History of HCI

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History of HCI

• Key people, events and ideas

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Agenda

• Review HCIs history
• Key people and events
• Course Project
• Description, details

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History of HCI

• Digital computer grounded in ideas from 1700s
  1800s
• Technology became available in the 1940s and
  1950s

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Vannevar Bush

• As We May Think - 1945 Atlantic
  Monthlypublication has been extended far
  beyond our present ability to make real use of
  the record.

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Bush

• Postulated Memex device
• Can store all records/articles/communications
• Large memory
• Items retrieved by indexing, keywords, cross
  references
• Can make a trail of links through material
• etc.
• Envisioned as microfilm, not computer

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J.R. Licklider

• 1960 - Postulated man-computer symbiosis
• Couple human brainsand computing
  machinestightly to revolutionizeinformation
  handling

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Vision/Goals

• Immed Intermed Long-term

• Time sharing
• Electronic I/O
• Interactive, real- time system
• Large scale information storage and
  retrieval

• Combined speech recognition, character
  recognition, light- pen editing

• Natural language understanding
• Speech recognition of arbitrary users
• Heuristic programming

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Mid 1960s

• Computers too expensive for individuals -gt
  timesharing
• increased accessibility
• interactive systems, not jobs
• text processing, editing
• email, shared file system

Need for HCI
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Ivan Sutherland

• SketchPad - 63 PhD thesis at MIT
• Hierarchy - pictures subpictures
• Master picture with instances (ie, OOP)
• Constraints
• Icons
• Copying
• Light pen as input device
• Recursive operations

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Douglas Engelbart

• Landmark system/demo
• hierarchical hypertext, multimedia, mouse,
  high-res display, windows, shared files,
  electronic messaging, CSCW, teleconferencing, ...

Inventor of mouse
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Alan Kay

• Dynabook - Notebook sized computer loaded with
  multimedia and can store everything

Desktop interface
Personal computing
12
Ted Nelson

• Computers can help people, not just business
• Coined term hypertext

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Nicholas Negroponte

• MIT machine architecture AI group 69-80s
• Ideas
• wall-sized displays, videodisks, AI in
  interfaces (agents), speech recognition,multimed
  ia with hypertext

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Personal Computers

• 70s IBM PC
• Text and command-based
• Sold lots

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PCs with GUIs

• Xerox PARC - mid 1970s
• Alto
• local processor, bitmap display, mouse
• Precursor to modern GUI,windows, menus,
  scrollbars
• LAN - ethernet

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Xerox Star - 81

• First commercial PC designed for business
  professionals
• desktop metaphor, pointing, WYSIWYG, high degree
  of consistency and simplicity
• First system based on usability engineering
• Paper prototyping and analysis
• Usability testing and iterative refinement

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Star

• Commercial flop
• 15k cost
• closed architecture
• lacking key functionality(spreadsheet)

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Apple Lisa - 82

• Based on ideas of Star
• More personal rather than office tool
• Still
• Failure

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Apple Macintosh - 84

• Aggressive pricing - 2500
• Not trailblazer, smart copier
• Good interface guidelines
• 3rd party applications
• High quality graphics and laser printer

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Group Project

• Design and evaluate an interface
• 0 - Team formation topic choice
• 1 - Understand the problem
• 2 - Design alternatives
• 3 - Prototype evaluation plan
• 4 - Evaluation
• Main 4 parts worth 12 each

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Details

• Part 0 - Topic definition
• Identify team topic, create web notebook
• Part 1 - Understanding the problem
• Describe tasks, users, environment, social
  context
• What are implications for design?

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Details

• Part 2 - Design alternatives
• Storyboards, mock-ups for multiple different
  designs
• Explain decisions
• Part 3 - System prototype eval plan
• Semi-working interface functionality
• Plan for conducting evaluation

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Details

• Part 4 - Evaluation
• Conduct evaluation with example users
• Characterize whats working and whats not

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Project Teams

• 4 people
• You decide
• Diverse is best!
• Consider schedules
• Cool name
• Help getting members on Monday

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Presentations

• Informal poster sessions
• Feedback on ideas, whole class period
• After parts 1,2,3
• Other students and expert gallery
• Formal project presentation
• Final week of classes
• 10-15 minute summary

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Project Topics

• Set of possibilities
• Max of 2 teams per topic
• First-come, first-served
• By next Friday
• Set up web notebook
• Real client

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Topic Ideas
(Old ones)

• Mobile/handheld (cars, tour guides, etc.)
• Wedding planner
• GIS
• Calendar agent (speech)
• Audio / Web sites
• Domain that you know well
• Browse old projects for more ideas...

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What Makes a Good Project

• Access to domain experts users
• Real clients
• Interesting human issues
• Rich domain for design

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Upcoming

• Videos of the Future
• HCI Frameworks and Paradigms
• Usability Principles
• Design of Everyday Things