From Science to Design: Applying HCI Principles to Real World Problems
- Edinburgh: Monday, March 19
- San Francisco: Tuesday, April 3
Kathryn Whitenton
Full-Day Training Course
Learn the science behind effective interface design. Research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
examines how computer interfaces can best support human abilities, using controlled experiments to
reach definitive conclusions. This course examines the most relevant concepts from the field of HCI,
then explores how those principles can be applied to specific design problems.
Knowing the fundamental characteristics that define human-computer interaction will give you a
vocabulary to analyze user interfaces to derive deeper, more conceptual and penetrating insights
than simply saying “this works” or “this doesn’t work.” This course
tells you why certain designs work better in certain circumstances.
What You’ll Learn
- The components and constraints of interactive systems
- Scientific research findings that form the basis of current design principles
- How to think about a user interface in a principled way
- How to use HCI principles to develop usable, useful, and universal interfaces
Course Outline
- Origins of Human-Computer Interaction
- Human Information Processing
- Information processing theory: channels and subsystems
- Perception, constraints and compensation strategies
- Cognition, processing and memory
- The gulf of execution and the gulf of evaluation
- Mental models and their importance for operating devices
- Task-loading and stress
- Motor actions: response selection and Fitts’ Law
- Computers in HCI
- Input devices
- Input formats: speech, bimanual input, gestural, multi-touch
- Evaluation and analysis of input devices: Fitts’ Law, Hicks’ Law
- Output devices: displays, speech and auditory output
Interaction styles
- Direct Manipulation
- Menus, Forms, Dialogs
- Collaboration
- Universal design: issues in designing for specific populations (such as kids, seniors, users with disabilities)
Complex interface features
- Strategies for supporting different types of search
- Information visualization: presenting choices
- Response time thresholds and impacts
- User Assistance and dealing with errors
Development for HCI
- Task analysis, GOMS and Keystroke-level model
- The role of user experience and usability engineering
- Golden rules and heuristics
- HCI Patterns
Format
This full-day tutorial includes lecture, videos, exercises, and discussions.
Real-world examples (mainly from websites) are used to illustrate points throughout the day.
Handouts
Copies of the presentation slides
Who Should Attend
This course is for anyone involved in interface design decisions who does not have a formal
education in human-computer interaction, but would like a better grounding in the theory that determines which
designs work best. This is a basic course; there are no prerequisites.
See Also:
This seminar teaches the principles of human-computer interaction, and how
they apply to web design. We offer another seminar, The Human Mind and Usability,
which focuses specifically on the human component and takes a psychology perspective. The overlap between
the two seminars is minimal; in the few cases where we do discuss the same concepts in the two seminars,
they are presented from different angles.
Instructor
Kathryn Whitenton is a User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Prior to joining NN/g,
Whitenton worked as a Usability Engineer with the University of Washington Libraries, where she led user research
and usability testing for the Libraries’ website. She also worked as a psychology researcher at the University
of Texas at Austin, where she managed a clinical research study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Whitenton
holds a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Washington, and a B.A. in Psychology
and Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin.
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