CS6008 HUMAN COMUTER INTERACTION

UNIT I

FOUNDATIONS OF HCI

The Human: I/O Channels Memory Reasoning and Problem Solving; The Computer:
Devices Memory Processing and Networks; Interaction: Models Frameworks
Ergonomics Styles Elements Interactivity- Paradigms.

1.Expand and define HCI.

HCI (human-computer interaction) is the study of how people interact with computers
and to what extent computers are or are not developed for successful interaction with
human beings.

HCI involves design, implementation and evaluation of interactive systems in the

context of user's task and work.

2.What are the two stages of visual perception?

The two stages of visual perception: i) physical reception of stimulus from outside world
ii) Processing and interpretation of that stimulus.

3.Draw the diagram of human eye.

4.Differentiate between short-term and long-term memory.

Short term

i) Contains limited amount of

information.
ii) Receives information
from either the
senses or long term memory.

Long-term

i) Contains unlimited amount of

information.
ii)
Receives information from short term
through learning process.

5.Define mental model.

A mental model is a set of beliefs of how a system works?. Users act with the systems based on
these beliefs and develop a mental model based on these interactions.
6. List out the various types of reasoning.

Deductive reasoning
Inductive Reasoning
Abductive Reasoning

7. Write short notes on Inductive reasoning.

The process of deriving general idea for the unseen cases from the various cases.
Example: if every dog we have ever seen has a tail, we infer that all dogs have tails.
It is a useful process which uses only positive evidence. We can prove that inference is false by producing
a negative evidence i.e., a dog without a tail for the above example.

8. What are slips and mistakes?

A slip tends to occur in those cases where the user does have the right mental model but accidentally does
the wrong thing.
A mistake is where the user has the wrong mental model. Designers can prevent these mistakes from
occurring by providing better feedback and by clearly outlining the options available to the user.

9. What are the different types of dot-based printers?

dot-matrix printers
o use inked ribbon (like a typewriter
o Line of pins that can strike the ribbon, dotting the paper.
o typical resolution 80-120 dpi
ink-jet and bubble-jet printers
o tiny blobs of ink sent from print head to paper
o Typically 300 dpi or better.
Laser printer
o like photocopier: dots of electrostatic charge deposited on drum, which picks up
toner (black powder form of ink) rolled onto paper which is then fixed with heat.
o Typically 600 dpi or better.

10. What are the two sorts of scanners?

The first one is flat-bed: paper placed on a glass plate, whole page converted into bitmap and
second one is hand-held: scanner passed over paper, digitising strip typically 3-4" wide.
11. Mention the types of computer memory.
Memory is primarily of three types, (i) Cache Memory (ii) Primary Memory/Main Memory
(iii) Secondary Memory
12. List out the advantages and disadvantages of Cache memory.
Advantages: The advantages of cache memory are as follows:

Cache memory is faster than main memory.

It consumes less access time as compared to main memory.
It stores data for temporary use.

Disadvantages

Cache memory has limited capacity.

It is very expensive.

13. Briefly describe the characteristics of main memory.

Characteristics of Main Memory

It is known as semiconductor memory.

Data is lost in case power is switched off.
Faster than secondary memories

14. What are the limitations on Interactive performance?

Limitations on Interactive performance:
Computation bound

Computation takes ages. causing frustration for the user

Storage channel hound

Bottleneck in transference of data from disk to memory

Graphics bound

Common bottleneck: updating displays requires a lot of effort - sometimes helped by

adding a graphics co-processor optimized to take on the burden.

15.Write short notes on Ergonomics.

Ergonomics are good at defining standards and guidelines for constraining the way we design
certain aspects of systems.

Examples: arrangement of controls and displays.

16.Give a diagrammatic representation of interaction framework.

17. List out the 7 stages of Norman's Execution-Evaluation cycle

Establishing the goal

Forming the intention
Specifying the action sequence
Executing the action
Perceiving the system state
Interpreting the system state
Evaluating the system state with respect to the goals and intentions

18.Mention the common interaction styles.

Common interaction styles are:

Command line interface

Menus
Natural language
Question/answer and query dialogue
Form-fills and spreadsheets
Wimp
Point and click
Threedimensional interfaces

19. Give short notes on different kinds of menus.

Kinds of Menus:

Menu bar at top of screen (normally), menu drags down

o Pull-down menu - mouse hold and drag down menu
o Drop-down menu - mouse click reveals menu
o Fall-down menus - mouse just moves over bar!
Contextual menu appears where you are
o Pop-up menus - actions for selected object
o Pie menus - arranged in a circle
Easier to select item (larger target area)
Quicker (same distance to any option)

20. Write down the examples of Paradigm Shifts.

Examples are:

Batch processing
Timesharing
Networking
Graphical display
Microprocessor
WWW
Ubiquitous Computing

21.List out the types of human memory.

Sensory memory
Short term memory
Long Term Memory

22.Define Analogical mapping.

