what have you learned?

**Admin** · Admin Posts: 67 Join date: 2007-12-05

what have you learned from this class?

and what, if anything, did not you not learn that you were hoping to?

and how could i teach the class better?

and if you were teaching the class, what would you tell them is the most important thing they need to know about human-computer interface design/implementation?

sleepy · Posts: 3 Join date: 2008-01-17

I don't know what kind of answer you expect but here are some for a start.

These are what I think I’ve learned. From the designer’s point of view, creating a user interface is not as easy as it seems. There are many factors to consider: users, usability and not to mention, the ten points from heuristic algorithm which I can hardly recall. I now see an interface as not just an interface, but the connection between a human and a computer. It’s how we can communicate with a computer. Without an interface, the computer and human speak different languages and do not understand each other.

I’ve also learned that to ask one question about user interface, I have to prepare to be bombarded with more questions. One question can lead to another and another and no answer is right or wrong. It depends on individuals. For instance, “Why is the button placed here?” An answer would be “Why not?” Or maybe “Where should it be placed instead?” We are constantly asking questions and we constantly give answers that may be satisfied by some but doubtful for others.

One thing I wonder though. Throughout the period of designing the user interface, I kept wondering whether it’s actually human-computer interaction we are doing or human-human interaction. We seem to be trying so hard to make it usable that I don’t feel the “connection” with the computer at all. Of course there is a connection, unless I’m sitting in front of a blank screen all this while. It’s there but I don’t feel it. This is what I was thinking, “How can I make it in such a way that my users will find it usable?” I wasn’t exactly thinking “How do I interact with the computer?” Well, now that I think of it, we are always interacting with the computer as long as we are using it. That’s human computer interaction. So why worry about user interface when it is the computer we are interacting with?

Mr. David, to interact with the difficult students you have to face every week…come to think of it, I have no idea. But I can assure you sex change won’t make any difference Smile

Well, I’m not in the position to hint on how to teach the class better, but just get to the point. Don’t worry, it’s not you, it’s just us. We are the ones who should be asking “How to respond in class?”

david says: i too have trouble remembering all 10 of Nielson's heuristics (they are guidelines, not algorithms*), so i dont expect you to.

but i can remember the basic things, like.... what do you say? try to answer without looking at the notes.

you are right about the human-human interaction bit. the computer is really just a kind of medium (think "media" like TV, newspapers, etc) for human (programmer) to human (user) interaction.

except that the computer is an active medium (a newspaper or TV show is a passive one). it reacts to user input. the programmer has to imagine all the possible user inputs and decide how the computer should respond. this is not easy!!

as for my question about teaching, what i'm really asking you for is your subjective experience - i am doing a user evaluation of the usability of my classes.

i can offer you my suggestion on your question about how you should respond in class:
first, don't feel afraid. there is no such thing as a stupid answer from a student ....but there are often stupid answers from teachers! bounce

second: saying "i don't understand what you said" is a GOOD answer.
third: answering a question by asking another question is a GOOD way to interact with a teacher [see footnote].
the WORST way to interact is to show a "blue screen" face... blank and unresponsive Sleep

PS correction: on second thoughts, that's the second worst way. a blue screen face at least means you are thinking. the absolute worst way to interact with someone is to turn away from them and talk to someone else!! unless you have been explicitly or implicity been invirted to do so, eg, by the teacher saying "what do you think?" and looking around the class, which implicitly invites students to consult each other.

* "heuristic" literally means "rule of thumb". it's a general principle that usually works. Artificial Intelligence algorithms are full of heuristics.
In our case, the heuristic action reversability usually makes an interface more usable than not having it, but not always. Sometimes - usually - a BACK button is a good idea, but not always. for example, sometimes, when surfing, i want to go back to a place a few pages before, but once my browser goes down one branch of a tree, it forgets about other branches it has been down and back up. even the History button doesn't help. navigating trees is still an open research problem. Google addresses this problem by not having trees at all, just markers. that's their heuristic. but when they apply it to their email client, i for one don't like it (see my posting "a suggestion to Google") as there are some tree-strctured information features i want.

footnote: although it's constructive {footnote 2] for a student to answer questions with questions, it's not always appropraite for a teacher to do so. if you are tying to explain something to someone else, it can be helpful to ask them questions to find out what is in their minds. BUT, this can be abused. Socrates abused it. He used it as a device to belittle people who didn't agree with what he was saying, by getting them to contradict themselves. Eventually, they got fed up with him and poisoned him. Serves him right! Unfortunately, his "smart-Alec" style got taken up by the education establishment and became indoctrinated as the "Socratic Method". Use it at your own risk !!

footnote 2: unless, of course, the student tries to engage in an egotistical "battle of wits", in which case the opportunity for a subject matter intellectual dialogue is totally lost.

06b0536 · Posts: 11 Join date: 2008-01-17

what have you learned from this class?

There are a lot of things I have learned from this class. But since I
missed many of these classes due to my fever, I can only list out a few
of the main points here.

* Usable

When designing the interface, a lot of things need to be
considered, for example the choice of colours, why do we have to locate
the buttons here?, do we want the user to enter data by typing in or by
clicking it? most users want the easy tasks to use our product. so we
should think of how to make the users feel relax or freedom. Another
example is that we shouldn't let the users remembers all the hardest
steps to use it (e.g. which operating system would you like to use in
terms of convenience, windows xp or unix?) and so on.

* Friendship

When doing the project, our group project is assesed by our user
group and also our group is also the user group to other group. This
creates the bond between us. Oh, it really touches my heart. Sad

Love you all.

and what, if anything, did not you not learn that you were hoping to?

I hope that you can let us know your
comment/critics about any other products. We are not as good as you
yet, so I like to hear your opinions.

and how could i teach the class better?

For
this question, my answer at the moment is "no comment". I have question
which relates to this question. Do you like to teach HCI?

and if you were teaching the class, what would
you tell them is the most important thing they need to know about
human-computer interface design/implementation?

The most inmportant thing is "Users are not designers, and designers are not users".

Love,
Jamal

**Admin** · Admin Posts: 67 Join date: 2007-12-05

Quote:

I hope that you can let us know your
comment/critics about any other products.

the quest of science is to find the objective truth about the world, without the prejudice of subjective opinion or superstition. but, since you ask, i do like Apple, as it's one of the few companies in which i have shares that are still showing a profit after the recent chaos created by speculators following the USA subprime mortgage crisis.

Apple is generally considered to be the world leader in HCI for consumer products like PCs, iPods, and most recently, the iPhone. By the way, i didnt know about the iPhone when i bought my shares, but did so because i read that Apple had produced a chip compatible with Intel's, so Apple Pcs could run Windows software too. But it was the iPhone that kept Apple's shareprice buoyant.

One product i dislike is Powerfilm. They make flexible solar cells which you can wear. I thought this was such a great idea that it would take off like a rocket. But the stockmarket thinks otherwise, and i lost half my investment.

Quote:

The most inmportant thing is "Users are not designers, and designers are not users".

i disagree. the statement is too simplistic. i think Users ARE Designers and vice-versa. When you use something, you necessarily imagine how it (in your opinion) should work, so you become a designer, even if you dont get as far as writing down your design and just keep it in your head.

When You design something, you imagine how You would use it. However, Designers who are designing something for other Users need to ask their opinions and/or imagine what they need, taking into account that they have less familiarity with the product than its designer and consequently have different needs. This is an important and frequently overlooked principle of human-human communication as well as machine-human communication

For example, although it does matter what the teacher thinks the student needs to know, it's much more important for the teacher to find out what the student thinks they need to know.