3104

Human Computer
Interaction

Lec 04
The Computer
  a computer system is made up of various elements
2
 each of these elements affects the interaction
 Input devices
 text entry and pointing
The Computer

 Output devices
 screen (small & large), digital paper

Human Computer Interaction

 Virtual reality
 special interaction and display devices
 Physical interaction
 sound, haptic, bio-sensing
 Paper
 as output (print) and input (scan)
 Memory
 RAM & permanent media, capacity & access
 Processing

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 speed of processing, networks
Interacting with computers to understand human–computer 3

interaction
… need to understand computers!

Human Computer Interaction

what goes in and out
devices, paper,
sensors, etc.

what can it do?

memory, processing,

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networks
  screen, or monitor, on which there are windows
A ‘typical’ computer system 4
 keyboard
 mouse/trackpad
window 1

?
variations
window 2

Human Computer Interaction

 desktop
 laptop
12-37pm

 PDA
 the devices dictate the styles of interaction that the
system supports
 If we use different devices, then the interface will
support a different style of interaction

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 computers in your house? 5

hands up, …
… none, 1, 2 , 3, more!!
How many …

Human Computer Interaction

computers in your pockets?

are you thinking …

… PC, laptop, PDA ??

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How many computers … in your house? in your pockets? 6

 PC  PDA

 TV, VCR, DVD, HiFi,  phone, camera

cable/satellite TV  smart card, card

Human Computer Interaction

 microwave, cooker, with magnetic
washing machine strip?
 central heating  electronic car key

 security system  USB memory

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  Long ago in a galaxy far away 7
 batch processing
 punched card stacks or large data files prepared
 long wait ….
Interactivity?

 line printer output

Human Computer Interaction

 … and if it is not right …
 Now most computing is interactive
 rapid feedback
 the user in control (most of the time)
 doing rather than thinking …
 Is faster always better?

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 Richer interaction

sensors
and devices
everywhere
8

11/9/2024 Human Computer Interaction

Text entry devices

keyboards (QWERTY
et al.)
chord keyboards,
phone pads
handwriting, speech
 Most common text input device 10

Allows rapid entry of text by

experienced users
Keyboards

Human Computer Interaction

Keypress closes connection, causing a
character code to be sent
Usually connected by cable, but can be
wireless

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  Standardised layout 11

 but …
layout – QWERTY

 non-alphanumeric keys are placed differently

 accented symbols needed for different scripts

Human Computer Interaction

 minor differences between UK and USA keyboards

 QWERTY arrangement not optimal for typing

– layout to prevent typewriters jamming!
 Alternative designs allow faster typing but large
social base of QWERTY typists produces
reluctance to change.

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 QWERTY (ctd) 12

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  Dvorak 13
 common letters under dominant fingers
alternative keyboard

 biased towards right hand

 common combinations of letters alternate between
hands

Human Computer Interaction

 10-15% improvement in speed and reduction in fatigue
layouts

 But - large social base of QWERTY typists produce

market pressures not to change

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 Alphabetic 14

keys arranged in alphabetic order

alternative keyboard

not faster for trained typists

not faster for beginners either!

Human Computer Interaction

layouts

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 designs toreduce fatigue for RSI 15

for one handed use

special keyboards

e.g. the Maltron left-handed keyboard

Human Computer Interaction

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  only a few keys - four or 5 16
 letters typed as combination of
keypresses
Chord keyboards

 compact size
 ideal for portable applications

Human Computer Interaction

 short learning time
 keypresses reflect letter shape
 fast
 once you have trained

 BUT - social resistance, plus fatigue

after extended use

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  use numeric keys with multiple presses 17
phone pad and T9 entry
2–abc 6-mno
3-def 7-pqrs
4-ghi 8-tuv
5-jkl 9-wxyz

Human Computer Interaction

 hello = 4433555[pause]555666

 T9 predictive entry
 type as if single key for each letter
 use dictionary to ‘guess’ the right word
 hello = 43556 …
 but 26 -> menu ‘am’ or ‘an’

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  Textcan be input into the computer, using a pen
Handwriting recognition and a digesting tablet
18

 natural interaction

 Technical problems:

Human Computer Interaction

 capturing all useful information - stroke path,
pressure, etc. in a natural manner
 segmenting joined up writing into individual letters
 interpreting individual letters
 coping with different styles of handwriting

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 Used in PDAs, and tablet computers
  Improving rapidly
Speech recognition 19

 Most successful when:

 single user – initial training and learns peculiarities
 limited vocabulary systems

Human Computer Interaction

 Problems with
 external noise interfering
 imprecision of pronunciation
 large vocabularies
 different speakers

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 for entering numbers quickly: 20

calculator, PC keyboard
Numeric keypads

for telephones
not the same!!