Mapping knowledge related to a similar known domain to the new problem domain is called
analogical mapping.

23.Give short notes on Skill acquisition.

Skill acquisition deals with problem solving by gradually acquiring skills in a particular domain.

Unconscious incompetence
Conscious incompetence
Conscious competence
Unconscious competence

24.Write down few uses of any one text entry device.

Touchpad

They are small touch sensitive tablets and requires several strokes to move the cursor
across the screen.
used mainly in laptops
fast stroke
o Lots of pixels per inch moved
o Initial movement to the target
slow stroke
o Fewer pixels per inch moved
o For accurate positioning

25. Briefly describe about Liquid Crystal Display Liquid.

Crystal Displays are smaller, lighter, and doesn't have radiation problems. It is found on PDAs,
portables and notebooks and increasingly on desktop and even for home TV and also used in
dedicated displays: digital watches, mobile phones, Hi-Fi controls.

Part B
1. Explain in detail about Human Input and Output Channels. (8 Marks)

The Human: Input- Output Channels

A person interacts with outside world through information being received and sent: input and
output.
A user interacts with the computer by receiving information that is output by computer and
responds by providing input to the computer: user's output becomes computer's input and
vice versa.
Input in the human occurs mainly through the senses and output through the effectors or
responders.
Five major senses are Vision, hearing, Touch, Taste and Smell. Five major effectors are
Limbs, Fingers, Eyes, Head and Vocal systems.
Interaction with computer is possible through Input-Output channels such as using a GUI
based computer, information received by sight, beeps received by ear, feel keyboard and
mouse using fingers.
1. Vision
2. Reading
3. Hearing
4. Touch
5. Movement

I. Vision
Human vision is a highly complex activity with physical and perceptual limitations.
Two stages of visual perception:
o Physical reception of stimulus from outside world.
o Processing and interpretation of that stimulus. Eye is a physical receptor.
Human Eye Image formation
The cornea and lens focuses light into a sharp image on back of the eye, retina.
The retina is light sensitive and contains two types of photoreceptor: rods and cones.
Rods are sensitive to light and allow us to see under a low level of illumination. However,
they are unable to resolve fine detail and are subject to light saturation. This is the cause for
temporary blindness we get when moving from a darkened room into sunlight. There are
approximately 120 million rods per eye and situated towards the edges of retina.
Cones are less sensitive to light and can tolerate more light when compared to rods. There
are 3 types of cone each sensitive to a different wavelength allowing color vision. The eye
has approximately 6 million cones, mainly concentrated on fovea, a small area of retina
where images are fixated.
There is a blind spot where optic nerve enters the eye and has no rods or cones, yet our
visual system compensates for it.
Specialized nerve cells called ganglion cells. The two types are: X cells concentrated in
fovea and responsible for early detection of pattern whereas Y cells widely distributed in the
retina and responsible for early detection of movement.

Visual perception
Visual perception involves how we perceive size, depth, brightness and color, perception of
brightness and perceiving color.
Capabilities and limitations of visual processing
Visual processing allows transformation and interpretation of a complete image.
It creates Context illusion, over compensation illusion, proof reading illusion, lines and
optical center illusion.

II. Reading
There are three stages in the reading process.
o First, the visual pattern of the word on the page is perceived.
o It is then decoded with reference to an internal representation of language.
The final stages of language processing include syntactic and semantic analysis and operate
on phrases or sentences.

III Hearing
The sense of hearing is often considered secondary to sight, but we tend to underestimate the
amount of information that we receive through our ears.
The human ear

Hearing begins with vibrations in the air or sound waves.

The ear comprises three sections, commonly known as the outer ear, middle ear and
inner ear.

Sound is changes or vibrations in air pressure and has a number of characteristics such
as pitch, loudness and type of sound.

The human ear can hear frequencies from about 20 Hz to 15 KHz.

The auditory system performs some filtering of the sounds received, allowing us to
ignore background noise and concentrate on important information.

IV. Touch

The third and last of the senses that we will consider is touch or haptic perception.
Touch provides us with vital information about our environment.
It tells us when we touch something hot or cold, and can therefore act as a warning.
We receive stimuli through the skin.
The skin contains three types of sensory receptor: thermo receptors respond to heat and
cold. nociceptors respond to intense pressure, heat and pain, and mechanoreceptors respond
to pressure.

V. Movement
A simple action such as hitting a button in response to a question involves a number of
processing stages.
The stimulus is received through the sensory receptors and transmitted to the brain.
The question is processed-and a valid response generated. The brain then tells the
appropriate muscles to respond.
Each of these stages takes time, which can be roughly divided into reaction time and
movement time.
Movement time is dependent largely on the physical characteristics of the subjects: their age
and fitness. Reaction time varies according to the sensory channel through which the stimulus is
received.
Speed and accuracy of movement are important considerations in the design of interactive
systems, primarily in terms of the time taken to move to a particular target on a screen. The
target may be a button, a menu item or an icon.
One common form is

Movement time = a + b log2(distance/size + 1)

where a and b are empirically determined constants.
2.

