
with other system and software life cycles. Within this cycle, the
interaction design is an iteratively evolving design specification
for the user interface software. The star life cycle (Hartson and
Hix, 1989) for interaction development explicitly acknowledges
these differences from software development, being unequivocally
iterative, and allows the process to start with essentially any
development activity and proceed to any other activity before the
previous one is completed, with each activity informing the
others.
Development Activities
Design and Design
Representation
Design is closely coupled to, and driven by, early systems
analysis activities such as needs, task, and functional analyses.
Good interaction design involves early and continual involvement of
representative users and is guided by well-established design
guidelines and principles built on the concept of user-centered
design (Norman and Draper, 1986). Design guidelines address such
issues as consistency, use of real-world metaphors, human memory
limits, screen layout, and designing for user errors. Additionally,
designers are expected to follow style guides (less oriented toward
usability than toward compliance with some "standard" style) in
their use of widgets.
Although some more recent guidelines enjoy the support of
empirical studies, guidelines have typically been scattered
throughout the literature, based mostly on experience and educated
opinion. In a classic work, Smith and Mosier (1986) compiled
guidelines for character-cell, textual interface design. Others
(Mayhew, 1992; Shneiderman, 1992) have followed to help cover
graphical interfaces.
Many practitioners believe it is enough to know and use
interface design guidelines, possibly in addition to an interface
style guide (e.g., for Windows). Experience, however, has shown
that guidelines and style
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guides do not eliminate the need for usability evaluation.
Experience has also demonstrated that, although guidelines are not
difficult to learn as factual knowledge, their effective
application in real design situations is a skill acquired only
through long experience.
The creative act of design must also be accompanied by the
physical act of capturing and documenting that design. Although
many constructional techniques exist for representing
software aspects of interface objects, behavioral
representation techniques are needed for communicating, among
developers, the interaction design from a behavioral task and user
perspective. The User Action Notation (UAN) is one such technique
(Hartson et al., 1990; Hartson and Gray, 1992). The UAN is a user-
and task-oriented notation that describes the behavior of a user
and an interface during their cooperative performance of a task.
The primary abstraction of the UAN is a user task-a user action or
group of temporally related user actions performed to achieve a
work goal. A user interaction design is represented as a
quasi-hierarchical structure of asynchronous tasks. User actions,
interface feedback, and internal state information are represented
at various levels of abstraction in the UAN. In addition to design
representation, design rationale (MacLean et al., 1991) is captured
to record and communicate the history and basis for design
decisions, to reason about designs, and to explore
alternatives.
Prototyping
Rapid prototypes of interaction design are early and inexpensive
vehicles for evaluation that can be used to identify usability
problems in an interaction design before resources are committed to
implementing the design in software. Much interest has been focused
on low-fidelity prototypes (e.g., paper and pencil). Counter to
intuition, low-fidelity prototypes have allowed developers to
discover as many usability problems as found using interactive
computer-based prototypes (Virzi et al., 1996). Paper prototypes
are most useful early in the life cycle because they are more
flexible in exploring variations of interaction behavior at a cost
of less fidelity in appearance. Later in the life cycle, changes
made to the behavior of a coded prototype are more expensive than
changes made in appearance. Almost all projects eventually move to
computer-based rapid prototypes for formal usability
evaluation.
User-based Evaluation
Summative evaluation is used to make judgments about a
finished product, to gauge the level of usability achieved and
possibly compare one system with another. In contrast, formative
evaluation-the heart of the
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star life cycle-is used to detect and fix usability problems
before the interaction design is coded in software (Hix and
Hartson, 1993a,b; Nielsen, 1993), aiding in the improvement of an
interaction design while a product is still being developed. For
formative evaluation, unlike summative evaluation, statistical
significance is not an issue. Formative evaluation relies on both
quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data are used
as a gauge for the process-to be sure usability is improving with
each design iteration and to know when to stop iterating. Borrowing
an adage from software engineering (and probably other places
before that), "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." The
instruments used to quantify usability include benchmark tasks and
user questionnaires. Benchmark tasks, drawn from representative and
mission-critical tasks, yield objective user performance data, such
as time on task and error rates (Whiteside et al., 1988).
