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HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION(HCI) HISTORY

AND RESEARCH TRENDS (updated)

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March 14, 2010

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Introduction

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and
computers. Because human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in
communication, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human
side. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming
languages, and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication
theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive
psychology, and human performance are relevant. And, of course, engineering and design
methods are relevant.

Human:

Humans are the users of the computers. HCI should always consider about what users expect
and need, what physical abilities and limitations they may have, how their perceptual systems
work, and what they find a ractive and enjoyable when they use computers. When humans
interact with computers, they bring to the encounter a lifetime of experience. Designers must
decide how to make products a ractive without distracting users from their tasks.
Computer:

A computer carries on its business in a much less obvious way. The information a computer
contains and the operations it performs are represented inside the computer in a form that we
can’t directly observe- binary digits encoded as two levels of electrical charge. What a
computer displays does not arise naturally from what it is doing inside. Any feedback the
user might need must be explicitly planned out and programmed.

Interaction:

Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface which includes both
software and hardware. People have to use the computers or different embedded devices for
different purposes. For this they have to interact with these machines. Researchers have built
different interfaces and methods for those. The designers and programmers look for a
reasonable balance between what can be programmed within the necessary schedule and
budget, and what would be ideal for the users.

History

Human Computer Interaction(HCI) is an area of research and practice that emerged in the late
1970s and early 1980s, initially as an area in Computer Science. HCI has expanded rapidly and
steadily for three decades, a racting professionals from many other disciplines and
incorporating diverse concepts and approaches.

1970s- The rise of the Personal Computer.

The broad project of cognitive science, which incorporated cognitive psychology, artificial
intelligence, linguistics, cognitive anthropology, and the philosophy of mind, had formed at
the end of the 1970s.

1980s- Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Graphical User Interface (GUI) is the interface that is designed for the easier understanding of
the users of the computers. Before GUI, there was a command prompt by which command
was given to the computers. GUI started the graphical interface which is easy to use,
understand, visualize, and it improved the working environment.

1990s- The Internet and Collaborative works.

The Internet started journey in 1990s. So, communications among people became easier. In the
consequence of this, many new technologies arrived for be er communication.

2000s- Mobile Computing and Beyond.

Mobile phones, PDA (Personal Development Assistance), and Smart Phones are ruling the
present world. They offer a wide range of services to the people such as sms, mms,
multimedia, games, email, internet, cha ing, video conference, GPS etc.

Now a days the HCI is used in the area of Cognitive Science. With the help of the Internet,
medical facilities can be provided remotely. Different interactive interfaces are designed those
can be used for the cognitive rehabilitations.

Research Trends

Research Fields in HCI:

1. Ubiquitous Communication:

People have to communicate through high speed local networks, nationally over wide-area
networks, and portably via infrared, ultrasonic, cellular, and other technologies. Data and
computational services need to be portably accessible from many if not most locations to
which a user travels. It’s a challenging area of research.

2. High Functionality Systems:

Systems have large numbers of functions associated with them. The main objective of HCI
research is to make systems more usable, more useful, and to provide users with experiences
fi ing their specific background knowledge and objectives. So, it is a challenging area for
researchers to develop the High Functionality Systems.

3. Mass availability of computer graphics:

Computer graphics capabilities such as image processing, graphics transformations,

rendering, and interactive animations etc. are the areas of research.

4. Mixed Media:

Different HCI systems need to handle images, voice, sounds, video, text, and forma ed data.
These should be exchangeable over communication links among users. This is an important
area for research.

5. High-bandwidth interaction:

The rate at which humans and machines interact is increasing substantially due to the changes
in speed, computer graphics, new media, and new input/output devices. This will lead to
some qualitatively different interfaces, such as virtual reality or computational video. It also
requires a good research.

6. Large and thin displays:

New display technologies are becoming matured by enabling very large displays and also
displays that are thin, light- weight, and have low power consumption. This has large effects
on portability and enabled the development of paper-like, pen-based computer interaction
systems very different in feel from desktop workstations of the present. It’s a great area of
research.

7. Embedded computation:

The environment of computations has changed to embedded computation. New embedded

devices created the demand for the embedded computation and it is increasing day-by-day .

8. Group Interfaces:

At present, different interfaces are needed for meetings, for engineering projects, for
authoring joint documents. That is called group interfaces. Modeling of such kind of
interfaces needs good research.

# Lumiere Project

*It is an “Adaptive Systems and Interaction” by Microsoft Corporation.

* The construction of Bayesian models for reasoning about the time-varying goals of computer
users from their observed actions and queries.

* The development of an overall architecture for an intelligent user interface.

# AVANTI Project

*People with light or severe motor disabilities.

* Blind people.

* Aim of the AVANTI Project is to provide interactive views of adaptive multimedia, Web
document.

# Interactive Workspace

*An experimental research facility called the iRoom, located in the Gates Information Sciences
Building at Stanford.

* Three touch sensitive white-board sized displays along the side wall.

* A display with pen interaction called the interactive mural built into the front wall.

* A table with a built in display that was custom designed to look like a standard conference
room table.
* The room has camaras, microphones, wireless LAN support, and a variety of wireless
bu ons and other interaction devices.

# Oxygen Project

*Bringing abundant computation and communication, as pervasive and free as air, naturally
into people’s lives.

Conclusion
HCI largely depends on researches on other disciplines of computer science. Other researches
in Computer Science directly or indirectly consider some HCI issues. HCI researches are not
trying to make humans the servants of machine, rather we are trying to make the machines
more suitable for our use so that the power of computation spread over all the corners of the
society. HCI can be largly used in the cognitive science as well. It can design many useful
interfaces in the area of cognitive rehabilitations.

References

1. Horovi , E. et. al., Microsoft Research, “The Lumiere Project: Bayesian User Modeling for
Inferring the Goals and Needs of Software Users”.

2. Stephanidis, C. et. al., Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and
Technology -Hellas, Science and Technology Park of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece
“Adaptable and Adaptive User Interfaces for Disabled Users in the AVANTI Project”.

3. Johanson Brad, Fox Armando, Winograd Terry , Stanford University, Stanford, CA “The
Interactive Workspaces Project: Experiences with Ubiquitous Computing Rooms”.

4. Johanson Brad, Fox Armando, Winograd Terry , Stanford University, Stanford, CA “The
Event Heap: An Enabling Infrastructure for Interactive Workspaces”.

5. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachuse s Institute of

Technology, Project Oxygen, available at “h p://oxygen.lcs.mit.edu/

Overview.html”.

6. Human Computer Interaction (HCI) by John M. Carroll

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