Explain in detail about Human Memory Systems? (8 Marks)

Human Memory
Memory contains our knowledge of actions or procedures.
It allows us to repeat actions, to use language, and to use new information received via our
senses.
It also gives us our sense of identity, by preserving information from our past experiences.

Types of Memory
They are three types of memory,
Sensory Memory
Short Term Memory or Working Memory
Long-Term Memory
I. Sensory Memory
Sensory memory is the shortest term element of memory.
It is the ability to retain impressions of sensory information after the original stimuli have
ended.
It acts as a kind of buffer for stimuli received through the five senses of sight, hearing,
smell, taste and touch retained accurately but for a flick of seconds.
o The sensory memory for visual stimuli is known as iconic memory.
o The memory for aural stimuli is known as echoic memory.
o The memory for touch is known as haptic memory.
o Example Firework displays where moving sparklers leave a persistent image in
the order of 0.5 seconds.

II. Short Term Memory or Working Memory

Short-term memory can be defined as the ability to remember an insubstantial amount of
information for a short period of time.
o Example when someone is given a phone number and is forced to memorize it
because there is no way to write it down.
o Also look at the following sequence, 265397620853 and now look at this sequence
4411 3245 8920. Which one is easier to remember?
o Chunking of information can lead to an increase in the short-term memory capacity.
Chunking is the organization of material into shorter meaningful groups to make
them more manageable.
o Example A hyphenated phone number, split into groups of 3 or 4 digits, tends to
be easier to remember than a single long number;

III. Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is intended for the long-term storage of information.

Long-term memory structure

There are two types of long-term memory:
o Episodic memory
o Semantic memory

 Episodic memory represents our memory of events and experiences in a serial form. An
example would be a memory of our 1st day at school.
Semantic memory structured record of facts, concepts and skills that we have acquired.
For example, London is the capital of England. It involves conscious thought and is
declarative.

Models of LTM Frames

It is Information organized in data structures.
It Slots in structure instantiated with values for instance of data.
Type - subtype relationships.

Models of LTM Production rules

It Represents procedural knowledge.
Condition/ action rules If condition matches, then use rule to determine action.

3. List out and explain the various types of Reasoning and Problem solving
with an example. (8 Mark)
Reasoning and Problem Solving
A. Reasoning
The process by which we use the knowledge to derive conclusions is known as reasoning.

Types

Deductive reasoning

Inductive Reasoning

Abductive reasoning
I. Deductive reasoning
It derives logically necessary conclusion from the given premises.
Example
o If it is Monday then she will go to office.
o It is Monday
o Therefore she will go to office.

II. Inductive Reasoning

The process of deriving_ general idea for the unseen cases from the various cases which we have
seen so far.
Example
o If every dog we have ever seen has a tail, we infer that all dogs have tails.
o It is a useful process which uses only positive evidence. We can prove that inference is
false by producing a negative evidence i.e., a dog without a tail for the above example.
III. Abductive reasoning
It is a form of logical inference in which we can extract a theory from an observation.
Example
o The doctor hears her patient's symptoms including shortnes of breath on cold days and
while doing exercise. Thus we can abduce that the best explanation of these symptoms is
that her patient is an asthma sufferer.

B. Problem Solving
The process of finding a solution to a problem through the information, knowledge and skills we
have.
Gestalt Theory
Problem Space Theory
Analogy in Problem Solving

I. Gestalt Theory
According to this theory, problem solving is a process of reproducing known responses or use of
trial and error concept.
The two types are Productive and Reproductive.
Productive problem solving is deriving a solution from previous experience whereas
Reproductive problem solving involves insight and restructuring of the problem.
Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a
group or pattern.
The example below (containing 11 distinct objects) appears as as single unit because all of the
shapes have similarity. Unity occurs because the triangular shapes at the bottom of the eagle
symbol look similar to the shapes that form the sunburst. This is called anomaly.

II. Problem Space Theory

This theory was introduced by Newell and Simon where problem solving focuses on the
problem space which consists of problem states.
It involves generating these states using legal state transition operators.
The problem has an initial state, all the states in between and a final or goal state.
Operators are used by people to perform transition from one state to another.
It can be performed by a method known as Means-End Analysis.
(a) Means-End Analysis
Compare current state with goal state. If there is no difference between them problem is solved.
If there is a difference between current and goal state, set a goal to solve that difference. If there
is more than one difference, set a goal to solve the largest difference.
Select an operator to solve the difference of step 2.
If the operator can be applied, apply it. If it cannot, set a new goal to reach a state that would
allow application of operator.
Return to step 1 with new goal set in step 4.
Example Tower of Hanoi problem.
III. Analogy in Problem Solving
Mapping knowledge related to a similar known domain to the new probler domain is called
analogical mapping.
Operators are transferred from known domain to the new domain.
Example A general wants to attack a fortress. He can't send his entire arm, as the roads are
mined to explode if large numbers of men pass over then: Therefore the general devises a simple
plan. He divides his armies into smal groups and dispatches each group to the head of a different
road so that emir, army arrived together at the fortress at the same time. In this way, the genera
captured the fortress.

