Human Factors of Interactive Software
Introduction
New technologies provide extraordinary-almost supernatural-powers to
those who master them. Computer systems and accessible interfaces are still
new technologies that are being rapidly disseminated. Great excitement spreads
as designers provide remarkable functions in carefully crafted interactive
and networked systems. The opportunities for youthful system builders and
mature entrepreneurs are substantial, and the impacts on individuals and
organizations are profound.
Like early photography equipment or automobiles, computers have been available
only to people who were willing to devote effort to mastering the technology.
Harnessing the computer's power is a task for designers who understand the
technology and are sensitive to human capacities and needs.
Human performance in the use of computer and information systems will remain
a rapidly expanding research and development topic in the coming decades.
This interdisciplinary journey of discovery combines the data-gathering
methods and intellectual framework of experimental psychology with the powerful
and widely used tools developed from computer science. Contributions also
accrue from educational and industrial psychologists, instructional and
graphic designers, technical writers, experts in human factors or ergonomics,
and adventuresome anthropologists or sociologists.
Applications developers who apply human-factors principles and processes
are producing exciting interactive systems. Provocative ideas emerge in
the pages of the numerous thick computer magazines, the shelves of the proliferating
computer stores, and the menus of the expanding computer networks. User
interfaces also produce corporate success stories and Wall Street sensations
such as Netscape, America Online, or Lycos. They also produce intense competition
(with Microsoft as everyone's favorite enemy), copyright-infringement suits
(such as Apple's against Microsoft covering the Windows interface), mega-mergers
(such as Bell Atlantic and NYNEX), takeovers (such as IBM's grabbing Lotus),
and international recognition.
At an individual level user interfaces change many people's lives: doctors
can make a more accurate diagnosis, children can learn more effectively,
graphic artists can explore more creative possibilities, and pilots can
fly airplanes more safely. However some changes are disruptive and too often
users must cope with the frustration, fear, and failure when they encounter
excessive complexity, incomprehensible terminology, or chaotic layouts
The steadily growing interest in user-interface design spans remarkably
diverse systems (Figures 1.1a through 1.1f and Color Plates 1 through 9).
Word processors and desktop publishing tools are used routinely, and many
businesses employ photo scanning and image manipulation software. Electronic
mail, bulletin boards, and computer conferencing have provided new communication
media. Digital image libraries are expanding in applications from medicine
to space exploration. Scientific visualization and simulator workstations
allow safe, inexpensive training and experimentation. Electronic spreadsheets
and decision-support systems serve as tools for analysts from many disciplines.
Educational and public access to information from museum kiosks or government
sources is expanding. Commercial systems include inventory, personnel, reservations,
air traffic, and electric-utility control. Computer-assisted software-engineering
tools and programming environments allow rapid prototyping, as do computer-assisted
design, manufacturing, and engineering workstations. Most of us use various
consumer electronics, such as VCRs, telephones, cameras, and appliances.
Art, music, sports, and entertainment all are assisted or enhanced by computer
systems.
Practitioners and researchers in many fields are making vital contributions.
Academic and industrial theorists in computer science, psychology, and human
factors are developing perceptual, cognitive, and motor theories and models
of human performance; experimenters are collecting empirical data.
Software designers are exploring how best to organize information graphically.
They are developing query languages and visually attractive facilities for
input, search, and output. They are using sound (such as music and voice),
three dimensional representations, animation, and video to improve the appeal
and information content of interfaces. Techniques such as direct manipulation,
telepresence, and virtual realities may change the way we interact with
and think about computers.
Hardware developers and system builders are offering novel keyboard designs
and pointing devices, as well as large, high-resolution color displays.
They are designing systems that provide rapid response times for increasingly
complex tasks, and that have fast display rates and smooth transitions for
increasingly high-resolution displays. Technologies that allow speech input
and output, and gestural input and tactile or force-feedback output, increase
ease of use, as do input devices such as the touchscreen and stylus.
Developers with an orientation toward educational psychology, instructional
design, and technical writing are creating engaging online tutorials, training,
reference manuals, demonstrations and sales materials, and are exploring
novel approaches to group lectures, distance learning, personalized experiential
training, and video presentations. Graphic designers are actively engaged
in visual layout, color selection, and animation. Sociologists, anthropologists,
philosophers, policy makers, and managers are dealing with organizational
impact, computer anxiety, job redesign, retraining, distributed teamwork,
computer-supported cooperation strategies, work-at-home schemes, and long-term
societal changes.
This is an exciting time for developers of user interfaces. The hardware
and software foundations for the bridges and tunnels have been built. Now,
the roadway can be laid and the stripes painted to make way for the heavy
traffic of eager users.
The rapid growth of interest in user-interface design is international in
scope. In the United States, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction (SIGCHI) had more than
6000 members in 1996. The annual CHI conferences draw almost 2500 people.
The Human Factors & Ergonomics Society and other professional groups
also devote increasing attention to humanp;computer interaction. In
Europe, the ESPRIT project devotes approximately 150 person-years of effort
per year to the topic. In 1988 in Japan, the Ministry of International Trade
and Industry created the FRIEND21 project, conducted by Institute for Personalized
Information Environment (Nonogaki and Ueda, 1991; specialized references
for this chapter appear on page XX; general information resources begin
on page XX). This consortium of 14 major computing, home-electronics, and
publishing companies is conducting basic human-interface research.
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Last Updated:
11 December 2002
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