Human Computer Interaction

1 2 3 7 8 9

4 5 6 4 5 6

7 8 9 1 2 3
ATM like phone 0 # 0 . =
*
telephone calculator

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positioning, pointing and
drawing

mouse, touchpad
trackballs, joysticks
etc.
touch screens, tablets
eyegaze, cursors
 Handheld pointing device 22

very common
easy to use
the Mouse

Human Computer Interaction

Two characteristics
planar movement
buttons
(usually from 1 to 3 buttons on top, used for
making a selection, indicating an option, or to
initiate drawing etc.)

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  Mouse located on desktop
23
 requires physical space
 no arm fatigue
the mouse (ctd)

 Relative movement only is detectable.

Human Computer Interaction

 Movement of mouse moves screen cursor
 Screen cursor oriented in (x, y) plane, mouse movement
in (x, z) plane …

 … an indirect manipulation device.

 device itself doesn’t obscure screen, is accurate and fast.
 hand-eye coordination problems for novice users

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 Mechanical Optical 24

 Ball on underside of  light emitting diode on

How does it work?
mouse turns as mouse is underside of mouse
moved  detects fluctuating
 Rotates orthogonal alterations in reflected

Human Computer Interaction

potentiometers light intensity to
 Can be used on almost
calculate relative
any flat surface motion in (x, z) plane
 may use special grid-like
pad or just on desk
 less susceptible to dust
and dirt

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 some experiments with the footmouse 25

controlling mouse movement with feet …

not very common :-)
Even by foot …

Human Computer Interaction

but foot controls are common
elsewhere:
car pedals
sewing machine speed control
organ and piano pedals

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  small touch sensitive tablets 26

 ‘stroke’ to move mouse pointer

 used mainly in laptop computers
Touchpad

Human Computer Interaction

 good ‘acceleration’ settings important
 fast stroke
 lots of pixels per inch moved
 initial movement to the target
 slow stroke
 less pixels per inch

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 for accurate positioning
  Trackball
Trackball and thumbwheels 27
 ball is rotated inside static housing
 like an upside-down mouse!
 relative motion moves cursor
 indirect device, fairly accurate

Human Computer Interaction

 separate buttons for picking
 very fast for gaming
 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

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 Indirectpressure of stick = velocity of 28

movement
buttons for selection
on top or on front like a trigger
Joystick

Human Computer Interaction

often used for computer games
aircraft controls and 3D navigation

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 forlaptop computers 29

miniature joystick in the middle of the

keyboard nipple

keyboard

Human Computer Interaction

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  Detect the presence of finger or stylus on the screen.
30
Touch-sensitive screen  works by
 interrupting matrix of light beams
 capacitance changes
 ultrasonic reflections
 direct pointing device

Human Computer Interaction

 Advantages:
 fast, and requires no specialised pointer
 good for menu selection
 suitable for use in hostile environment: clean and safe from damage.
 Disadvantages:
 finger can mark screen
 imprecise (finger is a fairly blunt instrument!)
 difficult to select small regions or perform accurate drawing
 lifting arm can be tiring

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  Stylus 31

 small pen-like pointer to draw directly on screen

Stylus and light pen
 may use touch sensitive surface or magnetic
detection
 used in PDA, tablets PCs and drawing tables

Human Computer Interaction

 Light Pen
 now rarely used
 uses light from screen to detect location
 BOTH …
 very direct and obvious to use

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 but can obscure screen
  Mouse like-device with cross hairs 32

 used on special surface

 rather like stylus
Digitizing tablet

 very accurate
 used for digitizing maps

Human Computer Interaction

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  control interface by eye gaze 33
direction
 e.g. look at a menu item to select it
 uses laser beam reflected off
retina
Eyegaze

Human Computer Interaction

 … a very low power laser!
 mainly used for evaluation
 potential for hands-free control
 high accuracy requires headset
 cheaper and lower accuracy
devices available
 sit under the screen like a small
webcam

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  Four keys (up, down, left, right) on keyboard. 34

 Very, very cheap, but slow.

