People and Computers in the Workplace Lecture 1: Introduction

People and Computers in the Workplace

Lecture 1: Introduction

Dr Shaaron Ainsworth

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

PCW: Course Aims

Psychology of the Digital world

By the end of the course, you should Understand why psychologists should be involved in designing

new technologies Understand the major theories and how these can be applied

to the design of computer systems Know how to apply evaluation methods Explain the importance of interface design Be aware of the social and organisational impact of new

technologies. Consider how new technologies such as virtual environments,

WWW, internet, teleworking, MOOS impact on people and society.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Session Structure

This subject combines the theoretical with the practical which is reflected in the course structure.

Each session consists of two parts: A more formal introduction to an area given by me. This

should last between 40 and 80 mins depending on the topic. Exercises will given out at the end of each lecture. Working in

groups you will try these and then give a short presentation back to class in the second half of each session.

(see next slide) Slides will be available after the lecture as a web presentation

and pdf handouts at http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/courses/modules/info/c8cxce.html or via my home page.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Last year topics included

Communication Diaries: analysing whether their was a relationship between modes of communication and social and task factors

Communicating complex information at a distance: Comparing teaching someone a complex dance routine using email or mobile phones

Analysing email: Emails either between group members or outside in terms of the breakdowns that occur and how they are repaired

MSN: use MSN to write a presentation on the use of MSN.

Design new metaphors for Interacting with computers

Conversing with computers; get your news from an artificial news reader.

Explore whether Clippy could ever be useful

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Course Structure

Session 1 Introduction

Session 2 Important Concepts

Session 3 Design

Session 4 Evaluation

Session 5 Conceptualising Interaction

Session 6 Communicating and collaborating through technology

Session 7 Communicating and collaborating with technology

Session 8 Internet & WWW

Session 9 Organisational impact of technologies

Session 10 Revision

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Course Reading

Recommended Reading

Core text: Preece et al (2002) Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. John Wiley & sons. http://www.id-book.com/

Norman, D.A. (1998) The design of everyday things. This is informative and amusing!

Shneiderman, B. (1998) Designing the user interface. Addison-Wesley. Another good general textbook, more focussed than Preece.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Recommended More Specialist BooksPreece, J. et al (1994) Human Computer Interaction. Addison-Wesley. This is a good textbook but a bit dated noq.Dix, A. et al (1997) Human Computer Interaction. Prentice-Hall. An alternative to Preece’s HCI.Card, S.K., Moran, T.P. and Newell, A. (1983) The psychology of human computer interaction , Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Landauer, T.K. (1995) The trouble with computers . MIT Press.Norman, D.A. & Draper, S. (1986) User centred system design . Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ch 3 by Norman is particularly nice.Naughton, J. (1999) A brief history of the future. A readable account of the development of the internet by the Observer's reviewer.Booth, P. (1989) An introduction to human-computer interaction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. A little dated in places but still covered some topics particularly well.Lewis, C., & Rieman, J. (1993). Task-centered user interface design -- A practical introduction.Gardiner, M. & Christie, B. (1987) Applying cognitive psychology to user interface design . Wiley.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Resourceshttp://www.hcibib.org/ and http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/resources.html

http://portal.acm.org/portal.cfm

The following journals held at Nottingham are used: Behaviour and Information Technology Human Computer Interaction International Journal of Human Computer Studies

Handbook of human computer interaction , M. Helander (Ed), Elsevier Science Publishers. 1st & 2nd editions (Jub)Baecker, R. et al (1996) Readings in human-computer interaction: towards the year 2000 Morgan Kaufman. A collection of famous papers (Jub)

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Course Exam (2004)1. To understand how people interact with technologies, we must first

understand the context of this interaction. Assess the theoretical and empirical foundations of this claim

2. User centred design removes the need for time consuming cognitive task analysis. Defend or refute this statement.

3. You have been commissioned to evaluate a new generation mobile phone. Describe how you would fulfil this commission, justifying your choice of methodology.

4. Is it better to interact with computational devices through direct manipulation or by conversing with agents?

5. A science fiction writer describes humans in the future as socially isolated without skills at human interaction. Discuss why this view fails to take into account the wide range of ways that computers facilitate communication.

6. Users tend to resist new technologies, they rarely meets their performance objectives and the wider organisational impact can be profound and unsettling. Is such a gloomy view of the installation of new technologies into the workplace justified?

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Exam Report (2005)

Feedback on C8CXCE (People and Computers in the workplace)Overall performance on the exam this year was good with a high proportion of first class marks and upper second class marks. There was evidence of reading both set texts and beyond into independently sourced material. All students completed two questions. No single question stood out as the most popular. Relatively few students chose to answer question 1 and of those that did some did not answer it well, failing to focus on the specific theoretical claims and instead including too broad a range of material.The most consistent problem was that a number of answers failed to address the question. Instead some students produced prepared responses rather than adapting them to the particular aspect of a topic under discussion. This was particularly apparent on a question which asked students to evaluate a website. Far too many answers to this question used material and readings presented only in lecture 4 (evaluation) rather than integrating this with lecture 8 (world wide web

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Student Evaluation of Module 2004C8CXCE is a third year undergraduate course taken by students studying

either psychology, or Masters in Information Technology. 35 students took the module. Teaching took place in 209.

The primary objective of the course is to enable students to understand how psychology can contribute to the design, delivery and evaluation of computational technologies in work place situations; more informally summarised as psychology in digital life.

