Human Computer Interaction

Figure 1 - Human Computer Interaction

In this week’s lecture we discussed what human computer interaction is. It combines different fields together such as computer science, technical writers, anthropology and sociology. Human computer interaction (HCI) is a full circle, the human is connected to the computer, the computer is connected to interaction and finally, the interaction is connected back to the human. In HCI a person must fail fast so that they can succeed sooner. A person must use a process to understand their design, evaluate --> design --> implement and then back around to evaluate. A person must continue to iterate their design to perfect it (or come as close as possible). 

Human computer interaction can also be used for businesses, entertainment for any type of person (young /old, tech savvy/not tech savvy). It also helps with language barriers for globalization, being able to translate different systems to different types of languages is crucial in order for information to be transmitted across different nations. Small devices are good examples of HCI devices. They store information, entertainment, they are used for communications, measurement (measure how a person moves their phone around) and GPS is used a lot on cell phones. I use my phone everyday not thinking about all the different interactions it allows me to experience because I am so use to having these efficient devices at the tip of my fingers. These devices are user-friendly, they allow people to easily handle the device, they are accessible and intelligible. 

There are five factors of usability: time to learn, speed of errors by users, rate of errors by users, retention over time and subjective satisfaction. Usability is the concept of user friendliness, how well a device cooperates with a user. Usability is very important because we have poor interface design across domains. Medical, police devices and lifesaving systems must be reliable. Usability for these devices are extremely important, nurses and doctors must understand the technology they work with as quickly as possible so that they are worrying more about saving a life and less about how to turn on and use a specific machine. Usability is important for a wide range of people; this is why universal usability is used. Universal usability is defined as things that work for everyone. A person must balance the system so that the majority of the group is fond of it. If you cannot come up with a balanced system then you must make multiple variations of one system. An example of this is the loudness of a person’s ringtone. There is a minimum amount (zero) and a maximum volume (10) and then there’s the middle, where people can decide what is best suited for their needs (1-9).  In a gaming example there is hard, medium and easy difficulties in game levels. Even though there are more versions a game can uses three standard variations. I personally would enjoy a medium-hard difficulty setting because sometimes in a game hard is too hard and medium difficulty is too easy.

Human computer interface is also seen in games. Players must navigate through interfaces in order to play the game. Menus and information space in games use HCI to help design them so that users find them easier to follow. If these things flow well it will help a player have more fun within the game. No one likes being confused while going through a menu system or looking at the heads up display and not being able to follow what is happening. If I had a game that had serious problems in these areas I would probably break the disc. 

Human computer interaction is also seen in gaming controllers. A designer could use natural user interface controllers and touch interaction (such as the Samsung Galaxy) to make a controller easy to use and make the game more enjoyable. I believe a really easy and fun controller that is used a lot today is the Ipad touch controller. For certain games on the Ipad a player uses the touch screen to control player movement and action buttons like shooting or punching. It is really fun and easy to use and this is why people who use the Ipad can enjoy video games with the touch controller for hours on end. The study of playing a game and how to measure fun can be done by looking at game usability. This is a very useful tool because it helps to determine if the game is learnable, fun to play and memorable. You can also evaluate player experience, this looks at the design of the game and the correlation it has with the player. The three things to look at are design <--> game <--> player and then back to design. If you look at the relationship between design and game you should look at the playability relationship and if you look at the relationship between game and player you would look at the actual effect of the game on the player and the player experience relationships. By evaluating the player experience a person can determine what makes the game fun and interesting from a player’s eye. It helps determine if the game is playable and if the experience a player is having is actual the reaction you want them to feel. 

Evaluating player experience can sometimes be hard to do. There are workshops people can attend that help them break down what they are looking at in order to determine player experience.

“The main goals of the workshop and the expected outcomes are:

1. To create synergies between game design issues and player experience measures.
2. To identify better and more usable ways to measure the player experience in different interactive entertainment contexts, across academia and industry.
3. To enhance the evaluation methodologies typical of games-oriented HCI, for example by including an accessible use of psychophysiological and behavioral measurements.
4. To identify challenges in using psychophysiological and behavioral measurement in in-situ evaluations and ex-situ evaluations.
5. To explore the synergy between psychophysiological methods, user telemetry and metrics, and other game-user research evaluation approaches.” (Nacke, 2011)

The picture below shows a user experience design. As you can see it is broken down into several subsections such as visual deisgn and interaction design. All these different branches help determine a user experience design (it is not only used for gaming). 

Figure 2 - “Variety of disciplinary knowledge and skills involved in contemporary design of human-computer interactions.” (Carroll, 2012)

Some questions to consider when looking at human computer interactions are:

Can these new types of gaming technologies be built toward a large enough target audience so that older generations can have the same user experience that a young child might receive from the same console?

Can universal usability be applied to the gaming world in the sense that older people, people with physical challenges and avid game users can all experience a fun and exciting game using the same system and interface?

Personal experiences with human computer interaction

A very memorable experience I had with HCI in games is Mario Party for the Wii. The game is really fun because of its interface. The board game layout, the different actions a player must take in order to win a game and the design keeps the gaming flowing and allows users to have fun with the playability of the game, Mario Party will leave a long lasting experience on the player because of these great attributes.  

Figure 3 - Mario Party in game action

Work Cited

Nacke, Lennart . "2nd International Workshop on Evaluating Player Experience in Games (epex11) » Foundations of Digital Games Conference Workshop 2011 » Evaluating Player Experience in Games (epex11) Workshop Call for Papers." 2nd International Workshop on Evaluating Player Experience in Games (epex11) . N.p., 28 June 2011. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. <http://playability.affectivegaming.info/fdg2011/evaluating-player-experience-in-games-fdg-workshop-call-for-papers/>. 

Figure 1

"Career Hubs | SmartGirl." SmartGirl. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. <http://www.smartgirl.org/brain-food/career-hubs/human-computer-interaction.html>. 

Figure 2

Carroll, John. "Human Computer Interaction (HCI)." Interaction Design Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. <http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/human_computer_interaction_hci.html>. 

Figure 3

"Mario Party 8 - Wii Reviews | MMGN Australia." Wii Game Reviews, Forums, Videos, News, Cheats and more | MMGN Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2013. <http://wii.mmgn.com/Reviews/Mario-Party-8-HE4>.