4. Give notes on the A. Skill Acquisition. B. Errors and Mental Models. (6

Mark)
A. Skill Acquisition
Skill acquisition deals with problem solving by gradually acquiring skills in a particular domain.

1. Unconscious incompetence It is the first stage where we don't know much about the skills
and also we don't know how much we don't know. We have a very basic understanding of the
skill.
2. Conscious incompetence It is the stage where we have learned enough about the skill to
realize how little we know.
3. Conscious competence It is the stage where we find ourselves able to perform the skill
increasingly well but it takes lot of concentration and hard work to do so.
4. Unconscious competence It is the stage where our ability to perform the skill has become
almost second nature and need less conscious effort.

B. Errors and Mental Models

The common errors are slips and mistakes.
A slip tends to occur in those cases where the user does have the right mental model but
accidentally does the wrong thing.
A mistake is where the user has the wrong mental model. Designers can prevent these mistakes
from occurring by providing better feedback and by clearly outlining the options available to the
user.
A mental model is a set of beliefs of how a system works. Users act with the systems based on
these beliefs and develop a mental model based on these interactions.

5. Explain in detail about The Computer-Devices. (16 Mark)

The Computer
A computer system is made up of various elements and each of these elements affects the
interaction.

Devices

Text Entry Devices

Positioning, Pointing and Drawing

Display Devices

Devices for Virtual Reality and 3d Interaction

Paper: Printing and Scanning

5 a. Explain in detail about Text Entry Devices in Devices. (8 Mark)

Text Entry Devices
The Alphanumeric Keyboard
Chord Keyboards
Phone Pad and T9 Entry
Handwriting Recognition
Speech Recognition
I. The Alphanumeric Keyboard

Most common text input device.

Allows rapid entry of text by experienced users.
Keypress closes connection, causing a character code to be sent.
Usually connected by cable, but can be wireless.

QWERTY keyboard

Standardised layout but,

o Non-alphanumeric keys are placed differently,
o Accented symbols needed for different scripts,
o Minor differences between UK and USA keyboards.
QWERTY arrangement not optimal for typing
o Layout to prevent typewriters jamming .
Alternative designs allow faster typing but large social base of QWERTY typists produces
reluctance to change.

II. Chord Keyboards

Chord keyboards are significantly different from normal alphanumeric keyboards.
Only a few keys, four or five, are used (see Figure 2.4) and letters are produced by pressing one
or more of the keys at once.
For example, in the Microwriter, the pattern of multiple keypresses is chosen to reflect the
actual letter shape.

III. Phone Pad and T9 Entry

It use numeric keys with multiple presses.

With mobile phones being used for SMS text messaging and WAP the phone keypad has
become an important form of text input.

IV. Handwriting Recognition

Handwriting is a common and familiar activity, and is therefore attractive as a method of
text entry.
If we were able to write as we would when we use paper, but with the computer taking this form
of input and converting it to text, we can see that it is an intuitive and simple way of interacting
with the computer.

V. Speech Recognition
Speech recognition is a promising area of text entry, but it has been promising for a
number of years and is still only used in very limited situations.

 There is a natural enthusiasm for being able to talk to the machine and have it respond to
commands, since this form of interaction is one with which we are very familiar.

5 b. Explain in detail about Positioning, Pointing and Drawing in Devices.

(8 Mark)
Positioning, Pointing and Drawing
Pointing devices allow the user to point, position and select items, either directly or by
manipulating a pointer on the screen.
Many pointing devices can also be used for free-hand drawing although the skill of drawing with
a mouse is very different from using a pencil.

Mouse
Touchpad
Trackball and Thumbwheel
Joystick and Keyboard Nipple
Touch-Sensitive Screens
Stylus and Light Pen
Digitizing Tablet
Eyegaze

I. Mouse
It is Handheld pointing device.
o very common
o easy to use
o Two characteristics - planar movement & buttons.

II. Touchpad
They are small touch sensitive tablets and requires several strokes to move the cursor across the
screen.
It is used mainly in laptops.
It is fast stroke,
o Lots of pixels per inch moved.
o Initial movement to the target.
It is slow stroke,
o Fewer pixels per inch moved
o For accurate positioning

III. Trackball and Thumbwheel

Trackball
Ball is rotated inside static housing like an upside down mouse.

It relative motion moves cursor.

It is indirect device, fairly accurate.
It is separate buttons for picking.
It very fast for gaming.
It is used in some portable and notebook computers.