 Useful for not much more than basic motion for

text-editing tasks.
Cursor keys

Human Computer Interaction

 No standardised layout, but inverted “T”, most
common

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 in phones, TV controls etc. 35

cursor pads or mini-joysticks

Discrete positioning

discrete left-right, up-down

mainly for menu selection

Human Computer Interaction

controls

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Display devices

bitmap screens (CRT

& LCD)
large & situated
displays
digital paper
 bitmap displays screen
is vast number of coloured dots

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37
  Resolution … used (inconsistently) for
resolution and colour depth 38
 number of pixels on screen (width x height)
 e.g. SVGA 1024 x 768, PDA perhaps 240x400
 density of pixels (in pixels or dots per inch - dpi)
 typically, between 72 and 96 dpi
Aspect ratio

Human Computer Interaction


 ration between width and height
 4:3 for most screens, 16:9 for wide-screen TV
 Colour depth:
 how many different colours for each pixel?
 black/white or greys only
 256 from a pallet
 8 bits each for red/green/blue = millions of colours

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  Jaggies 39

 diagonal lines that have discontinuities in due to

horizontal raster scan process.
anti-aliasing

 Anti-aliasing

Human Computer Interaction

 softens edges by using shades of line colour
 also used for text

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 Stream of electrons emitted from 40

electron gun, focused and directed by

Cathode ray tube

magnetic fields, hit phosphor-coated

screen which glows

Human Computer Interaction

used in TVs and computer monitors
electron beam

electron gun

focussing and
deflection

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phosphor-
coated screen
  X-rays: largely absorbed by screen (but not at rear!) 41
Health hazards of CRT !
 UV- and IR-radiation from phosphors:
 insignificant levels
 Radio frequency emissions, plus ultrasound (~16kHz)
 Electrostatic field - leaks out through tube to user.

Human Computer Interaction

 Intensity dependant on distance and humidity.
 Can cause rashes.
 Electromagnetic fields (50Hz-0.5MHz).
 Create induction currents in conductive materials,
including the human body.

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  do not sit too close to the screen 42

 do not use very small fonts

 do not look at the screen for long periods
Health hints …

without a break
 do not place the screen directly in front of a

Human Computer Interaction

bright window
 work in well-lit surroundings

 Take extra care if pregnant.

 but also posture, ergonomics, stress

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  Smaller, lighter, and … no radiation problems. 43
 Found on PDAs, portables and notebooks,
Liquid crystal displays
 and increasingly on desktop and even for home TV
 also used in dedicated displays:
 digital watches, mobile phones, HiFi controls

Human Computer Interaction

 How it works …
 Top plate transparent and polarised, bottom plate
reflecting.
 Light passes through top plate and crystal, and reflects
back to eye.
 Voltage applied to crystal changes polarisation and
hence colour

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 N.B. light reflected not emitted => less eye strain
  Random Scan (Directed-beam refresh, vector 44
display)
 draw the lines to be displayed directly
special displays

 no jaggies
 lines need to be constantly redrawn

Human Computer Interaction

 rarely used except in special instruments
 Direct view storage tube (DVST)
 Similar to random scan but persistent => no flicker
 Can be incrementally updated but not selectively
erased
 Used in analogue storage oscilloscopes

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 used for meetings, lectures, etc. 45

technology
large displays

plasma – usually wide screen

Human Computer Interaction

video walls – lots of small screens together
projected – RGB lights or LCD projector
back-projected
 frosted glass + projector behind

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  displays in ‘public’ places 46

 large or small
situated displays

 very public or for small group

 display only

Human Computer Interaction

 for information relevant to location
 or interactive
 use stylus, touch sensitive screem
 in all cases … the location matters
 meaning of information or interaction is
related to the location

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  small displays beside office doors
Hermes a situated display 47
 handwritten notes left using stylus
 office owner reads notes using web interface

Human Computer Interaction

small displays
beside
office doors

handwritten
office owner
notes left
reads notes
using stylus
using web interface

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  what? 48

 thin flexible sheets

appearance
 updated electronically
but retain display
Digital paper


cross
how?