The module is taught in a single two-hour session. The first half of the session consists of formal presentation of material and the second consists of students presentations based on exercises set the previous week. Overall, the quality of the module is judged to be between good(42%) and excellent (58%) or a score of 4.58. High points include

enthusiasm (Good (26%); Excellent (74%)) wider relevance of subject to practical issues (Good (21%); Excellent (79%)) introduction (Good (29%); Excellent (71%)) overheads (Good (36%); Excellent (64%)),

SEM scores did not reveal any significant aspects of the course that should be improved this year.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Course OutcomesTheoretical knowledge of HCIPractical experience in applying it.Practise in giving presentations – good for constructing arguments, producing visual displays and losing fear of public speaking.Team working skills – always good for the C.V.Human factors is highly marketable. The interface between psychology and technology is one of the growth industry of the next few years.2 previous students employed in human factor – 3 given fully funded masters places to study HCI in the last two years, 4 taking courses this year: 1 at the New Nottingham MSc in Advanced Interactive Technologies.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

PCW LecturerPCW Lecturer

Dr Shaaron Ainsworth

Relevant Research The role of the interface in learning technologies User-centred design of intelligent tutoring systems.

Other job – Principle Investigator Learning Sciences Research Institute (a joint venture between psychology, computer science, and education)Office Hours - Friday 10 till 11 am

Office – 316

Telephone – 15314

Email – [email protected]

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

PCW students

PCW is not just for students who are “geeks” and “anoraks”.

Real computer phobes will probably hate it but you don’t need to be a programmer, loved AI or Cog Modelling to do well.

Students who enjoy applying psychology to new situations will like this course.

Students who want to remember a lot of facts and then regurgitate in the exam will not.

Students who enjoy group work tend to like the course.

Diploma students tend to do well

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Today

Introduction

What is HCI and Interaction Design

Why is it important?

Who does it and what in particular do psychologists do?

Next week’s exercises

Case study of a relevant example.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

What is HCI?

“HCI is the study of people, computer technology and the ways they influence each other.” (Dix et al 1998).

“HCI is concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them” (ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p.6)

“Interaction design is the design of spaces for human communication and interaction”. Winograd (1997).

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Disciplines Contributing to Human-computer Interaction

Computer Science

Cognitive Psychology/Science

Artificial Intelligence

HCI

Social & Organisational Psychology

Sociology

Ergonomics

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

UsabilityShneiderman(1998) lists 5 central objectives:

Time to learn. Should be fast for typical members of a community.

Speed of performance. High speed of user task performance.

Error rate. Should be low and consist of non-fatal errors.

Retention. People should not forget how to use the system.

Subjective satisfaction. Users should like it!

Unfortunately, many of these trade-off, for particular users and particular tasks.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Systems That Are Not Usable Cause:

http://www.baddesigns.com/index.shtml

User frustration and rejection – leading to limited use of systems or avoidance all together.

Decrease in the use of functions. “How many programs to you use on your washing

machine?”

Increased errors – costly or even life threatening in safety critical systems such as air-traffic control, medical systems or nuclear power stations.

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Three Mile Island Incident March 28, 1979

What started as a minor malfunction in the system which feeds water to the steam generators ended as the largest commercial nuclear accident in the USA.

Errors in information – signals indicated the reverse of the truth Poor placement of information – a caution tag fitted to one system

obscured the reading from another control system. Information overload – too much going on. 1500 alarms in either visual

or auditory modalities Poor controls – a single acknowledge button silenced all alarms rather

than allowed individual control.

These systems are still being designed with mistakes often being blamed on operators rather than on the design of the system.

Poor interfaces can lead to disaster

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Exercise: How are new technologies changing everyday experience?

Looking for 5 volunteers: There will be prize next week !Take the Recommended Reading list (Slide 7). In 20 minutes or less, find out the price and availability of first three books by

Visiting Blackwell Bookshop (Portland Building) Ringing Blackwell Bookshop (ext 15056) Using an internet bookshop such as www.amazon.co.uk or

http://www.whsmith.co.uk/ Use a general purpose search engine: www.google.co.uk or

www.alltheweb.com Using a dedicated internet shopping search engine such as uk.kelkoo.com

or http://www.bookbrain.co.uk/

Report back with slide of prices, availability, description of experience, analysis of experience and subjective commentary on anything that contributes to assessing this mode of shopping.Presentations in PowerPoint and should last between 5 and 7 minutes. Questions are encouraged. Chair will be strict on time

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Case Study: Kegworth

The following video shows what can happen when the interface between human and machine goes wrong. Watch it and keep a note of1. What factors contributed to the disaster 2. how any cognitive psychology that you know explains/could

have helped prevent this from happening?3. how social psychology that you know explains/could have

helped prevent this from happening?4. How could HCI specialists intervene to prevent this from

happening again?

Also see another example in short loanStephen Flowers, 1996, Software failure: Management failure, pp. 47-93. J. Wiley, Chichester [under Ritter London Ambulance Service]

People and Computers in the Workplace Shaaron Ainsworth

Reading for this week

Winograd’s essay on interaction design http://hci.stanford.edu/%7Ewinograd/acm97.html

Chapter 1 of Preece ID (2002)

Human-computer interaction: Background and issues (R.S. Nickerson, T.K. Landauer) in Handbook of human computer interaction (2nd)

Chapter 1 and 2 of Preece HCI (1994)