Thumbwheels
For accurate CAD two dials for X-Y cursor position.
For fast scrolling single dial on mouse.

IV. Joystick and Keyboard Nipple

Joystick
Indirect input device taking up very little space.
Two types of joystick: the absolute and the isometric.
o In the absolute joystick, movement is the important characteristic whereas in the
isometric joystick. The pressure on the stick corresponds to the velocity of the cursor.
Often used for computer games, aircraft controls and 3D navigation.

Keyboard nipple
Controls the rate of movement across the screen.

V. Touch-Sensitive Screens
The touch screen is very fast, and requires no specialized pointing device.
It is especially good for selecting items from menus displayed on the screen.
They work in one of a number of different ways: by the finger (or stylus) interrupting a matrix of
light beams, or by capacitance changes on a grid overlaying the screen, or by ultrasonic
reflections.

VI. Stylus and Light Pen

Stylus
It is small pen-like pointer to draw directly on screen.
It may use touch sensitive surface or magnetic detection.
It is used in PDA, tablets PCs and drawing tables.

Light Pen
It now rarely used.
It uses light from screen to detect location.

VII. Digitizing tablet

Mouse like-device with cross hairs.
It is used on special surface.
It very accurate and used for digitizing maps.

VIII. Eyegaze
Eyegaze systems allow you to control the computer by simply looking at it! Some systems
require you to wear special glasses or a small head-mounted box, others are built into the screen
or sit as a small box below the screen.

5 C. Explain in detail about Display Devices in Devices. (8 Mark)

Display Devices

Bitmap Displays
Technologies
o Cathode Ray Tube
o Liquid Crystal Display
Large Displays
Digital Paper

I. Bitmap Displays

Display is made of vast numbers of colored dots or pixels in a rectangular grid.

These pixels may be limited to black and white.
The two things to consider-total number of pixels and the density of pixels.
Aspect ratio - ration between width and height i.e. 4:3 for most screens, 16:9 for wide-screen
TV.
Anti-aliasing
o Softens edges by using shades of line colour.
o It is also used for text.

II. Technologies
1. Cathode Ray Tube
It is Stream of electrons emitted from electron gun, focused and directed by magnetic fields, hit
phosphor-coated screen which glows.
It is used in TVs and computer monitors.

2. Liquid Crystal Display

It Smaller, lighter, and no radiation problems.
Found on PDAs, portables and notebooks and increasingly on desktop and evenvfor home TV
It also used in dedicated displays: digital watches, mobile phones, HiFi controls

III. Large Displays

It is Used for meetings, lectures, etc.
The technology used are,
o plasma usually wide screen
o video walls lots of small screens together
o projected RGB lights or LCD projector

IV. Digital Paper

A new form of display that is still in its infancy is the various forms of digital paper.
These are thin flexible materials that can be written to electronically, just like a computer screen,
but which keep their contents even when removed from any electrical supply.

5 D. Explain in detail about Devices for Virtual Reality and 3d Interaction

in Devices. (8 Mark)
Virtual Reality and 3d Interaction

Positioning in 3D Space

3D Displays

I. Positioning in 3D Space
cockpit and virtual controls
o Steering wheels, knobs and dials ... just like real!
the 3D mouse
o six-degrees of movement: x, y, z + roll, pitch, yaw

 data glove
o fibre optics used to detect finger position
VR helmets
o detect head motion and possibly eye gaze
whole body tracking
o accelerometers strapped to limbs or reflective dots and video processing

II. 3D displays
Desktop VR
o ordinary screen, mouse or keyboard control
o perspective and motion give 3D effect
Seeing in 3D
o use stereoscopic vision
o VR helmets
Screen plus shuttered specs, etc.

5 E. Explain in detail about Devices for Paper: Printing and Scanning

in Devices. (8 Mark)
Paper: Printing and Scanning
Printing

It is image made from small dots.

It allows any character set or graphic to be printed.
It critical features:resolution, size and spacing of the dots, measured in dots per inch (dpi), speed.
It is usually measured in pages per minute.

Types of dot-based printers

dot-matrix printers
o it use inked ribbon (like a typewriter)
o Line of pins that can strike the ribbon, dotting the paper.
o It typical resolution 80-120 dpi.
ink-jet and bubble-jet printers
o Tiny blobs of ink sent from print head to paper.
o Typically 300 dpi or better.
laser printer
o Like photocopier: dots of electrostatic charge deposited on drum, which picks up toner
(black powder form of ink) rolled onto paper which is then fixed with heat.
o Typically 600 dpi or better.

Scanning
Two sorts of scanner
Flat-bed: paper placed on a glass plate, whole page converted into bitmap.
Hand-held: scanner passed over paper, digitising strip typically 3-4" wide.

