Human-Computer Interaction A Computer Science Perspective

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Human-Computer InteractionA Computer Science
Perspective

• Benjamin LokSeptember 20th, 2004

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Outline

• HCI
• Computer Science take
• Research
• My Research
• Virtual Reality
• Interactive Virtual Characters

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HCI Community

• Academics/Industry Research
• Taxonomies
• Theories
• Predictive models
• Experimenters
• Empirical data
• Product design
• Other areas (Sociologists, anthropologists,
  managers)
• Motor
• Perceptual
• Cognitive
• Social, economic, ethics

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Computer Science

• Preliminary
• Evaluate interfaces
• Design new approaches
• Command Line-gtDirect Manipulation
• Current
• New interfaces
• Mobility, Immersion,
• Helping companies develop better products
• Hardware, software, interaction technology

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Computer Science HCI

• How do you design interfaces to systems for
• Users with disabilities
• Children
• Elderly
• Culture and international diversity
• Cognitive diversity
• Physical
• Universal usability

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Case Study Library of Congress Database Design

• http//catalog.loc.gov/
• Two interfaces
• Catalog New Books
• 3-6 hour training course - staffers
• Search Catalog of Books
• General public too complex, command language
  and complex cataloging rules
• Solution
• Touch screen
• Reduced functionality
• Better information presentation
• Eventually Web based interface
• Same database and services, different interfaces

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Example

• Five fastest places to click on for a
  right-handed user?

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Example

• What affects time?

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Human Computer Interaction

• We see this all the time.
• Whats good about the design of this error box?
• The user knows there is an error
• Whats poor about the design of this error box?
• Discouraging
• Not enough information
• No way to resolve the problem (instructions or
  contact info)

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My Choice

• iPod by Apple Computers
• Pros
• portable
• power
• ease of use
• of controls
• Cons
• scratches easily
• no speech for car use
• proprietary

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HCI Tools

• Sound
• 3D
• Animation
• Video
• Devices
• Size (small-gtvery large)
• Portable (PDA, phone)
• Plasticity
• Context sensitive/aware
• Personalizable
• Ubiquitous

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Usability Requirements

• Goals
• Usability
• Universality
• Usefulness
• Achieved by
• Planning
• Sensitivity to user needs
• Devotion to requirements analysis
• Testing

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Bad Interfaces

• Encumbering
• Confusing
• Slow
• Trust (ex. windows crashing)
• What makes it hard?
• Varies by culture
• Multiple platforms
• Variety of users
• Think of a game youve played with a bad
  interface
• UNIX

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Standardization, Integration, Consistency,
Portability

• Standardization common user-interface features
  across multiple applications
• Apple
• Web
• Windows
• Integration across application packages
• file formats
• Consistency common action sequences, terms,
  units, layouts, color, typography within an
  application
• Portability convert data and interfaces across
  multiple hardware and software environments
• Word/HTML/PDF/ASCII

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Accommodating Hardware and Software Diversity

• Support a wide range of hardware and software
  platforms
• Software and hardware evolution
• OS, application, browsers, capabilities
• backward compatibility is a good goal
• Three major technical challenges are
• Producing satisfying and effective Internet
  interaction (broadband vs. dial-up wireless)
• Enabling web services from large to small (size
  and resolution)
• Support easy maintenance of or automatic
  conversion to multiple languages

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HCI Goals

• Influence academic and industrial researchers
• Understand a problem and related theory
• Hypothesis and testing
• Study design (well do this!)
• Interpret results
• Provide tools, techniques and knowledge for
  commercial developers
• competitive advantage (think ipod)
• Raising the computer consciousness of the general
  public
• Reduce computer anxiety (error messages)
• Common fears
• Ill break it
• Ill make a mistake
• The computer is smarter than me
• HCI contributes to this!

