Human Computer Interaction

The Study of How Humans Interact with Computers

The purpose of HCI studies, is to assist in the development of systems that provide a positive user experience. That can't be done without involving the user at the initial stages of a new product or software.

The principles and processes of HCI are now emerging into other industries in both a digital and physical realm. Implementing HCI processes in developing products and devices for a target user groups, saves the organization time and money. HCI involves all interactions between different user groups. Accessiblity Design is a critical aspect of HCI.

My HCI research practices incorporates accessibility practices. This is a part of the CX Design research to ensure that all consumers of a product or service have an equally positive exerience.

Discovery, Strategy, Design and Execution Project Phase System using Trello

Resume Capture UI Design

Interview Assignment Timeframe: Two Weeks

Submission Timeframe: One Week

Affinity Diagram

Organizing large amounts of language data.

Affinity diagrams help organize large amounts of language data to find commonalities. These assist with brainstorming ways to find the user's normal task flow. Affinity diagrams can be used with team brainstorming sessions or after conducting multiple observations, interviews or a survey.

My affinity diagrams can be as simple as colored sticky notes on a wall when working in a team environment or as complex as creating one electronically after conducting several observations or interviews.

A Cognitive Walkthrough analyzes the user interface to determine if the interface matches the user's normal task flow patterns.

When I am completing a Cognitive Walkthrough of a system, I define the same answers that I asked for a Heuristic Evaluation. Once these questions have been answered, I begin step by step analyzing the user interface to ensure that it provides the user with the ability to efficiently accomplish the defined task.

What is the goal of the system?

Who is the target user?

What task in the system will be evaluated?

Once these three questions have been defined, I can begin the system evaluation. This process involves answering the following questions which ultimately answer if the user will obtain positive user experience when interacting with the system. I provide a brief sample of my process. This particular walkthrough was done on three tasks within a system. I analyzed 174 steps going through each of the four question for a total of almost 700 touch points that I analyzed to provide recommendations to the system.

1. Is the effect of the current action the same as the user's goal?
2. Is the action visible?
3. Will user recognize action as the right one?
4. Will user understand feedback?

Qualitative Analysis

Examination of non-measurable language data.

Qualitative Analysis is the examination of non-measurable data. This analysis is used to determine commonalities amongst user's. This process can occur after an observation, interview or survey. The qualitative measure is the language the user provided in the observation or followup interview. This is taken and organized into categories to find commonalities. Once categories have been found, then a quantitative analysis can occur. e.g. Observing 50 individual completing Task 1, 76% of the individuals stated they were confused in the followup interview.

Stake holders require quantitative data to formulate their decision. When I conduct a qualitative analysis, I understand the process of analyzing this data to obtain the quantitative measures that stake holders will need.

The qualitative analysis coding shows how individuals search and organize their recipies. How is this information helpful? By analysing the language in the observation and interview, I was able to analyze if there was a correlation between age and searching for recipes through print or online sources. Since cooking is in part attributed to an emotional memory or experience, my analysis was able to uncover that an emotional attachment can be attached to both print and electronic recipes.

What is the benefit of my research? My analysis assists the in the devopment of a website or app, that will assist in creating an emotional attachment for the user and developing online organization systems for the recipes. My research also benefits the marketing team in development of online advertising to create an emotional response to lead the user to the recipe website.

As seen in the Google Survey, I used the 10 SUS question for each system. This will allow me to compare the two systems using both SUS and SPSS analysis methods. Google Survey will provide you an excel spreadsheet with the quantitative wording. Taking that spreadsheet into excel and using find and replace you can easily replace the quantitative wording with the SUS analysis numbers.

1. I think that I would like to use this system frequently.
2. I found the system unnecessarily complex.
3. I thought the system was easy to use.
4. I think that I would need the support of a technical person to be able to use this system.
5. I found the various functions in this system were well integrated.
6. I thought there was too much inconsistency in this system.
7. I would imagine that most people would learn to use this system very quickly.
8. I found the system very cumbersome to use.
9. I felt very confident using the system.
10. I needed to learn a lot of things before I could get going with this system.

As you can see by reviewing the questions, the odd number questions are positive and the even number questions are negative.

1. Subtract 1 from the odd number question responses. e.g. response - 1 = x
2. Subtract 5 from the even number question responses. e.g. response - 5 = x
3. Add up all the user's modified numbers and multiply by 2.5.
4. Take the number from above and calculate the average. This gives you a score, not a percentage.

An average SUS score is 68. Any number above this score is above average in usability. Anything lower than 68 is below average. Based upon these calculations, System 1 received 53, which is below average. System 2 recieved a score of 79, which is above average.

With these two numbers, I can give a letter grade to each system using a bell grading curve. System 1 with a score of 53 recieves a D+ letter grade. System 2 with a score of 79 receives a B+ letter grade. While a B+ is significantly higher than a D+, further study on System 2 is needed to provide optimal user experience.

Report and Presentation

Delivery of findings and recommendations.

Delivery of findings and recommendations can be presented in print or visual display depending up the stake holders preference. Print allows for in-depth detail of the process. Print can also be presented with just the findings and recommendations.

Visual delivering can be presented in a power point type presentation or through video. My reports and presentations vary based upon the audience and directives I am provided. A combination of visual and print can provide a pleasant reporting experience for the stake holders.

Stake holders rarely have the opportunity to meet the user. Presenting findings and recommendations from the user's perspective provides the stake holders with their target audiences perspective. The video provides a sample of how this can be achieved. Following the video, a formal print brief of recommendations would be distributed and discussed.

Contributions

I enjoy working individually or in a team environment. The visual and print documentation is from one of my MS HCI projects. Corporate reports and presentations are proprietary and can't be shared.