Questionnaires yield subjective data such as user satisfaction
(Chin et al., 1988). In analyzing quantitative data, results are
compared against preestablished usability specifications
(Whiteside et al., 1988)-operationally defined and measurable goals
used as criteria for success in interaction design.
Even more valuable than these quantitative data are the
qualitative data gathered in usability evaluations. Identification
of critical incidents-occurrences in task performance that
indicate a usability problem-are essential in pinpointing design
problems. Verbal protocol (capturing users' thinking aloud) helps
designers understand what was going through a user's mind when a
usability problem occurred, which may help in ascertaining its
causes and in offering useful solutions.
These quantitative and qualitative data typically come from
lab-based evaluations involving users as "subjects." While very
effective, this process can be expensive. The need for faster, less
costly usability methods has led to approaches, such as discount
usability engineering (Nielsen, 1989), that trade off
less-than-perfect and complete results for a lower cost.
Inspection methods (Nielsen and Mack, 1994) use systematic
examinations of design representations, prototypes, or software
products. Cognitive walkthroughs (Lewis et al., 1990;
Wharton et al., 1992) and claims analysis (Carroll and
Rosson, 1992) are effective inspection methods, especially early in
development, but can still be labor intensive and require special
training, which is intimidating to developers in search of
cost-effective methods. Heuristic evaluation (Nielsen and
Molich, 1990; Nielsen, 1992), which involves reviewing compliance
of an interaction design to a checklist of selected and generalized
guidelines, is an even less expensive inspection method but is
limited by the scope of guidelines used.
Inspection methods are effective at finding some kinds of
usability problems but do not reliably pinpoint all types of
problems that can be
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observed in lab-based testing. In fact, lab-based usability
evaluation remains the yardstick against which most new methods are
compared in formal studies. Most real-world development
organizations continue to be willing to pay the price for extensive
lab-based usability evaluation because of its effectiveness in
helping them identify and understand usability problems, their
causes, and solutions.
Usability Engineering
Many HCI practices, such as the employment of usability
specifications and various kinds of evaluation, have been gathered
under the banner of usability engineering (Nielsen, 1993).
This is a good appellation because it includes a concern for cost
in the notion of discount usability methods (Nielsen, 1989),
the practical goal of achieving specifications and not perfection,
and techniques for managing the process. The latter is important
because iterative processes are sometimes perceived by management
as ''going around in circles," which is not attractive to a manager
with a limited budget and dwindling production schedule.
Usability specifications provide this essential management
control for the iterative process. The quantitative usability data
are analyzed in each iteration, and the results are compared with
the usability specifications, allowing management to decide if
iteration can stop. If the specifications are not met, data are
assessed to weigh cost and severity or importance of each usability
problem, assigning a priority ranking for designing and
implementing solutions to those problems that, when fixed, will
give the largest improvement in usability for the least cost.
Development Tools
Almost any software package that provides support for the
interface development process can be called an interface
development tool, a generic term referring to anything from a
complete interface development environment to a single library
routine (Myers, 1989, 1993). New software tools for user interface
development are appearing with increasing frequency.
Interface development tools can be divided into at least four
types (Hix and Hartson, 1993a). Toolkits are libraries of
callable routines for low-level interface features and are often
integrated with window managers (e.g., X, Windows) Interface
style support tools are interactive systems that enforce a
particular interface style and/or standards (e.g., OSF Motif,
Common User Access). User interface management systems
(UIMs) are development environments that can include both
prototyping and run-time support, with the goal of allowing
developers to produce an interface
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implementation without using traditional programming languages.
Of these groups, the UIMSs perhaps are the most interesting, have
the most potential, and suffer the most difficult technical
problems (Myers, 1995).
These first three categories of development tools primarily
address user interface software. A fourth category, interaction
development tools, provides interactive support for user
interaction development. Of all the interaction development
activities, the one most commonly supported by tools in this group
is formative evaluation (Macleod and Bevan, 1993; Hix and Hartson,
1994).
Although tools now exist on many programming platforms to lay
out objects of a user interface quickly and easily, usability
problems are not necessarily addressed by adding this kind of
technology to the process; many interface development tools are
potentially a faster way to produce poor interfaces.
Cost Justification
Economic justification for usability effort in interactive
system development is now beginning to be established (Bias and
Mayhew, 1994). Broad acceptance in business and industry requires
further demonstration of a return on investment; documented cases
and success stories are essential. The bottom line is that
usability engineering does not add to overall cost, for two
reasons: (1) usability does not add as much cost to the development
process as many people think, and (2) good usability saves many
other costs.
