Usability and Human Factors

1. Usability and Human Factors Cognition and Human Performance Lecture a This material (Comp 15 Unit 3) was developed by Columbia University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number 1U24OC000003. This material was updated by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston under Award Number 90WT0006. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.

2. Cognition and Human PerformanceLecture a – Learning Objectives • Describe the impact of different kinds of representation on cognition as it applies to human computer interaction and web design (Lecture a) • Describe how humans process information and obtain skills (Lecture a) • Describe the Gestalt principles of perception and their relevance to human computer interaction and cognitive theory (Lecture a) • Describe the processes of memory and their relationship to web-design (Lecture b) • Describe the cognitive constructs for mental representation (Lecture b) • Describe the cognitive constructs for mental representation (Lecture c) • Explain how cognition and human performance models should inform iterative design processes (Lecture c)

3. Cognition and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) • HCI is intersection between psychology/ social sciences and computer sciences/ technology • HCI seeks to understand and support human beings interacting with technology • Study of cognition and information processing is increasingly viewed as central to advances in HCI • Drawing on basic science research • Applied cognitive HCI work

4. HCI: Cognitive Engineering Approach • Principles, methods and tools to assess and guide design of computerized systems to support human performance • Focus on attention, perception, memory, comprehension, problem solving, and decision making • Analysis of cognitive tasks and processing constraints imposed by the human information processing system

5. Cognitive Theory and HCI • Informative • Useful research findings • Predictive • Providing tools to model user behavior • Prescriptive • Providing advice for design or evaluation • Explanatory • Accounting for user behavior • Generative • Provide design dimensions and constructs to inform design and selection of external representations

6. Driving with a Computer Keyboard “Imagine trying to drive a car using a computer keyboard. The four arrow keys are used for steering, the space bar for braking and the return key for accelerating. To indicate left you need to press the F1 key and to indicate right, the F2 key. To sound your horn you need to press the F3 key. To switch the headlights on you need to use the F4 key and the F5 key for the windshield wipers. Now imagine as you were driving along a road a ball is suddenly kicked in front of you. What would you do? Bash the arrow keys and the space bar madly while pressing the F3 key?” Preece, J. Rogers, Y. & Sharp, H. (2007) Jessicafm, CC BY 2.0 Yvettemn, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

7. Human Information Processing • Human information processing theory deals with how people receive, store, integrate, retrieve, and use information • A basic HIP model recognizes 3 subsystems • HIP model provides a basis from which to make predictions about human performance

8. A Model of Human Information Processing (Stillings, et al., 1995.)

9. Perception • Complex dynamic process • Perception: Attach meaning to sensory inputs • Maps incoming sensory information into a mental representation stored in long term memory • Mapping proceeds by processes that often occur concurrently • Bottom-up feature analysis • Top-down processing • Ability to respond consistently to certain combination of features because of learned associations

10. Gestalt Organization Principles • Perceptual organizing principle: • How we perceive structure in our environment • Proximity • Containment • Similarity • Closure • Continuation • Basic principles with clear implications for web design ("Definition of GESTALT", n.d.)

11. No Clear Grouping (Goldstein, 2009.)

12. Proximity (Goldstein, 2009.)

13. Containment (Goldstein, 2009.)

14. Similarity (Goldstein, 2009.)

15. Closure (Goldstein, 2009.)

16. Anyone’s Guess (Goldstein, 2009.)

17. Airport Status Example • Was the delay Boston • or Westchester?

18. Flight Status Board 1 (Kaufman and Starren, 2010.)

19. Simple Improvement 1 (Kaufman and Starren, 2010.)

20. Simple Improvement 2 (Kaufman and Starren, 2010.)

21. Human Attention • Selective Mechanism • Resource needed for information processing • Limited • Sharable • Flexible

22. Selective Attention • Ability to ignore extraneous information and focus on relevant inputs • Performance typically declines as the number of sources of information increases • Humans can only process information at a finite rate • Information overload results in errors

23. The Case of Bird Watching (Kaufman, 2011.)

24. Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems (Horsky, J., Kaufman, D.R., Oppenheim, M.I. & Patel, V.L., 2003.)

