Human-Computer Interaction - Book Report/Review Example

Human-Computer Interaction INTRODUCTION The internet, and information technology has given a new meaning to costumer services by empowering the common man. Internet has emerged as a useful tool in business processes leading to the advent of e commerce. With the soaring competition, each and every established company and organisations feel the need of providing for the users the option of online processing of various operations and information handling (includes providing users with the crucial information or storing their information) as a must. With the increasing popularity of online trade, the shoppers are becoming more and more sophisticated in their knowledge about various online purchasing alternatives and less patient with websites that are difficult to understand and use (Nah & Davis 2002). Today, users look for websites which provide hassle free, easy and quick services.. Here, Human Computer Interaction study plays an important role in resolving the usability issues by formulating methodologies and processes for designing interfaces which are human centred. The basic premise of human centred design is that the system should support the user not vice versa ( FFA Human Factors) . Stressing on user’s needs and assessing usability throughout the system design and development can help attain cost efficient system which are easy to use and interact with. A long term goal of HCI is to design systems that minimize the barrier between the human's cognitive model of what they want to accomplish and the computer's understanding of the user's task (Online Wikipedia). For this report I have chosen a quite popular e commerce website, www.ebay.com. Various HCI methodologies are available for gaining an understanding about the users and their environment; the methods which I chose for analysing this website are contextual inquiry and task analysis. CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY Contextual inquiry is a research technique of collecting information about the users, their needs, working environment and tasks performed by them, by conducting interviews or through direct observation while they are at work. The result of this process is feed directly into the design process (Gaffney 1999). It is more like a discovery process than evaluative process; more like learning than testing (James 2003).Contextual inquiry is based on three core principles: understanding the context in which the product or system is used, treating the user as a partner in the designing process by asking for his suggestions and identifying the feature that need to be embedded in the system in order to make it more productive. Lastly, usability design must have a focus, a focus can be seen as a number of assumptions and beliefs concerning what we want to accomplish and how we want to accomplish it (UsabilityNet contextual inquiry). The steps involved in contextual inquiry are as follows (Holzbatt 1988) 1. Identify the user group who are most likely to use the system. 2. Plan the visit. Prepare a questionnaire focusing on the aspects of users’ work. 3. Ask for the users’ permission first and inform them about the interview’s purpose. 4. Carry out the observation\interview, record the important points side by side and the relevant questions to the users. 5. Analyse and organise the gathered data carefully, making a note of the extent to which you have been successful in meeting the goals. The main advantages/strengths of this research technique are: 1. Real data from users are fed in to the designing process starting from an early stage, instead of making incorrect assumptions. 2. Designers focus on users, their capabilities, their needs, and the tasks they perform resulting in a design which is user focused. 3. Previously unknown issues and hidden opportunities are identified and resolved. The shortcomings of this research technique are: 1. Sometimes users do not feel comfortable seeing someone observe them and hence may make mistakes or act in a different way from when they are alone, leading to wrong data recording. 2. To make this method work, you must set up a good relationship with the people you are observing and convince them about the importance of the study. Hence, it’s a long term process and time consuming. 3. The process may prove to be expensive. The reason why I have chosen this method for knowing about the users is that for this particular site, it’s expected that users with no prior experience and training will use it for making purchases. Since the site is meant for general public, it’s very necessary that people shopping from different environment (like office, home, hostels, etc) and different backgrounds be observed. It is very difficult to make assumptions in this case about the users’ knowledge and understanding of internet and web-browsing. Using this method, I would find data to determine whether the website design is successful in meeting the site goals. Whether the user would like to revisit the site and become a regular customer? If yes, then what group they belong to the housewife’s group or the students group. What are the factors which lead to non satisfaction of the other group? How the level of internet knowledge varied? What features of the site were used, and which ones irritate the users (Jones, Rodden, Blackwell, Frayling 2004)? However, in order to make the users feel at ease especially the house wives’ group, I would need to spend a quality time with them, and assure them that their personal information will not be disclosed. Apart from trust building, data need to be recorded cautiously, a formal training in data recording is very essential otherwise the whole point of visit is lost. Hence, this method is not suitable for cases when time and budget is limited. This method gives an in depth and detailed knowledge about the user, so when minor changes are required to be made in the website the method would be a way too much of effort. TASK ANALYSIS Task Analysis emerged from research in applied behaviour analysis and still has considerable research in the area (Task Analysis Online Wikipedia) It is the process of identifying system functions that have to be performed, procedures and actions to be carried out to achieve task goals, information to be processed, input and output formats that are required, constraints that must be considered, communication needs that have to be satisfied, and the organization and structure as well as the information categories and information flow of the task (Zhang, Johnson, Malin, Smith 2002) Task analysis is highly valuable in the context of HCI, since the user interfaces must be identified with the lowest level (e.g. in terms of particular interaction style and widgets) while still mapping effectively to users’ high level tasks (Crystal, Ellington 2004). Following steps illustrate the process of task analysis (Task Analysis UsablityNet) 1. Identify the task to be analysed. 2. Decompose this task into a number of sub tasks (4 to 8). 3. Draw a flow chart showing the subtasks starting from the initial task and ending with the final task, indicating the flow of information. 4. Decide upon the level of detail into which to decompose. 5. Continue the decomposition process, ensuring that the decompositions and numbering are consistent. 