6. Explain in detail about The Computer Memory. (8 Mark)

Memory
A memory is just like a human brain.
It is used to store data and instructions.
Computer memory is the storage space in computer where data is to be processed and
instructions required for processing are stored.
The memory is divided into large number of small parts called cells. Each location
or cell has a unique address which varies from zero to memory size minus one.
Types of Memory
Cache Memory
Primary Memory/Main Memory
Secondary Memory

I. Cache Memory
Cache memory is a very high speed semiconductor memory which can speed up CPU.
It acts as a buffer between the CPU and main memory.
It is used to hold those parts of data and program which are most frequently used by CPU.

Advantages
The advantages of cache memory are as follows,
o Cache memory is faster than main memory.
o It consumes less access time as compared to main memory.
o It stores data for temporary use.

Disadvantages
o Cache memory has limited capacity.
o It is very expensive.

II. Primary Memory/Main Memory

Primary memory holds only those data and instructions on which computer is currently working.
It has limited capacity and data is lost when power is switched off.
It is divided into two subcategories RAM and ROM.

Characteristics of Main Memory

These are semiconductor memories.
o It is known as main memory.
o Data is lost in case power is switched off.
o Faster than secondary memories

III. Secondary Memory

This type of memory is also known as external memory or non-volatile.

It is slower than main memory.
These are used for storing data/Information permanently.
CPU directly does not access these memories instead they are accessed via input-output routines.

Characteristic of Secondary Memory

These are magnetic and optical memories
o It is known as backup memory. It is non-volatile memory.
o Data is permanently stored even if power is switched off.

7. Explain in detail about The Computer Processing and Networks. (8 Mark)

Processing and Networks
Computers that run interactive programs will process in the order of 100 million instructions per
second.
Effects of Finite Processor Speed
Limitations n Interactive Performance
Networked Computing

I. Effects of Finite Processor Speed

Speed of processing can seriously affect the user interface.
These effects must be taken into account when designing an interactive system.
There are two sorts of faults due to processing speed: those when it is too slow, and those when
it is too fast.

II. Limitations n Interactive Performance

Computation bound
Computation takes ages, causing frustration for the user`
Storage channel bound
Bottleneck in transference of data from disk to memory.
Graphics bound
Common bottleneck: updating displays requires a lot of effort
helped by adding a graphics co-processor optimised to take on the burden.

sometimes

Network capacity
Most computers are linked by networks. At the simplest this can mean using shared files on a
remote machine.
When accessing such files it can be the speed of the network rather than that of the memory
which limits performance.

III. Networked Computing

Networks allow access to,
o large memory and processing
o other people (groupware, email)
o shared resources esp. the web
Issues
o network delays slow feedback
o conflicts - many people update data
o unpredictability

8. What is interaction? Write short notes on (a) interaction models, (b)

interaction frameworks (c) Ergonomics. (16 Mark)
Interaction
Interaction involves at least two participants system and user.
Both are complex and very different from each other in the way they communicate and view the
domain and tasks.

(A) Interaction Models

The executionevaluation cycle
Norman's model of interaction cycle can be divided into 2 major phases execution and
evaluation and further subdivided into 7 stages.
o Establishing the goal the user forms a goal by his idea of the needs in task language.
o Forming the intention the goal is translated to more specific intention.
o Specifying the action sequence specification of actual actions to reach the goal.
o Executing the action execution of the actual actions.
o Perceiving the system state the user perceives the new state of the system.
o Interpreting the system state interprets it in terms of his expectations.
o Evaluating the system state with respect to the goals and intentions If the user's
goal is accomplished then the interaction is successful otherwise the user need to
establish a new goal and repeat the cycle.

Some systems are harder to use than others,

o Gulf of Execution user's formulation of actions is not equal to actions allowed by the
system.
o Gulf of Evaluation user's expectation of changed system state is not equal to actual
presentation of this state.

(b) Interaction Frameworks

Abowd and Beale framework has 4 parts- user, input, system and output.
Each has its own unique language. The user intentions are,
o Translated into actions at the interface.
o Translated into alterations of system state.
o Reflected in the output display.
o Interpreted by the user.
It is a general framework for understanding interaction are,
o Not restricted to electronic-computer systems.
o Identifies all major components involved in interaction.
o Allows comparative assessment of systems.
o An abstraction.

(c) Ergonomics
Study of the physical characteristics of interaction.
Ergonomics are good at defining standards and guidelines for constraining the way we design
certain aspects of systems.
Arrangement of controls and displays
o e.g. controls grouped according to function or frequency of use, or sequentially
Surrounding Environment
o e.g: seating arrangements adaptable to cope with all sizes of user
Health Issues
o e.g. physical position, environmental conditions (temperature. humidity), lighting, noise.
Use of Colour
o e.g: use of red for warning, green for okay, awareness of colour-blindness etc.

