What is Human Computer Interaction (HCI)?

Human computer interaction (commonly referred to as HCI) researches the design and use of computer technology, focused on the interfaces between people (users) and computers.Basic goal in the field of HCI is to observe the ways in which humans interact with computersIt encompasses multiple disciplines, such as computer science, cognitive science, and human-factors engineering.. The term was popularized by Stuart K. Card, Allen Newell, and Thomas P. Moran in their seminal 1983 book, The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, although the authors first used the term in 1980.

What is HCI composed of?

HCI is the design, implementation and evaluation of user interfaces. This course is going to teach you a set of tools for doing this effectively. At the onset of the design project, we often don’t know what the problem is or what the space of possibilities might be, let alone what the solution should be. Consequently, real-world design is often iterative, failed fast so you can succeed sooner. Often it benefits from trying and comparing options.

Why to use HCI?

Good design brings people joy: it helps people do things that we care about, and helps us connect people that we care about. Good user interfaces can have a tremendous impact on both [the] individual’s ability to accomplish things, and societies’. Graphical user interfaces help with computing a hundreds of millions of tasks, enabling us to do things like create documents, and share photo and connect with family and find information.

Bad design is frustrating and costs lives: medical devices, airplane accidents and nuclear disasters are just three domains where bad user interfaces and software errors have caused serious injury and many deaths. These are big ticket items that take a lot of time to produce. What really gets me is that many of these interface problems could have easily been avoided. Fixing these problems requires following just basic principles like consistency and feedback. If effective principles for interface design were widely known some of these disasters might have been avoided.

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10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design by Jakob Nielsen's

"The 10 most general principles for interaction design. They are called 'heuristics' because they are more in the nature of rules of thumb than specific usability guidelines." These are one of the most used heuristics for User Interface Design. They were developed by Jakob Nielsen together with Rolf Molich in the early 90's. The final set, which you see here, was released by Nielsen in 1994. Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. Match between system and the real world The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order. User control and freedom Users often choose system functions by mistake...

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