Human-Computer Interaction

(ITE408)
3 Credits

Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday

02:15 03:15 pm
B-B1-10

Dr. Hemin Latif

Assistant Professor of Information Technology
The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

Week Three, Lecture 07

Emotional Interaction
Lecture Outline
2

a l Int e r a c tion
Emotion

e Int e r f a c es
Expressiv

ting Inte r faces

Frustra

a ges
Error Mess

l Int e r f ac es
udiovis ua
Be y ond A
Interactive Application Example
3

McDonalds Pick and Play (Shared by Ms. Kazei Soran)

Emotions and the User Experience
4

HCI has traditionally been about designing efficient and effective

systems
Now more about how to design interactive systems that make people feel and
respond in certain ways

Emotional interaction is concerned with how we feel and react when

interacting with technologies
What makes us happy, sad, annoyed, anxious, frustrated, motivated, and so
on and translating this into different aspects of the user experience

How much can we control the users emotions?

How much can we be certain of the outcomes of users emotions?

Emotions and the User Experience
5

A long standing area of research in artificial intelligence has been the

creation of intelligent robots that behave like human and other
creatures.
The aim is to learn how humans and other creatures behave and feel through
reverse engineering (trying to create the same thing)
Expressive Interfaces
6

Expressive forms have been used at the interface to:

Convey emotional states
Elicit certain kinds of emotions
For example, recycling bin picture and sound or a message sent on a
mobile phone
Provide reassuring feedback that can be both informative and fun
But can also be intrusive, causing people to get annoyed and even angry!
Color, icons, sounds, graphical elements and animations are used to
make the look and feel of an interface appealing
In turn this can affect the usability of an interface
People are prepared to put up with certain aspects of an interface (e.g.
slow download rate) if the end result is appealing and aesthetic
Expressive Interfaces
7

Users have created a range of emoticons - compensate for lack of

expressiveness in text communication:
Happy :)
Sad :<
Sick :X
Mad >:
Very angry >:-(

Also use of icons and shorthand in texting and instant messaging has
emotional connotations, e.g.
LOL, I 12 CU 2NITE
Expressive Interfaces
8

Cinamgraphic Images with Flixel Living Photos

Live images for more attraction

https://flixel.com/
Frustrating Interfaces
9

Designers have tried many solutions to make interfaces and

interactions more user friendly
Such as Microsofts Clippy (a paperclip that pops up to help
making users feel that they are being accompanied by instant help)
Interfaces, if designed poorly, can make people look stupid, or
feel insulted or threatened.
When users are more likely to have negative emotions?
When something looks to the user very easy to do but is much
harder to do in reality. For example, changing from printing to
photocopying.
When a small mistake costs too much time and effort
When certain cultural, societal, religious, and/or other personal
aspects are overlooked. Users might feel offended.
Cultural Differences and Emotions
10

How Google Moves International Borders?

If you look at Arunachal Pradesh, one of Indias 29 states, from the Indian
version of the website you will see the border that its government believes
to be correct.
View the same region from within China and it appears as "South Tibet"
under Chinese control.
From within the UK you see both borders marked with a dotted line to
indicate that there is a local dispute.

There is always, at least, two sides to a story and

there is the truth

Article was shared by Ms. Heran Sherko. Also check this one out.
Cultural Differences and Emotions
11
Error Messages
12

Sometimes, not the error but the error message creates user frustration!

This might seem amusing to the developer, but certainly not to the user

Is the red color text necessary?

Why not just saying Please, try again?

Error Messages
13

Instead of saying what has happened, error messages should state the
cause of the problem and what the user needs to do to fix it.

Shneidermans guidelines for error messages include:

Avoid condemning the user
Avoid using terms like FATAL, INVALID, BAD, ILLEGAL
Audio warnings should be under the users control
Avoid UPPERCASE and long code numbers
Messages should be precise rather than vague
Provide context-sensitive help
Messages should be provided at multiple levels of details
Sensing the Future of HCI
14

Thinking beyond audiovisual

interfaces?

How about touch, taste, and

smell user interfaces?
Moving toward the chemical
interfaces

The starting approach might be

multi-modal or a hybrid
approach.
Should Computers Say Theyre Sorry?
15
Should Computers Say Theyre Sorry?
16

Reeves and Naas (1996) argue that computers should be made to

apologize. They should emulate human etiquette!
Would users be as forgiving of computers saying sorry as people are of
each other when saying sorry?
How sincere would they think the computer was being?
For example, after a system crash:
Im really sorry I crashed. Ill try not to do it again

Would apologizing make users more forgiving of computers?

Or would it have no effect at all?

How else should computers communicate with users?

In Summary
17

Emotional aspects of interaction design are concerned with how to

facilitate certain states or avoid certain reactions (pleasure vs.
frustration)
Well-designed interfaces can elicit good feelings in people.
Aesthetically pleasing interfaces can be a pleasure to use.
Expressive interfaces can provide reassuring feedback to users as well
as be informative and fun.
Badly designed interfaces often make people frustrated, annoyed, or
angry.
Technologies can be designed to persuade people to change their
behaviors or attitudes.

Next Lecture (Tuesday, September 27, 2016): Information Design