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The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction: Bridging the Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation

Explore the psychology behind everyday actions and how they relate to human-computer interaction. Learn about conscious vs unconscious thought, emotional design, and designing for human activity. Discover how to bridge the gaps between users and interfaces to reduce cognitive effort.

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The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction: Bridging the Gulfs of Execution and Evaluation

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  1. Chapter 2 The Psychology of Everyday Actions

  2. Chapter 2 • Gulfs of execution/evaluation • Conscious vs. subconscious thought • Declarative vs. procedural knowledge • Emotional design • Visceral/behavioral/reflective activity/responses • People as storytellers/causation/blame • Failure and blame vs. breakdowns and recovery • Designing for human activity and variation

  3. Abstraction of User Interaction • What is going on in computer-human interaction? • How do users decide what to do to achieve their goals?

  4. The gulfs • The ‘gulfs’ explicate the gaps that exist between the user and the interface • The gulf of execution • the distance from the user to the physical system • The gulf of evaluation • the distance from the physical system to the user • Need to bridge the gulfs in order to reduce the cognitive effort required to perform a task

  5. Norman’s (1986) Theory of action • Proposes 7 stages of an activity • Establish a goal • Form an intention • Specify an action sequence • Execute an action • Perceive the system state • Interpret the state • Evaluate the system state with respect to the goals and intentions

  6. An example: reading breaking news on the web • Set goal to find out about breaking news decide on news website • Form an intention check out BBC website • Specify what to do move cursor to link on browser • Execute action sequence click on mouse button • Check what happens at the interface see a new page pop up on the screen (vi) Interpret it read that it is the BBC website (vii) Evaluate it with respect to the goal read breaking news

  7. How realistic? • Human activity does not proceed in such an orderly and sequential manner • More usual for stages to be missed, repeated or out of order • Do not always have a clear goal in mind but react to the world • Theory is only approximation of what happens and is greatly simplified • Help designers think about how to help users monitor their actions

  8. Conscious vs. Unconscious Thought • Upon initial use of a new item almost all activity requires conscious thought • Over time, people no longer have to think about many actions (e.g. typing) • Frees conscious mind to work on higher-level items • But removes the ability for users to describe their processes

  9. Alternative Representations of Knowledge • Stored as data • Memory of information • Can think of databases or indexed document stores • Examples of data you know as a CS expert? • Stored as process • Memory of processes for determining information • Can think of production rules, • Examples of process you know as a CS expert?

  10. How Much Knowledge? • A professional’s knowledge is adequate when she knows about as much as other professionals in her domain. • Time available to acquiring and maintaining knowledge will affect limit for large domains • Describing expertise • ~50,000 chunks across disciplines, or 10 years of learning • When a domain exceeds this • It will increase use of externalized information stores • It will divide into subfields (specialize) • Science proceeds through producing new knowledge and compressing old through more general theories

  11. Affective (Emotional) Design • HCI has traditionally been about designing efficient and effective systems • Now more about how to design interactive systems that make people respond in certain ways • e.g. to be happy, to be trusting, to learn, to be motivated • Color, icons, sounds, graphical elements and animations are used to make the ‘look and feel’ of an interface appealing • Conveys an emotional state • In turn this can affect the usability of an interface • People are prepared to put up with certain aspects of an interface (e.g. slow download rate) if the end result is appealing and aesthetic

  12. Example: Friendly interfaces • Microsoft pioneered friendly interfaces for technophobes - ‘At home with Bob’ software • 3D metaphors basedon familiar places (e.g. living rooms) • Agents in the guise of pets (e.g. bunny, dog) were included to talk to the user • Make users feel more at ease and comfortable

  13. Responses and Actions • Visceral • Unconscious, almost hard-wired response • Behavioral • Result of unconscious, learned knowledge • Reflection • Conscious reaction

  14. Slight Detour: Anthropomorphism • Attributing human-like qualities to inanimate objects (e.g. cars, computers) • Well known phenomenon in advertising • Dancing butter, drinks, breakfast cereals • Much exploited in human-computer interaction • Make user experience more enjoyable, more motivating, make people feel at ease, reduce anxiety

  15. Which do you prefer? 1. As a welcome message • “Hello Chris! Nice to see you again. Welcome back. Now what were we doing last time? Oh yes, exercise 5. Let’s start again.” • “User 24, commence exercise 5.”