6. Present the analysis to someone else who has not been involved in the decomposition but who knows the tasks well enough to check for consistency. The advantages or strengths of this method are: 1. Using this method, one can decide what other tasks the system must support. 2. Need of inclusion of other application can be determined. 3. This method allows to refine or redefine the navigation or search for the website to better support users’ goals-to make sure the site is efficient, effective, and satisfying to users.(Analyse Usability.gov) The shortcomings or weakness of this method are: 1. A task analysis can prove to be extremely time consuming and costly process. 2. The more detailed information you want to collect the more you will need to probe the user and burden him with data collection and information. (Giacoppo 2001) Using this method one can evaluate how people accomplish their goals (in this case, choose an item of interest and order it) using the website. I will be able to identify the steps taken by the users one by one and the confusions or difficulties faced by him (if any) at every step. What personal, social, cultural, technological characteristics the users bring to the tasks can also be perceived using the method. I have chosen this method since the kind of users I will be observing (students and housewives) would vary drastically in their knowledge and experience with internet, so I need to study their each and every step and how they accomplish each task. To evaluate the simplicity of the website usage this analysis would help me. On the basis of this I will be able to identify the tasks which need to be simplified further or removed completely and replaced by some simpler version. Also, time taken by the users to complete their shopping tasks will be recorded: after choosing the category of the product, how the user selects one of the many options and the time taken by him for doing so. When did the user feel the need of help? Did they click on the help tab? Such actions will be monitored closely. However, the users may get irate during the session especially the hose wives’ group and may find it cumbersome to provide with much details and the process may take longer than they had perceived (it depends on their expertise, actually). Hence, I need to be very careful about choosing the questions which I am going to ask and make the process to the point and as short as possible. While, with the student’s the case could be that they may not take the whole thing seriously which may led to wastage of time. References 1. Nah, F. and Davis, S. "HCI Research Issues in Electronic Commerce", Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 3, No. 3, August 2002, pp. 98-113. 2. Human-computer-Interaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_interaction 3. Gerry Gaffney 1999 Information & Design, Usability Task Analysis, ContextualEnquiry.pdf 4. James Hom, http://jthom.best.vwh.net/usability/context.htm 5. UsabilityNet contextual inquiry http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/contextualinquiry.htm 6. Whiteside J., J Bennet and K Holzbatt (1988) Usability engineering: our experience and evolution. In M Helander(Ed) Handbook of Human Computer Interaction, 791-871, NY: North Holland Elsevier 7. Rachel Jones, Natasa Milic-Frayling, Kerry Rodden, Alan Blackwell,30 September 2004 Technical Report MSR-TR-2004-96 http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=70095 8. Task Analysis Online Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_analysis 9. Jiajie Zhang, Kathy A, Johnson, Jane T, Malin, Jack W, Smith Human Centred Information Visualization 10. Abe Crystal Beth Ellington Task Analysis and Human Computer Interaction http://ils.unc.edu/~acrystal/AMCIS04_crystal_ellington_final.pdf 11. Task Analysis UsablityNet http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/taskanalysis.htm 12. Analyse Usability.gov http://www.usability.gov/analyze/analysis.html 13. Giacoppo 2001 Development methods: Users Need Assessment & Task Analysis http://otal.umd.edu/hci-rm/dvlpmeth.html Site URL : www.ebay.com Things to consider Student response Test Goal What will be the focus of the test? How will these issues be addressed during the test? Focus of the test will be to find the improvement areas in the site by gaining knowledge of various kinds of difficulties faced by the consumers. By observing the users and by asking them directly while working. Formative or Submmative ? Would this be a one-off summative test or would it be iterative (test – feed results into the design and re-test). Please justify your answer. This is going to be an iterative test where users would be contacted and requested testing repeatedly, till the website is improved satisfactorily. Environment Laboratory or Field? What are the key factors determining choice? What technology is needed? The environment I decide to choose is field because first of all it’s not very difficult to find people who use e commerce sites because of their popularity. Secondly, the data collected on the base of the costumers’ environment and working conditions need to be observed rather than asking them directly as they may not be able to give some information which might be useful in my point of view but considered of no importance by the users. Technology used will be a laptop and internet. Choice of Participants Who should test the site? Describe the target user group(s). How many users? The people having experience in conducting interviews and surveys may test the site to gain the first hand knowledge of users difficulties and level of ease. The users I intent to target are the housewives and university students. I have chosen these two groups because I think they have least technical knowledge and usually require help using the internet. At least, 7 housewives and 7 students. The basis of choosing this number of people is based my research over the internet (Gaffney 2004) Test the procedures and Design What are you going to get users to do? What are the key tasks they will perform? Is there an order of importance? How will you conduct the test? Single users, pairs? What will your record? What are your key measures of usability? Are any specific documents required? (E.g. instructions, consent form?) If so what are they and why are they needed? I will request them to demonstrate to me the usage of sites for shopping. Keys tasks which they will be performing are: (a) Register themselves, (b) Search for the item they need to buy. (c) Browse for the best choice among a number of items. (d) Make them use the ‘Meet The Seller Option’. Order of importance is the same sequence. I will conduct the test in pairs because most people do not shop alone. I will record each user’s background, their prior experience with the internet, the time taken by them to complete various tasks and the difficulties faced by them at every step. Also, if they like I would record the suggestions given by them. Key measures of usability are going to be site’s simplicity, connivance, proper web content, response time taken by the time, features available, features lacking and accuracy of information provided. Consent forms asking for the users’ permission for conducting the test will be used. Read More