Considering cost added to the process, one must realize that any
added cost is confined. Interaction development is a small part of
total system development. It occurs early in the process, when the
cost of making changes is still relatively low, and mainly impacts
only a prototype, not the final system software.
Considering the cost savings attributable to good usability, it
is easy to establish that poor usability is costly and that good
usability is all about lowering costs. Usability is simply good
business. The most expensive operational item in an interactive
system is the user. People who develop software are concerned with
the cost of development, but the people who buy and use a software
application are concerned with the costs of usage. Development
costs are mostly one-time costs, while operational costs-such as
training, productivity losses, help desks and field support,
recovery from user errors, dissatisfied employees, and system
maintenance costs (the cost of trying to fix problems after
release)-accrue for years.
Unless the net of analysis is cast broadly enough, the problem
with cost-benefit analysis is that one group pays development costs
and another group gets the benefits. People who purchase computer
systems
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are asking which costs more: user-based tasks that are quick,
efficient, and accurate or errorprone tasks that take more time?
Confused users or confident and competent users?
Beyond this kind of argumentation, used in software engineering
for years, substantial measurable economic advantage can be accrued
from usability. Case studies have demonstrated that large sums of
real money can be saved by increasing user (employee) productivity
alone (Bias and Mayhew, 1994). In the end, these are the cases that
will make the difference.
The Future
HCI is a relatively young and broadly diverse field with a
rapidly growing impact on the world of computing. Usability,
especially in every-citizen interfaces, is becoming recognized as
crucial for the national information infrastructure. The future of
HCI in this context can be viewed from a perspective of product and
process.
Future of HCI in Products
A rich part of the future of HCI is in its application areas,
which are growing more rapidly than the HCI methods needed for
their development. As an example, it is unlikely that usability
methods developed for desktop applications will apply directly to
virtual environments, one of the most exciting areas of
applications development. Despite intense and widespread research
in virtual environments, very little work has been applied toward
developing the usability methods that will be required to evaluate
this new technology-a necessary coupling if virtual environments
are to reach their full potential. Similarly, groupware and
computer-supported cooperative work (Baecker, 1993; Grudin, 1994),
multimedia (Blattner and Dannenberg, 1992), hypermedia, and
interface access for the disabled or impaired persons (Williges and
Williges, 1995) will require development of new methods for design
and usability evaluation. Educational technology for the classroom,
the World Wide Web, and the home is emerging as a giant application
area. Perhaps nowhere is usability more important than in the
discipline of education, where understanding and communication of
concepts and ideas are the stock and trade.
Finally, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and cyberspace are
incredibly fast-growing application domains bringing new kinds of
usability challenges. The World Wide Web is a technological and
sociological frontier with many analogies to the frontier that was
the American West over a century ago-lawlessness and
disorganization, with exploration and expansion in every
direction.
Studies show that users having trouble with an interactive
system often
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cannot find solutions in user manuals or from on-line help; they
are more likely to ask a friend, colleague, or co-worker for help.
This strategy can work in a local setting where there are other
users. However, users of the national information infrastructure
will often be remote and distributed, using a network as their work
setting. For these isolated users, who are less able to tolerate
poor user interfaces and who will abandon applications they find
too difficult to learn and use, there is often no one to ask when
things go wrong at the computer, and usability will have a large
impact on their productivity and satisfaction. For this large-scale
environment with its diversity of user types and characteristics,
its variety of application types, and potential user isolation,
usability takes on special importance.
Additionally, the interaction styles and techniques of future
products can be expected to expand beyond the currently ubiquitous
WIMP-windows, icons, menus, pointers-or desktop-style interface.
While WIMP interfaces have provided a great step forward for
interfaces in static situations (e.g., word processing,
spreadsheets), innovative interaction techniques that go beyond the
WIMP paradigm are necessary to meet user interface needs of
demanding, real-time, high-performance applications such as those
found in military applications, medical systems, "smart road"
applications, and so on. Researchers are promoting a greatly
expanded vision of interaction beyond the limited interaction
styles now available via just keyboard and mouse, including
extensions to current work in graphic and visual displays (Mullet
and Sano, 1995), use of hands and feet (Buxton, 1986), eye movement
(Jacob, 1993), haptic (touch) feel and force feedback (Baecker et
al., 1995), audio and sound (Brewster et al., 1993; Gaver and
Smith, 1995), voice (McCauley, 1984), and stylus and gesture
(Goldberg and Goodisman, 1995).