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Near Future Interfaces

• Time to learn
• Speed of performance
• Rate of errors
• Retention over time
• Subjective satisfaction

• Lets review
• Minority Report
• Steel Battalion
• Eye Toy
• Dance Dance Revolution

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Overview

• Computer generated characters and environments
• Amazing visuals and audio
• Interacting is limited!
• Reduce applicability?
• Goals
• Create new methods to interact
• Evaluate the effectiveness of these interaction
  methods

Aki from Final Fantasy The Spirits Within
Walking Experiment PIT - UNC
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Collaborators

• Xi Yong Wang, Aaron Kotranza,
• Benjamin Lok
• University of Florida
• Danette Allen
• NASA Langley Research Center

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Virtual Environments

• Been around for almost 30 years
• of systems in research labs gt day to day use
• Why?
• Interaction with the virtual environment is too
  poor
• Everything is virtual isnt necessarily good
• Example, change a light bulb
• Approach
• Real objects as interfaces to the virtual world
• Merge the real and virtual spaces
• Evaluate what VR is good for!

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• Getting real objects into VR to aid engineering
  design
• Collaboration w/ Mars Airplane (Langley Research
  Center)
• Get tools, parts, and other (possibly
  distributed) collaborators in a shared space

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Immersive Virtual Characters for Educating
Medical Communication Skills

• J. Hernendez, A. Stevens, D. S. Lind
• Department of Surgery (College of Medicine)
• M. Duerson
• Department of Community Health and Family
  Medicine (College of Medicine)
• K. Johnsen, R. Dickerson, A. Raij, B. Lok
• Department of Computer and Information Science
  and Engineering (College of Engineering)
• The University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
• J. Jackson, M. ShinDepartment of Computer
  Science
• The University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
  Charlotte, NC

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What is a Virtual Character?

• Virtual character - a character who represents
  the state of a system
• In TRON (1982), humans and humans that represents
  software interacted within a world that
  represented the hardware.

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What is a Virtual Character

• We look to to have humans and human the represent
  software interact in the real world.
• http//movies.yahoo.com/shop?dhvid1807432839cf
  trailer

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Motivation

• Doctor, I have a pain in my side!
• What you do next depends on
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Visual Cues
• Audio Cues

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Motivation

• Medical Diagnosis Components
• Patient Interview
• Physical Examination
• Current Teaching Methodologies
• Books
• Standardized Patients (actors)
• Results in
• Minimal training frequency
• Minimal scenario variety
• Lack of immediate feedback
• Medical students are not adequately prepared for
  many diagnosis scenarios

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Solution

• Interactive Virtual Characters
• Life-Sized
• Computer Generated
• Natural Interaction
• Responds to User
• Responses based on accepted medical procedure

• COTS Equipment
• Projectors
• Laptops
• Web cameras
• Tablet PC

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Solution

• Interactive Virtual Characters
• Computer Generated
• Natural Interaction
• Responds to User
• Responses based on accepted medical procedure

• Results in
• More Scenarios
• More Training
• Standardized Experiences

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Why do we want digital characters

• Propose Digital Characters as a new (meta-)
  medium to interact with information
• Why would we want a digital character?
• Effective Interaction
• Better than keyboard and mouse for certain tasks
• Dynamic (output easily augmentable)
• 3D
• Natural interaction
• Low Bandwidth
• Effective Collaboration
• Controlled conveyed visual information
• Non-verbal communication (60)

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Lets look at interaction

• Each participant in a communication has three
  stages perception, cognition, and response
• Define interaction as both the input and output

Digital Character
Thinking
Perceiving
Responding
Interaction
Responding
Perceiving
Thinking
Participant
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Combines

• Speech
• Computer Vision
• Eye Gaze
• Gesture Recognition
• Repeat your gestures
• High Quality 3D models
• Animation
• Rendering
• Visualization

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Integrates

• Computer Science
• Computer Graphics
• Image Processing
• Natural Language Processing
• Medicine
• Training
• Education
• Standardization
• Education
• Multimedia Learning
• Technology based Learning
• Training
• What other areas could this be used for?
• Psychology
• Social Science
• Education

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Current and Future Work

• Current Status
• Initial scenario created with gesture, speech,
  and visualization components integrated
• Evaluating with a group of Medical Students Year
  2
• Future Work
• Formal evaluation studies
• Increase and improve scenarios
• Enhance interactivity
• Show video