Human Computer Interaction

 section

 small spheres turned

 or channels with coloured
liquid and contrasting
spheres
 rapidly developing area

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Virtual Reality and 3D
interaction

positioning in 3D
space
moving and grasping
seeing 3D (helmets
and caves)
positioning in 3D space cockpit and virtual 50

controls
steering wheels,
knobs and dials …

Human Computer Interaction

just like real!
the 3D mouse
six-degrees of
movement: x, y, z
+ roll, pitch, yaw

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  data glove
positioning in 3D space 51
 fibre optics used to detect finger position
 VR helmets
 detect head motion and possibly eye gaze
 whole body tracking

Human Computer Interaction

 accelerometers strapped to limbs or
reflective dots and video processing

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 pitch, yaw and roll

pitch
yaw

roll

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52
 desktop VR 53

ordinary screen, mouse or keyboard

control
3D displays

perspective and motion give 3D effect

Human Computer Interaction

seeing in 3D
use stereoscopic vision
VR helmets
screen plus shuttered specs, etc.

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also see extra slides on 3D vision
 small TV screen for each eye 54

slightly different angles

3D effect
VR headsets

Human Computer Interaction

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 time delay 55

move head … lag … display moves

VR motion sickness

conflict: head movement vs. eyes

depth perception

Human Computer Interaction

headset gives different stereo distance
but all focused in same plane
conflict: eye angle vs. focus
conflicting cues => sickness
helps motivate improvements in
technology

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simulators and VR caves scenes projected on walls 56

realistic environment

hydraulic rams!

Human Computer Interaction

real controls

other people

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Physical controls,
sensors etc.

special displays and

gauges
sound, touch, feel, smell
physical controls
environmental and bio-
sensing
 analogue representations: 58

dials, gauges, lights, etc.

dedicated displays

digital displays:

Human Computer Interaction

small LCD screens, LED lights, etc.

head-up displays
found in aircraft cockpits
show most important controls
 depending on context

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 beeps, bongs, clonks, whistles and 59

whirrs

used for error indications

Human Computer Interaction

Sounds

confirmation of actions e.g. keyclick

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 touch and feeling important 60

in games … vibration, force feedback

Touch, feel, smell

in simulation … feel of surgical instruments

called haptic devices

Human Computer Interaction

texture, smell, taste
current technology very limited

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 specialist controls needed … 61

industrial controls, consumer products,

physical controls

etc.

Human Computer Interaction

easy-clean
smooth buttons

multi-function
control
large buttons
clear dials

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tiny buttons
  sensors all around us 62

 car courtesy light – small switch on door

Environment and bio-

 ultrasound detectors – security, washbasins

 RFID security tags in shops

Human Computer Interaction

sensing

 temperature, weight, location

… and even our own bodies …

 irisscanners, body temperature, heart rate,
galvanic skin response, blink rate

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paper: printing and
scanning

print technology
fonts, page
description,
WYSIWYG
scanning, OCR
 image made from small dots 64

allows any character set or graphic to be

printed,
critical features:
Printing

Human Computer Interaction

resolution
 size and spacing of the dots
 measured in dots per inch (dpi)
speed
 usually measured in pages per minute
cost!!

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  dot-matrix printers
Types of dot-based printers  use inked ribbon (like a typewriter 65

 line of pins that can strike the ribbon, dotting the paper.
 typical resolution 80-120 dpi
 ink-jet and bubble-jet printers
 tiny blobs of ink sent from print head to paper
typically, 300 dpi or better .

Human Computer Interaction



 laser printer
 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
 typically, 600 dpi or better.