9. Describe about the various Interaction Styles. (16 Mark)

Interaction Styles
Interaction can be seen as a dialog between the computer and the user.
The choice of interface style can have a profound effect on the nature of this dialog.
Common interaction styles are,

 Command Line Interface

Menus
Natural Language
Question/Answer and Query Dialogue
Form-Fills and Spreadsheets
Wimp
Point and Click
ThreeDimensional Interfaces

I. Command Line Interface

It is Way of expressing instructions to the computer directly.
o Function keys, single characters, short abbreviations, whole words, or a combination.
It is suitable for repetitive tasks.
It better for expert users than novices.
It offers direct access to system functionality.
Command names/abbreviations should be meaningful!.
Typica1 example: the Unix system.

II. Menus
It is a Set of options displayed on the screen.
Options visible
o Less recall - easier to use.
o Rely on recognition so names should be meaningful.
Selection by
o Numbers, letters, arrow keys, mouse.
o Combination (e.g. mouse plus accelerators).
Often options hierarchically grouped
o Sensible grouping is needed.
Restricted form of full WIMP system

III. Natural Language

It Familiar to user.
It is speech recognition or typed natural language.
Problems
o vague
o ambiguous
o hard to do well
Solutions
o try to understand a subset
Example:If we are given the sentence :The boy hit the dog with the stickpick on key words

IV. Question/Answer and Query Dialogue

Question/answer interfaces
It user led through interaction via series of questions.
It suitable for novice users but restricted functionality.
It is often used in information systems.
Query languages (e.g. SQL)
It is used to retrieve information from database.
It requires understanding of database structure and language syntax, hence requires some
expertise.
V. Form-Fills and Spreadsheets
Form fills

Primarily for data entry-or data retrieval.

Screen like paper form.
Data put in relevant place.
Requires.
o good design
o obvious correction facilities

Spread sheets
First spreadsheet VISICALC, followed by Lotus 1-2-3 MS Excel most common today.
Sophisticated variation of form-filling,
o Grid of cells contain a value or a formula
o Formula can involve values of other cells e.g. sum of all cells in this column
o User can enter and alter data spreadsheet maintains consistency
VI. Wimp Interface
It is a Windows, icons, mice, and pull-down menus!
It default style for majority of interactive computer systems, especially PCs and desktop
machines.
VII. Point and click interfaces
It is used in multimedia, web browsers and hypertext.
Just click something! - icons, text links or location on map.
It is Minimal typing.
VIII. Three dimensional interfaces
virtual reality
'ordinary' window systems
o highlighting
o visual affordance
o Indiscriminate use just confusing!
3D workspaces
o use for extra virtual space
o light and occlusion give depth
distance effects

10. Describe about the Elements of the WIMP Interface. (16 Mark)
Elements of the WIMP Interface
Windows
Icons
Pointers
Menus
Buttons
Toolbars
Palettes
Dialog boxes

I. Windows
Areas of the screen that behave as if they were independent,
o can contain text or graphics
o can be moved or resized
o can overlap and obscure each other, or can be laid out next to one another (tiled)
o scroilbars
o allow the user to move the contents of the window up and down or from side to side
o title bars - describe the name of the window

II. Icons
It is a small picture or image.
It represents some object in the interface.
o Often a window or action
It windows can be closed down (iconised).

o Small representation fi many accessible windows

It icons can be many and various.
o Highly stylized

III. Pointers
It is a important component.
o WIMP style relies on pointing and selecting things.
It uses mouse; trackpad, joystick, trackball, cursor keys or keyboard shortcuts.
It is wide variety of graphical images.

IV. Menus
It is choice of operations or services offered on the screen.
Required option selected with pointer.
Kinds of Menus
Menu bar at top of screen, menu drags down.
o pull-down menu - mouse hold and drag down menu
o drop-down menu - mouse click reveals menu
o Fall-down menus - mouse just moves over bar!
Contextual menu appears where you are
o pop-up menus - actions for selected object
o pie menus - arranged in a circle
easier to select item (larger target area)
quicker (same distance to any option)

V. Buttons
It is individual and isolated regions within a display that can be selected to invoke an action
Special kinds
o radio buttons
o set of mutually exclusive choices
VI. Toolbars
Long lines of icons but what do they do?
fast access to common actions
often customizable:
o choose which toolbars to see
o choose what options are on it
VII. Palettes and tear-off menus
Problem
Menu not there when you want it.
Solution
palettes little windows of actions
o shown/hidden via menu option
o e.g. available shapes in drawing package
o tear-off and pin-up menus
menu 'tears off' to become palette.
VIII. Dialog boxes
Information windows that pop up to inform an important event or request. e.g: when saving a
file, a dialogue box is displayed to allow the user to specify the filename and location.
Once the file is saved, the box disappears.

