MS2306NEW MEDIA RESEARCH CONCEPTS & METHODOLOGIES

Lecture two The Three

Paradigms of HCI

•Lecture Notes http://ms2306.blogspot.com/

Locating Our Research in the Three Paradigms of HCI

1. Ergonomics and Engineering• Making things and people work

2. Cognitive Science • Human-computer information processes• Mind-computer metaphor

3. Situated Perspectives (user experiences)• Context• Learning• Ambience• Emotion & Affect

Paper by Harrison, Tatar & Sengers Proceedings from ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems http://people.cs.vt.edu/~srh/Downloads/TheThreeParadigmsofHCI.pdf

First Paradigm Ergonomics and Engineering

• Considers “interaction as a form of man-machine coupling in ways inspired by industrial engineering and ergonomics.” Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

First Paradigm Ergonomics and Engineering

• “… optimize the fit between humans and machines.”

• “… identifying problems in coupling and developing pragmatic solutions to them.” Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

A practical dimension?

Practical Engineering Research

• Human factors = error-free use of the increasingly complex control systems (of planes e.g.)

• “It was, in origin, a-theoretic and entirely pragmatic.”

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers Proceedings from ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems http://people.cs.vt.edu/~srh/Downloads/TheThreeParadigmsofHCI.pdf

Atheoretic? Scientific Management

The user as a cog in the machine (MS3305)

HCI• Preece sees Taylorism as an

influential, but problematic and outmoded precursor to HCI (pp. 190-191)

• Taylorism “assumes that workers are like machines”

• Requires more sociotechnical approach that considers workers’ perceptions

Second Paradigm

• “... organized around a central metaphor of mind and computer as coupled information processors.”

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

• Underpinned by Cognitive Psychology

Second ParadigmCognitive Processes

• How does information get in?

• What transformations does it undergo?

• How does it go out again?

• How can it be communicated efficiently?

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers Proceedings from ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems http://people.cs.vt.edu/~srh/Downloads/TheThreeParadigmsofHCI.pdf

Why are cognitive processes important to usability?

• How people perceive and interpret a task

• What they pay attention to• How they become aware• How they process

experiences mentally• How they remember

(memory)• How they make choices and

decisions

Mental Models

Further Reading Mental Models in Usability

Usability Gurus

Donald Norman

The Mind and Decisions to Act

Donald Norman

External world processed internally

Mind Processing

Pragmatic Design Problem

Figure 1 (adapted from Norman (1988) p. 16): The problem of ensuring that the user's mental model corresponds to the designer's model arises because the designer does not talk directly with the user. The designer can only talk to the user through the "system image" - the designer's materialised mental model. The system image is, like a text, open to interpretation. From article in Interaction Design .Org

Mental Models and Walkthroughs

Question?

• Are decisions solely based on how the mind processes information?

What’s missing from old HCI paradigms?

Somatic nervous system & external inputs other than “information”

What’s missing from old HCI paradigms?

Problems with Cognitive Rationality

• “Left at the margin are phenomena that are difficult to assimilate to information processing, such as…”

• How people feel about interaction

• The place of a particular interaction

• Elusive and enigmatic aspects of everyday life such as “what is fun?

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

Emotions

• “likely to be under-recognized and, when recognized, are likely to be seen as holding little legitimacy for investigation and design.”

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

What constitutes the third paradigm

1. New [pervasive] contexts

2. Learning environments

3. Ambient interfaces4. Emotion and AffectHarrison, Tatar, Sengers

Pervasive ComputingUbiquitous Computing (ubicomp)

Context & Ubicomp• “Current work in ubiquitous

and pervasive computing brings the dynamic use context of computing into central focus.”

Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

• “Approaches to ubicomp. . . derive from disciplines such as ethnography.” Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

Ambient Interfaces

Non-task-oriented computing

• “… difficult… to apply usability studies to ambient interfaces, since standard evaluation techniques are ‘task-focused’ in the sense of asking users to pay attention to and evaluate the interface, precisely what the system is devised to avoid.”

• Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

TransformingLearning Environments

TransformingLearning Environments

• “Tutorial programs that supplant the classroom are quite consistent with the second paradigm, tying learning tightly to information transfer, but ‘information transfer’ is a limited understanding both of what teachers mean by ‘learning’ and of what it takes to help learning happen in a sustained way.” Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

Take a look at this level 3 projecthttp://www.affect-ed.com

Affect & Emotional Design• “A set of issues arise out

of the marginalization of emotion in classic cognitive work. A wide range of approaches to emotion, notably those of Picard (1997) and Norman (2004), has been inspired by recent cognitive psychology, which argues that emotion plays a central role in cognition and models emotional exchange as a type of information flow.” Harrison, Tatar, Sengers

“Until recently, emotion was an ill-explored part of human psychology.”

“Most thought of emotions as a problem to be overcome by rational, logical thinking.”

Norman, D. A. (2004) Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. Read 1st Chapter

Norman, D. A. (2004) Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. Read 1st Chapter

“… emotions play a critical role in daily lives, helping assess situations as good or bad, safe or dangerous… emotions aid in decision making.”

“Positive emotions are critical to learning, curiosity and creative thought… being happy broadens the thought processes and facilitates creative thinking.”

Processing Experience

Norman’s model extends to the emotional context of use

Behavioural• Functionality

• What does it do, how is it used?

• Understandability• How people use the product –

how the product feeds back to the user (buttons, lights, bleeps etc)

• Usability – • All about use, performance…

testing use with prototypes

Visceral (wired in)– Signals from the environment

enter senses

– What’s beautiful? – my iPad?

– What’s ugly? – visceral negative

– Studied by putting people in front of a design and asking for response

Reflective• About message, value judgements (I

want the original)

• Influenced by cultural and societal taste (learned)

• Acquired taste (ugly can be good – reflective positive)

• Designers reflect on what is beautiful

• Consumers reflect on what is beautiful

• Attractiveness (shape) = visceral

• Beauty (prestige, rarity, exclusiveness)= reflective

Reading

Shinkle (2005), “Feel It, Don’t Think: the Significance of Affect in the Study of Digital Games,” Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – Worlds in Play. http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06276.00216.pdf

Seminar 2 on Experiences

• http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/user_experience_and_experience_design.html

• Watch Video 3.1: introduction to User Experience and Experience Design.

• Discuss• Watch Video 3.2: Marc's advice on designing with

experience in mind. • Discuss