Finally, many technology forecasters have predicted that the
most significant area of future applications may be computing
embedded in appliances, homes, offices, vehicles, and roads.
Sometimes called wearable computers, these devices can be
strapped to one's wrist or embedded in a shoe! A recent television
news feature (CNN News, July 1996) described a project at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which a pair of shoes
will, indeed, be instrumented so that, as the wearer gets milk out
for breakfast, sensors will note that the milk supply is getting
low! Approaching the grocery store on the way home, the system
speaks via a tiny earphone to remind the shoe's wearer of the need
to pick up some milk.
The requirements for usability of desktop and other familiar
systems will pale in comparison to the importance of usability in
this new era of computing. That "every citizen" will not tolerate
training courses, user manuals, or on-line help to operate everyday
objects such as refrigerators and automobiles will compel designers
to take seriously their responsibility
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for usability. Issues of social impact carry high risks if this
kind of every-citizen interface is threatening, intimidating, or
difficult to use. In successful designs the computing component
will be transparent, with users not even thinking of themselves as
users of computers. When human factors was first adapted to user
interfaces (e.g., Williges et al., 1987), ergonomics was largely
filtered out. Interestingly, new devices, combining hardware,
software, and firmware as "appliances," will require a
reintegration of ergonomics as a part of usability.
Future of HCI Processes
Developers of future HCI processes will struggle to keep pace
with these new application areas and interaction styles. One area
that is already changing among real-world system developers is the
representation of roles and skills in interactive system
development teams. Usability specialists, human factors engineers,
and HCI practitioners are starting to take their long-overdue
places alongside systems analysts and software engineers. These new
roles imply the need for new kinds of training in HCI methods.
These roles have already begun to be joined by those with technical
writing and documentation skills and especially by those with
graphics and visual design skills (Tufte, 1983; Mullet and Sano,
1995)-for example, to use color effectively (Shubin et al., 1996)
and to design icons, avatars, and rendered images.
It is also expected that a significant increase in future HCI
activity will be applied to developing new methods. There is an
ongoing need for new high-impact usability evaluation methods. High
impact means cost effective, applicable to a wide variety of
application types (e.g., World Wide Web applications), applicable
to many new interaction styles (e.g., virtual environments), and
suitable for gathering usability data from remote and distributed
user communities.
Among the approaches to remote evaluation emerging now, most are
either limited to subjective user feedback (Abelow, 1993) or
require expensive bandwidth to support video conferencing as an
extension of the usability lab (Hammontree et al., 1994). A method
based on user-assisted critical incident gathering (Hartson et al.,
1996) has been proposed to bypass the bandwidth requirements for
full-time video transmission and to cut analysis costs.
Methods and software support tools are also in demand for
boosting return on investment of resources committed to usability
evaluation. Koenemann-Belliveau et al. (1994, p. 250) have
articulated this need: "We should also investigate the potential
for more efficiently leveraging the work we do in empirical
formative evaluation-ways to 'save' something from our efforts for
application in subsequent evaluation work." Most of
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the time results from usability evaluation are applied only to
specific usability problems in a single design. Database tools for
information management of the results would accrue immediate gains
in effective usability problem reporting (Jeffries, 1994; Pernice
and Butler, 1995). More significantly, a usability database tool
would afford some "memory" to the process, amortizing, through
reuse of analysis, the cost of results across design iterations and
across multiple products and projects. Beyond organizational
boundaries, a collective usability database could serve as a
commonly accessible repository of a science base for the HCI
community and as a practical knowledge base for exemplar usability
problems, solutions, and costs.
The future of HCI is both exciting and challenging. In moving
beyond GUIs and in developing new methods, problems continue to
increase. But the promise of these new products and processes will
come to fruition in an every citizen interface for the national
information infrastructure.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Dr. Deborah Hix, of Virginia Tech, for her help
in providing inputs and in reading this paper.
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Position Papers
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POSITION PAPERS
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
user interaction
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