11. Explain in detail about the Interactivity. (8 Mark)

Interactivity
Interactivity is the defining feature of an interactive system. This can be seen in many areas of
HCI.
Speechdriven interfaces are rapidly improving but still inaccurate .
o e.g. airline reservation:
reliable "yes" and "no" and also system reflects back its understanding "you
want a ticket from New York to Boston?"
Look and feel WIMP systems have the same elements: windows, icons. Menus, pointers,
buttons, etc.but different window systems behave differently
o e.g. MacOS vs Windows menus
appearance + behaviour = look and feel
Initiative
o The major example is modal dialog boxes. It is often the case that when a dialog box
appears the application will not allow you to do anything else until the dialog box has
been completed or cancelled.
Error and repair
o can't always avoid errors but we can put them right
o make it easy to detect errors then the user can repair them
Context
o Interaction affected by social and organizational context
o other people
desire to impress, competition, fear of failure
o motivation
fear, allegiance, ambition, self-satisfaction.
o inadequate systems
cause frustration and lack of motivation

12. Explain in detail about the Paradigms. (16 Mark)

Paradigms
Successful interactive systems are commonly believed to enhance usability and, therefore, serve
as paradigms for the development of future products. They are Predominant theoretical
frameworks or scientific world views.
o e.g., Aristotelian, Newtonian, Einsteinian (relativistic) paradigms in physics.

Paradigms of interaction
New computing technologies arrive, creating a new perception of the humancomputer
relationship.
We can trace some of these shifts in the history of interactive technologies.
Time Sharing
Video Display Units
Programming Toolkits
Personal Computing
Window Systems and The Wimp Interface
Metaphor
Direct Manipulation
Language Versus Action
Hypertext
Multi-Modality
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
World Wide Web
Agent-Based Interfaces
Ubiquitous Computing
Sensor-Based And Context-Aware Interaction
I. Time Sharing
1940s and 1950s explosive technological growth- the significant advances in computing
consisted of new hardware technologies.
1960s Need to channel the power.
The concept of time sharing is that a single computer supporting multiple users.
II. Video Display Units
It is more suitable medium than paper.
1962 Sutherland's Sketchpad.
Computers for visualizing and manipulating data from the computer in the form of images on a
VDU (video display units).
One person's contribution could drastically change the history of computing.
III. Programming Toolkits
Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s worked towards achieving the manifesto
set forth in 1963.

 The right programming toolkit provides building blocks to produce complex interactive systems
IV. Personal Computing

It 1970s Papert's LOGO language for simple graphics programming by children.

A system is more powerful as it becomes easier to user.
Future of computing in small, powerful machines dedicated to the individual.
Kay at Xerox PARC the Dynabook as the ultimate personal computer.

V. Window Systems and The WIMP Interface

It is humans can pursue more than one task at a time.

Windows used for dialogue partitioning, to "change the topic".
It 1981 Xerox Star first commercial windowing system.
It windows, icons, menus and pointers now familiar interaction mechanisms.

VI. Metaphor
Relating computing to other real-world activity is effective teaching technique,
o LOGO's turtle dragging its tail,
o File management on an office desktop,
o Word processing as typing,
o Financial analysis on spreadsheets,
o Virtual reality user inside the metaphor.

VII. Direct manipulation

1982 Shneiderman describes appeal of graphically-based interaction.

It is visibility of objects.
It incremental action and rapid feedback.
It is reversibility encourages exploration.
It is syntactic correctness of all actions.
It replaces language with action.
It was 1984 developed by Apple Macintosh.
The model was world metaphor.
What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG).

VIII. Language versus Action

IT actions do not always speak louder than words!

DM interface replaces underlying system.
It is language paradigm.
It was interface as mediator.
It acts as intelligent agent.
The programming by example is both action and language.

IX. Hypertext
In mid 1960s Nelson describes hypertext as non-linear browsing structure.

 Hypermedia (or multimedia) is used for non-linear storage of all forms of electronic media.
X. Multimodality
This mode is a human communication channel.
It is emphasis on simultaneous use of multiple channels for input and output.
XI. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
CSCW removes bias of single user / single computer system.
It Can no longer neglect the social aspects.
Electronic mail is most prominent success.
XII. World Wide Web
Hypertext, as originally realized, was a closed system.
Simple, universal protocols (e.g. HTTP) and mark-up languages (e.g. HTML) made publishing
and accessing easy.
Critical mass of users leads to a complete transformation of our information economy.
XIII. Agent-based Interfaces
Original interfaces
o Commands given to computer.
o Language-based.
Direct Manipulation/WIMP
o Commands performed on "world" representation.
o Action based.
Agents
o Return to language by instilling proactively and "intelligence" in command processor.
o Avatars, natural language processing.
IVX. Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous Computing is "The most profound technologies are those that disappear."
It was developed by Mark Weiser, 199.
Late 1980's: computer was very apparent.
How to make it disappear?
o Shrink and embed/distribute it in the physical world.
o Design interactions that don't demand our intention.

XV. Sensor-based and Context-aware Interaction

Humans are good at recognizing the "context" of a situation and reacting appropriately.
Automatically sensing physical phenomena (e.g.. light, temp, location, identity) becoming easier.