25. Representational Effect • External representations such as images, graphs, tables, icons, audible sounds, written symbols are instruments of thinking • Representational Effects: Different representations of a common abstract structure (same meaning) can significantly affect performance • Compare 37 x 93 and XXXVII x XCIII Zhang, J., & Norman, D. A. (1995).

26. Digital vs. Analog Larry & Teddy Page, 2008, CC BY 2.0 Stuartpilbrow, 2010, CC BY-SA 2.0

27. Glucose and Blood Pressure Pictures (Kaufman, D.R., Patel, V.L., Hilliman, C., et. Al. 2003.)

28. Risk Representations (Ancker et al, 2009) (Ancker JS, Chan C, Kukafka R. 2009.)

29. Cognition and Human PerformanceSummary – Lecture a • Introduced a cognitive engineering approach • Characterized a model of information processing • Perception and attention in relation to human performance • Representational effects • Next lecture: human memory and different ways of characterizing knowledge

30. Cognition and Human PerformanceReferences – Lecture a References Definition of GESTALT. Merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 20 June 2016, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gestalt Goldstein, E. Bruce (2009). "Perceiving Objects and Scenes § The Gestalt Approach to Object Perception". Sensation and perception (8th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 9780495601494. Preece, J. Rogers, Y. & Sharp, H. (2007) Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. 2nd Edition. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. P. 92 Zhang, J., & Norman, D. A. (1995). A representational analysis of numeration systems. Cognition, 57(3), 271-295. Images Slide 6: Jessica FM. Steering wheel. [Online Image].Retrieved on June 20th, 2016 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicafm/82279328/sizes/m/in/photostream/ Slide 6: Yvettemn. Keyboard. [Online Image].Retrieved on June 20th, 2016 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/yvettemn/139890573/sizes/z/in/photostream/ Slide 8: Stillings, N. A., Weisler, S. E., Chase, C. H., Feinstein, M. H., Garfield, J. L., & Rissland, E. L. (1995). Cognitive science: An introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Slide 11-16: Goldstein, E. Bruce (2009). "Perceiving Objects and Scenes § The Gestalt Approach to Object Perception". Sensation and perception (8th ed.). Cengage Learning. 

31. Cognition and Human PerformanceReferences – Lecture a (Cont’d – 1) Images Slide 18-20: Kaufman, D., & Starren, J. (2010). Flight status. Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University Medical Center. Slide 23: Kaufman, D. (2010). Personal image of bird watching. Department of Biomedical Informatics, Columbia University Medical Center. Slide 24: Horsky, J., Kaufman, D.R., Oppenheim, M.I. & Patel, V.L. (2003). A framework for analyzing the cognitive complexity of computer-assisted clinical ordering. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 36, 4-22. Slide 26: Larry & Teddy Page. (2008). 11:29 [Online Image].Retrieved on June 20th, 2016 from http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3275/3041923556_187f3e3351.jpg Slide 26: Stuartpilbrow. (2010). 002/365 2nd January [Online Image].Retrieved on June 20th, 2016 fromhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/4236152267/ Slide 27: Kaufman, D.R., Patel, V.L., Hilliman, C., Morin, P.C., Pevzner, J, Weinstock, Goland, R. Shea, S. & Starren, J. (2003). Usability in the real world: Assessing medical information technologies in patients’ homes. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 36, 45-60. Slide 28: Ancker JS, Chan C, Kukafka R. (2009). Interactive graphics to demonstrate health risks: formative development and qualitative evaluation. Journal of Health Communication; 14: 461-475.

32. Usability and Human FactorsCognition and Human PerformanceLecture a This material was developed by Columbia University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number 1U24OC000003. This material was updated by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston under Award Number 90WT0006.