User Psychology

1
User Psychology
ITKP103 Human Being and Information
System http//www.cs.jyu.fi/ky/kurssit/itkp103/ind
ex.html Sacha Helfenstein sh_at_cc.jyu.fi Lectures
28.10, 2.11., and 4.11.2005
2
Transfer, Affordance, Metaphors
3
Transfer, Affordance, Metaphors
conflict
4
Transfer, Affordance, Metaphors

• Positive People always transfer their past
  experiences to present situations
• Negative People always transfer their past
  experiences to present situations

Example for two different levels of transfer
Conceptual (i.e., users understanding of the
device) and Action (e.g., users interaction with
the device)
Conceptual - -
Action - -
5
Supporting Users Cognition

• Repetitio mater studiorum est
• Consistency and Interference
• Recognition is easier than recall
• Learning and thinking is context dependent
• Law of Experience -gt Transfer of Learning
• Use simple conceptual models oriented at the
  goals of the user

6
Supporting Users Cognition

• Repetitio mater studiorum est
• Consistency and Interference
• Recognition is easier than recall
• Learning and thinking is context dependent
• Law of Experience -gt Transfer of Learning
• Use simple conceptual models oriented at the
  goals of the user
• Enable meaningful experiences (e.g., semantics
  over syntax, self-explaining terminology)

7
Supporting Users Cognition

• Repetitio mater studiorum est
• Consistency and Interference
• Recognition is easier than recall
• Learning and thinking is context dependent
• Law of Experience -gt Transfer of Learning
• Use simple conceptual models oriented at the
  goals of the user
• Enable meaningful experiences (e.g., semantics
  over syntax, self-explaining terminology)
• Address different modalities (? developping fancy
  multi-media interfaces)

8
Motor Control

• Learning, remembering, selecting, planning, and
  controling of movement during execution
• The production of purposeful, goal-directed
  movement pervades all human activity and are a
  necessary part of interacting with our
  environment (-gt HCI)

9
Some Key Topics in Motor Control

• Speed vs. Accuracy
• Degrees of freedom
• Simultaneous motor movement
• Visuo-motor integration
• Serial order, motor programs, schemata, scripts
• Skill acquisition
• Strong memory (also interference, negative
  transfer)

10
The Model Human Processor

• Perception system
• Cognition system
• Motor system
• ----------------------------
• Affective System?

11
Reasons for Integrating Affect

• User experience vs. usability utility
• Attractive things work better (Norman, 2002)
• Emotions as biggest differentiator in user
  experience
• Difference between skill and will
• Emotions are part of cognition, affect our
  perception, attention, thinking, and guide our
  behavior
• The Final Frontier (e.g., Affective Computing and
  AI)

12
(No Transcript)
13
HCI focus over time

• 1960- UI for expert users (system operators)
• 1970- From Main Frame to Desktop machine
• 1980- Increasingly novice users (GUI)
• 1990- Ubiquitous computing, consistent
  interfacing
• 2000- User experience, Socio-emotional
  dimension of HCI

14
Why Affect has been discared?

• Dominance of Cognitive Psychology and their
  adaptation of a deficient Information Processing
  metaphor to the study of humans
• Irrational emotions distract from the study of
  pure cognition
• Dispute over emotion theory
• Measurement problem

15
What Is an Emotion?

• Everybody knows - except scientists
• Emotion as
• Content experience (feeling)
• Physical experience
• Motivational and behavioral indicator
• Emotions as ratiomorph evaluations (Bischof,
  1985)
• Emotions as action tendencies (Frijda, 1986)
• Affect family Emotions, Moods, Motivations,
  Values, Needs

16
Why Do We Have Emotions?

• Emotions inform us about our inner status and our
  relation to the world with respect to our goals.
• Emotions tell us...
• whats good and whats bad
• whats important
• and in what direction we would like to change
  matters.

17
Role of Affect in Use Interaction

• Affect Use Interaction
• Affect Use Interaction

Designed for effect in order to enhance the
user experience
Goal of use interaction
Artefact of use interaction
18
Emotions as Goals of Use
19
Usability Goes Beyond Utility
Identity
Fun
Looks
Image
Hedonic Meaning
Efficiency
Status Symbol
Symbolic and Expressive Meaning
Instrumental Meaning
Fashion
Effectivity
Pride
People choose and use products for more reasons
than just to satisfy functional needs.
20
Affect and Cognition

• Mood, emotions, and attitudes selectively capture
  our attention, memory, and thinking
• Productive use through emotionally-laden stimuli
• E.g., Colors, Music, Humour, Alerts
• The downside is attention rigidness, distraction,
  and neglect
• E.g., Errors, dominance of negative events,
  contextual information gets lost

21
Affect and Cognition
e.g., arousal and reaction time
22
Affect and Cognition

• Positive mood enhances cognitive activity and
  boosts creativity. LOL.
• Medium level arousal enhances learning and
  performance.
• Positive emotions can balance out negative
  experiences and influence the use experience in a
  holistic way.
• Positive emotions are rewarding and motivating.