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  shop tills
Printing in the workplace 66
 dot matrix
 same print head used for several
paper rolls
 may also print cheques

Human Computer Interaction

 thermal printers
 special heat-sensitive paper
 paper heated by pins makes a dot
 poor quality, but simple & low
maintenance
 used in some fax machines

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  Font – the particular style of text 67
Courier font
Helvetica font
Palatino font
Times Roman font
 §´ (special symbol)

Human Computer Interaction

Fonts

 Size
of a font measured in points (1 pt about 1/72”)
(vaguely) related to its height

This is ten point Helvetica

This is twelve point

This is fourteen point
This is eighteen point

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and this is twenty-four point
 Pitch 68

 fixed-pitch – every character has the same width

e.g. Courier
 variable-pitched – some characters wider
Fonts (ctd)

Human Computer Interaction

e.g. Times Roman – compare the ‘i’ and the “m”
Serif or Sans-serif
 sans-serif – square-ended strokes
e.g. Helvetica
 serif – with splayed ends (such as)
e.g. Times Roman or Palatino

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 lowercase 69

easy to read shape of words

Readability of text

UPPERCASE

Human Computer Interaction

better for individual letters and non-words
e.g. flight numbers: BA793 vs. ba793
serif fonts
helps your eye on long lines of printed text
but sans serif often better on screen

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  Pages very complex
Page Description Languages 70
 different fonts, bitmaps, lines, digitised photos, etc.

 Can convert it all into a bitmap and send to the printer

… but often huge !

Human Computer Interaction

 Alternatively Use a page description language
 sends a description of the page can be sent,
 instructions for curves, lines, text in different styles, etc.
 like a programming language for printing!

 PostScript is the most common

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  WYSIWYG 71

 what you see is what you get

Screen and page

 aim of word processing, etc.

 but …

Human Computer Interaction

 screen: 72 dpi, landscape image
 print: 600+ dpi, portrait
 can try to make them similar
 but never quite the same
 so… need different designs, graphics etc,
for screen and print

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  Take paper and convert it into a bitmap 72

 Two sorts of scanner

 flat-bed: paper placed on a glass plate, whole page
converted into bitmap
Scanners

Human Computer Interaction

 hand-held: scanner passed over paper, digitising strip
typically 3-4” wide

 Shines light at paper and note intensity of reflection

 colour or greyscale

 Typical resolutions from 600–2400 dpi

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 Used in 73

desktop publishing for incorporating

Scanners (ctd)

photographs and other images

Human Computer Interaction

document storage and retrieval systems,
doing away with paper storage

special scanners for slides and

photographic negatives

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 OCR converts bitmap back into text 74

different fonts
Optical character

create problems for simple “template

recognition

matching” algorithms

Human Computer Interaction

more complex systems segment text,
decompose it into lines and arcs, and
decipher characters that way
page format
columns, pictures, headers and footers

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  paper usually regarded as output only
Paper-based interaction 75

 can be input too – OCR, scanning, etc.

 Xerox PaperWorks
 glyphs – small patterns of /\\//\\\
 used to identify forms etc.

Human Computer Interaction

 used with scanner and fax to control applications

 more recently
 papers micro printed - like watermarks
 identify which sheet and where you are
 special ‘pen’ can read locations
 know where they are writing

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 memory

short term and long

term
speed, capacity,
compression
formats, access
Short-term Memory - RAM Random access memory (RAM) 77

on silicon chips

100 nano-second access time
usually volatile (lose information if power

Human Computer Interaction

turned off)
data transferred at around 100 Mbytes/sec

Some non-volatile RAM used to store

basic set-up information

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 magnetic disks
Long-term Memory - disks

78
 floppy disks store around 1.4 Mbytes
 hard disks typically 40 Gbytes to 100s of Gbytes
access time ~10ms, transfer rate 100kbytes/s

 optical disks

Human Computer Interaction

 use lasers to read and sometimes write
 more robust that magnetic media
CD-ROM

- same technology as home audio, ~ 600 Gbytes
 DVD - for AV applications, or very large files

11/9/2024
 PDAs 79

often use RAM for their main memory

Blurring boundaries

Flash-Memory

Human Computer Interaction

used in PDAs, cameras etc.
silicon based but persistent
plug-in USB devices for data transfer

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  what do the numbers mean?
speed and capacity 80

 some sizes (all uncompressed) …

 this book, text only ~ 320,000 words, 2Mb
 the Bible ~ 4.5 Mbytes

Human Computer Interaction

 scanned page ~ 128 Mbytes
 (11x8 inches, 1200 dpi, 8bit greyscale)
 digital photo ~ 10 Mbytes
 (2–4 mega pixels, 24 bit colour)
 video ~ 10 Mbytes per second
 (512x512, 12 bit colour, 25 frames per sec)

