HCI - An Introduction

Human Computer Interaction (or HCI) is the latest buzzword in the Information Technology Industry. Using this article, I am trying to introduce the HCI world and its usability in real world. This article can be used as a reference by high school students and beginners to become familiar with the HCI word, use cases and what all skills one needs to have to become a researcher in this field.

In simple words, Human Computer Interaction (or HCI) is a subfield within computer science dealing with the study of the interaction between people (users like you and me) with computers. In the process it covers aspects around the design, evaluation, and implementation aspects of user interfaces for computer systems that are receptive to the user's needs and habits. This multidisciplinary field incorporates a combination of computer science, behavior science and design aspects around it. The main objective of HCI is to make computer systems more user-friendly and more usable. Users can interact with computer systems through a user interface, which consists of hardware and software which provides a means of input, allowing the users to interact with the system and output, allowing the system to process data and provide information to the user. Hence, design, implementation and evaluation of interfaces is a central focus of HCI.

HCI is not a new field; it’s just that there is more buzz created around it in most recent past. In fact, this field was first introduced in the late 1970’s alongside the emergence of personal computers. As the computers shrunk in size and became relatively lesser expensive (and came into the reach of masses and not just limited to university labs/big organizations); there was a need to create a human computer interaction that was easy and efficient for the lesser experienced users. In fact, if I can at all extrapolate this observation what was experienced in personal computers with HCI with what we all are experiencing in the mobile/tablet world – with mobiles increasingly becoming easier to operate, more processing power (almost like a personal computer) and more efficient to operate thereby making it more and more accessible to lesser experienced users.

Even if a person does not directly own or use a computer, computers have an impact on their lives. ATM machines, railway ticket selling machines, and hot beverage vending machines are just a few examples of computer interfaces that people may interact with on a regular basis without having to possess a computer. When creating any of these systems or interfaces, human-computer interaction (HCI) is crucial, whether designing an interface for an ATM or a desktop computer, HCI principles should be examined and taken into account to guarantee that the interface is safe, useful, and efficient.

Researching in the HCI Field

Human computer researchers seek to understand how people think and interact and then incorporate the learnings into a new system’s design or modify an existing system design. For example, if an HCI researcher is writing a software to prompt a user to autosave a document what he is working on; the researcher needs to gain a better understanding of the users needs, including constraints, environmental and comfort factors, personal experiences and more. These factors must be considered during design phases of the software development in order to create an interface and prompts that are user friendly. A classic example is that of the autosave feature enabled by Microsoft for MS-Office applications. For this reason, people in the HCI field must have a strong background in research, good observation skills and a knack for observing people and their comfort factors; along with comfort in running studies and surveys. They also should know how to analyze and present data in a manner understandable by all. One point which HCI researchers should keep in mind is that the way you do things might not be the way somebody else would necessarily do the same thing; so, ease of use (by everyone and not just the researcher) should be the prime focal point of the researcher. After all – the main function of the HCI is to make human computer interaction easier and simpler.

For those of you, who want to choose HCI as a career option – people who specialize in HCI learn the foundations of human abilities, computational artifacts, design, and evaluation. This mix also delves into the research methods for designing and evaluating computer software systems as well as next generation integration modalities, including sensors, haptics, wearables, and performance interfaces. The skills which are learned in the process are applicable universally and not just to this one area.

Applications of HCI

Human computer interaction finds application across a wide range of industries from Aviation, electronics and semiconductors, Telecommunication, Pharmaceutical, etc. and HCI researchers are becoming prized possession of organizations. For example, the HCI at Federal Aviation Administration which studies the air traffic control towers; before making a change in the air traffic control software (even a small thing like change of font color) perform rigorous studies to understand how the change might affect the user of the software. The principles of HCI are applicable to several jobs and areas:

• In electronic industry, product developers may use HCI methodology to better understand the user of a new electronic device or software which the company is planning to launch.
• For websites and advertisements, the user experience developers may employ HCI to make sure the company’s websites and advertisements encourage customers to do more purchases.
• Data scientists may study HCI to develop data visualization dashboards that best convey information in the most usable way.
• Software developers may employ HCI when developing revolutionary products for new audiences.
• Virtual reality is an excellent example of human-computer interaction in the workplace. The interaction between the computer and the user is meant to provide the user a new viewpoint. Virtual reality, when done correctly, can genuinely resemble the actual environment, and is an excellent example of good HCI at action. 
• Voice search, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Voice Search, is another example. These voice search apps and gadgets allow users to engage with a device or system that guides them to an Amazon purchase or a Google search.

The following are some of the most important recent prototypes developed by firms throughout the world employing HCI theories.

a. Dexta Haptic Gloves

When utilizing virtual reality, Dexta Haptic gloves were created to simulate touch feelings of hardness, softness, springiness, and more. As the user interacts with things in their VR experience, the gloves replicate these feelings by locking and unlocking the user’s finger joints to various degrees.

b.  Pre-Touch Sensing

It enables your smartphone to read your thoughts (well almost). When they first came out, pre-touch phones should be able to detect how the user holds the phone or which fingers approach the screen in order to forecast what the user intends to do. This gives the impression that your phone can read your mind since it executes things before you give it a clear instruction.

c. Paper ID

It is the next effort to digitize paper by converting it to a touchscreen. Paper will be able to detect its surroundings and respond to gesture instructions, as well as link to internet of things. The goal is to connect the physical and digital worlds.

d. SkinTrack

This is an effort to best utilize your smartwatch and its functionalities. In many cases, users find it difficult to use the watch face for tasks due to the limited space, but this prototype allows the user's entire hand to be an input device of sorts for the smartwatch. While wearing a special ring, you can enable the extra space on your arm, acting as a cursor on the watch, enabling a library of gestures, and even play games on the tiny screen space.

e. HoloFlex

This prototype uses a bendable display to its full advantage by creating holographic images providing the user with an immersive 3-D view of the entire screen. Using 12-pixel-wide circular blocks, this prototype achieves this trick.

f. SparseLight

Current VR and AR headsets have a very limited field of view, which can at times break the immersive experience one expects with such devices. Microsoft's new prototype aims to eliminate this problem, which is achieved using LEDs in the peripheral vision of the user, enabling the immersive view.

Conclusion

HCI is a very vast topic spanning across industries and has a possible use case across verticals. The applications of HCI what we talked about in this article are possibly just a window to the future and I am sure the door has much more to offer and welcome. I hope you found this article useful.

• Federal Aviation Administration. URL: https://www.hf.faa.gov/
• Microsoft. URL: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/research-area/human-computer-interaction/?
• Sensor System Laboratory. URL: https://sensor.cs.washington.edu/research/pre-touch-sensing
• Dexta Robotics. URL: https://www.dextarobotics.com/en-us
• SkinTrack. URL: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/564246
• HoloFlex. URL: http://www.humanmedialab.org/holoflex
• SparseLight. URL: https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-researchs-new-project-aims-to-improve-field-of-view-of-ar-and-vr-displays/