23
Affect and Cognition

• Negative emotions and attitudes hinder effective,
  efficient, satisfying use.
• Anxiety (e.g., fear of failure) reduces Working
  Memory capacity, causes slower learning, hinders
  performance (even for easy tasks), and builds up
  negative attitudes.
• Negative attitudes result in use avoidance,
  impaired learning and use, and predict negative
  future attitudes.

24
Aesthetics

• Aesthetics alter users' perceptions of
  usefulness, usability, performance (Davis, 1989
  Dillon, 2001, Norman, 2002)
• Apparent vs. inherent usability (Kurosu
  Kashimura, 1995 Tractinsky, 1997)

25
Relevance

• People expect things that look good to work
  better
• Indeed, they often actually do! (e.g., obey laws
  of perception, motivate people, place them into
  good mood)
• Self-fulfilling prophecy Negative expectations
  affect users subsequent evaluation of the
  interface (i.e., expression of dissatisfaction).
  (Hiltz Johnson, 1990)
• However Dont hide bad interaction design behind
  beauty.
• Also Aesthetics is not culture-free!

26
The Positive Affective Chain

• Looks good, sounds good (aestethics,
  attractivity)
• Feels good (symbolics, trust, pride,
  identification)
• Is good for me (emotional evaluation, attitude)
• I Want it (motivation, intention)
• I Use it (behavior, action)

27
The Negative Affective Chain

• Looks unappealing, confusing
• Embarrasses me, intimidates me
• I dont like it
• Aversion, anxiety
• I avoid it, or use it with discomfort

28
Technophobia Computer Anxiety

• Think negatively about technology use
• Feel negatively about and during use
• Ineffective and inefficient use
• Use avoidance

29
Who is technophobic?
Women gt Men Older people gt Younger people
(Weil Rosen, 1995)
30
Fear Factors

• Disposition
• Lack of clarity (what, how, where, who, why)
• Lack of control
• Relevance of outcome
• Lack as well as type of prior experiences
  (especially failures and errors)

31
References

• Dalal, N.P., Quible, Z., Wyatt, K. (1999).
  Cognitive design of home pages an experimental
  study of comperhension on the WWW. Information
  Processing and Management, 36, 607-621.
• Card, S. K., Moran, T. P., Newell, A. (1983).
  The Psychology of Human Computer
  Interaction.Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Newell, A. Card, S. K. (1985). The prospects
  for psychological science in human-computer
  interaction. Human-Computer Interaction, 1(3),
  209-242.
• Landauer, T. K. (1987). Psychology as a mother of
  invention. In J. M. Carroll P. P. Tanner
  (Eds.), Proceedings of the SIGCHI/GI conference
  on Human factors in computing systems and
  graphics interface (pp. 333-335). New York ACM
  Press.
• Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of Gestalt
  Psychology. London Routledge Kegan Paul.
• Stroop, J.R. (1935). Studies of interference in
  serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental
  Psychology, 12, 643-662.
• Bower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American
  Psychologist, 36(2), 149-158.
• Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge
  Cambridge University Press.
• Norman, D. A. (2002). Emotion and design
  Atrractive things work better. Interactions
  Magazine, ix (4), 36-42.
• Mehrabian, A. (1995). Framework for a
  comprehensive description and measurement of
  emotional states. Genetic, Social, and General
  Psychology Monographs, 121, 339-361.

32
References

• Hiltz, S.R. and Johnson, K. User satisfaction
  with computer mediated communication systems,
  Management Science. 30.6 (1990). 739-764.
• Kurosu, M, Kashimura, K. (1995). Apparent
  usability vs. inherent usability experimental
  analysis on the determinants of the apparent
  usability. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference
  on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York
  ACM Press.
• Atkinson, R. C. Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human
  memory A proposed system and its control
  processes. In K.W. Spence J.T. Spence (Eds.),
  The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol 2.
  New York Academic Press.
• Norman, D. A., Draper, S. W. (Eds.) (1986).
  User centered system design New perspectives on
  human-computer interaction. Hillsdale, NJ
  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Irina Ceaparu, Jonathan Lazar, Katie Bessiere,
  John Robinson and Ben Shneiderman Determining
  Causes and Severity of End-User Frustration
• Seyle, H. (1956). The Stress of Life.
• Picard, R. Affective Computing, MIT Press, 1997
• Weil, M.M. Rosen, L.D. (1995). The
  Psychological Impact of Technology from a Global
  Perspective A Study of Technological
  Sophistication and Tehnnophobia in University
  Students from Twenty-Three Countries. Computers
  in Human Behavior, 11(1), 95-133.