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  Problem:
81
 running lots of programs + each program large
 not enough RAM
virtual memory

 Solution - Virtual memory :

 store some programs temporarily on disk

Human Computer Interaction

 makes RAM appear bigger

 But … swopping
 program on disk needs to run again
 copied from disk to RAM
 slows t h i n g s d o w n

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  reduce amount of storage required
82
 lossless
 recover exact text or image – e.g. GIF, ZIP
 look for commonalities:
Compression

 text: AAAAAAAAAABBBBBCCCCCCCC 10A5B8C

 video: compare successive frames and store change

Human Computer Interaction

 lossy
 recover something like original – e.g. JPEG, MP3
 exploit perception
 JPEG: lose rapid changes and some colour
 MP3: reduce accuracy of drowned out notes

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  ASCII - 7-bit binary code for to each letter and character
83
UTF-8 - 8-bit encoding of 16 bit character set
Storage formats - text 

 RTF (rich text format)

- text plus formatting and layout information
 SGML (standardized generalised markup language)
- documents regarded as structured objects

Human Computer Interaction

 XML (extended markup language)
- simpler version of SGML for web applications

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  Images:
Storage formats - media  many storage formats :
84

(PostScript, GIFF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT, etc.)

 plus different compression techniques
(to reduce their storage requirements)

 Audio/Video

Human Computer Interaction

 again lots of formats :
(QuickTime, MPEG, WAV, etc.)
 compression even more important
 also ‘streaming’ formats for network delivery

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  large information store
85
 long time to search => use index
what you index -> what you can access
methods of access


 simple index needs exact match

 forgiving systems:

Human Computer Interaction

 Xerox “do what I mean” (DWIM)
 SOUNDEX – McCloud ~ MacCleod
 access without structure …
 free text indexing (all the words in a document)
 needs lots of space!!

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 processing and networks

finite speed (but also Moore’s

law)
limits of interaction
networked computing
  Designers tend to assume fast processors, and make interfaces more and more
Finite processing speed complicated 87

 But problems occur, because processing cannot keep up with all the tasks it needs to do
 cursor overshooting because system has buffered keypresses
 icon wars - user clicks on icon, nothing happens, clicks on another, then system responds and
windows fly everywhere

Human Computer Interaction

 Also problems if system is too fast - e.g. help screens may scroll through text much too
rapidly to be read

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Moore’s law 88

 computers get faster and faster!

 1965 …

Human Computer Interaction

 Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, noticed a pattern
 processor speed doubles every 18 months
 PC … 1987: 1.5 Mhz, 2002: 1.5 GHz
 similar pattern for memory
 but doubles every 12 months!!
 hard disk … 1991: 20Mbyte : 2002: 30 Gbyte
 baby born today
 record all sound and vision
 by 70 all life’s memories stored in a grain of dust!

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/e3/online/moores-law/
 89
implicit assumption … no delays
the myth of the infinitely

an infinitely fast machine
 what is good design for real machines?
good example … the telephone :
fast machine

 type keys too fast

Human Computer Interaction

 hear tones as numbers sent down the line
 actually an accident of implementation
 emulate in deisgn

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 Computation bound
90
Limitations on interactive
 Computation takes ages, causing frustration for the user
Storage channel bound
 Bottleneck in transference of data from disk to memory
Graphics bound
performance

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

Human Computer Interaction

graphics co-processor optimised to take on the burden
Network capacity
 Many computers networked - shared resources and files, access to printers etc. - but interactive
performance can be reduced by slow network speed

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 Networks allow access to …
Networked computing 91
 large memory and processing
 other people (groupware, email)
 shared resources – esp. the web

Issues

Human Computer Interaction

 network delays – slow feedback
 conflicts - many people update data
 unpredictability

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  history …
92
 1969: DARPANET US DoD, 4 sites
 1971: 23; 1984: 1000; 1989: 10000
 common language (protocols):
The internet

 TCP – Transmission Control protocol

Human Computer Interaction

 lower level, packets (like letters) between machines
 IP – Internet Protocol
 reliable channel (like phone call) between programs on machines
 email, HTTP, all build on top of these

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 Thank You

11/9/2024 Human Computer Interaction

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