  16. Which do you prefer? 2. Feedback when get something wrong • “Now Chris, that’s not right. You can do better than that.Try again.” • “Incorrect. Try again.” Is there a difference as to what you prefer depending on type of message? Why?

  17. Evidence to support anthropomorphism • Reeves and Naas (1996) found that computers that flatter and praise users in education software programs -> positive impact on them “Your question makes an important and useful distinction. Great job!” • Students were more willing to continue with exercises with this kind of feedback

  18. Criticism of anthropomorphism • Deceptive, make people feel anxious, inferior or stupid • People tend not to like screen characters that wave their fingers at the user & say: • Now Chris, that’s not right. You can do better than that.Try again.” • Many prefer the more impersonal: • “Incorrect. Try again.” • Studies have shown that personalized feedback is considered to be less honest and makes users feel less responsible for their actions (e.g. Quintanar, 1982)

  19. Virtual characters • Increasingly appearing on our screens • Web agents, characters in videogames, learning companions, wizards, pets, newsreaders, popstars • Provides a persona that is welcoming, has personality and makes user feel involved with them

  20. Clippy • Why was Clippy dislikedby so many? • Was it annoying, distracting,patronising or other? • What sort of user liked Clippy?

  21. Disadvantages of Interface Agents • Lead people into false sense of belief, enticing them to confide personal secrets with chatterbots (e.g. Alice) • Annoying and frustrating • e.g. Clippy • Not trustworthy • virtual shop assistants?

  22. Error, Failure, Blame • Causation – people are used to looking for causes in the world around them • They assign causes when none exist • They wrongly accept blame for similar reasons • Interfaces need to be designed for unexpected behaviors • Human-human interaction proceeds through a process of: • action -> breakdown -> recovery -> action …

  23. Error messages “The application Word Wonder has unexpectedly quit due to a type 2 error.” Why not instead: “the application has expectedly quit due to poor coding in the operating system” • Shneiderman’s guidelines for error messages include: • avoid using terms like FATAL, INVALID, BAD • Audio warnings • Avoid UPPERCASE and long code numbers • Messages should be precise rather than vague • Provide context-sensitive help

  24. Should computers say they’re sorry? • Reeves and Naas (1996) argue that computers should be made to apologize • Should emulate human etiquette • Would users be as forgiving of computers saying sorry as people are of each other when saying sorry? • How sincere would they think the computer was being? For example, after a system crash: • “I’m really sorry I crashed. I’ll try not to do it again” • How else should computers communicate with users?

  25. Breakdowns and Recovery • Donald Schoen says design (and other human activity) proceeds through a series of • Unselfconscious action • Breakdown • Reflection in action • Is this how we let our unconscious perform activities freeing our conscious self for other efforts? • Expectation is that there will be breakdowns • Breakdowns caused by unexpected circumstances or unexpected outcomes • Learning through breakdowns: “To Engineer is Human”

  26. Universal Design & Accessibility • Not all users are the same. Some examples: • Visually impaired or blind (~2% in US) • Color blindness (7% of men, 0.4% of women in US) • Moderate to severe hearing loss (10% of population, maybe >40% in senior population) • Essential tremors (1-5%) • All of these have implications for computer use

  27. Chapter 2 • Gulfs of execution/evaluation • Conscious vs. subconscious thought • Declarative vs. procedural knowledge • Emotional design • Visceral/behavioral/reflective activity/responses • People as storytellers/causation/blame • Failure and blame vs. breakdowns and recovery • Designing for human activity and variation

  28. Compare these Visions • Apple’s “Knowledge Navigator” • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjve67p33E • Sun’s “Starfire: A Vision of Future Computing” • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKJNxgZyVo0

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