Interaction Devices & Menu, Form
Fill-in Guidelines
CS4HC3 / SE4HC3/ SE6DO3
Fall 2011
Instructor: Kevin Browne
[email protected] Slide content is based heavily on Chapter 6 & 8 of the textbook:
Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer
Interaction / 5th edition, by Ben Schneiderman & Catherine Plaisant
Interaction Devices
● Some old standards likely to hand around
“forever”
● QWERTY keyboard is unlikely to be displaced as
the the dominant method of text input
● But interaction devices and interfaces have
scaled in bandwidth much like computer power
has scaled
● Command line to GUI
● Exciting things happening lately in interaction
devices, or just more of the same old lab
concepts being tossed around again?
Interaction Devices
● In the lab...
● Wearable devices
● Gestural input
● Eye-trackers
● Data gloves
● Brain controlled interfaces
● Video camera sensors
● Context-aware computing via mobile devices and
GPS
Keyboards and Keypads
● Still dominant input devices
● Hundreds of millions of users
● Much criticized...
● Beginners: 1 keystroke per second
● Office workers: 5 keystrokes per second
● Approx. 50 words per minute
● Top users: 15 keystrokes per second
● Approx. 150 words per minute
Keyboards and Keypads
● Generally allow for one key to be pressed at a
time
● But sometimes special functions involve two keys
being pressed at the same time
● e.g. Shift + Letter for a capital letter
● Allowing multiple keys to be pressed at the
same time can allow for rapid data entry
● Multiple keys called a “chord”, represent entire
words typically
● Used in courtrooms to transcribe testimony
● Up to 300 words per minute has ben recorded
Keyboards and Keypads
● Large keyboards with lots of keys
● Expert users like them
● But may scare away novices
● One handed keyboards
● For simultaneous data entry and manipulation of
physical objects
Keyboards and Keypads
● In the 19th century there were many different
types of layouts for keyboards, no real standard
● QWERTY
● Put frequently used letter pairs apart to increase
finger travelling distance, slowed down users
enough that key jamming was infrequent
● Alternatives proposed after electronic
computers and keyboards were invented
● Dvorak layout
● Affords 150-200 words per minute, reduced errors
● Failed to catch on, learnability\universal
Keyboards and Keypads
● ABCDE layout?
● Seems appealing for novices
● But no benefit over QWERTY keyboards
● Users can feel insulted if presented with this
layout...
● Number pad layout?
● Telephones have 1-2-3 on the top row
● Calculators have 7-8-9 on the top row
● Studies show their is a slight advantage to the
telephone layout
● Most computers use calculator layout
Keyboards and Keypads
● Ergonomic keyboards to reduce injury?
● No consensus in the literature as to whether these
actually improve anything at all
● Universal usability?
● Users with arthritis
● Interfaces which control a cursor, select a key
Keyboards and Keypads
● Key surfaces are usually slightly concave
● Reduce finger slips
● Keypresses typically require 40-125 gram force,
displacement of 1-4 millimetres
● Reduces errors
● Provides suitable feedback to users
● Keypresses often come with a light click
● Tactile and audible feedback
● T-shape of cursor keys to allow for rapid
movement
Keyboards and Keypads
● Projected keyboards? Cloth keyboards?
● Seemed promising
● Users rejected them though, not enough feedback
● Mobile devices may many different standards of
keyboards
● Crunch together letters\numbers on less than
standard amount of keys
● Word recognition software common
Pointing Devices
● Often preferable to keyboards...
● Users don't have to learn commands
● Typographic errors reduced relative to keyboard
● Users can maintain attention on to the display
● Can classify the in a number of ways...
● Rotation or linear movement
● Dimension(s) of movement
● Relative vs absolute positioning
Pointing Devices
● Pointing tasks
● Select
– Selecting an item from a set
– e.g. selecting from a menu
● Position
– Point to a position in space
– e.g. moving cursor over a link
● Orient
– Specify a direction in space
– e.g. decide the direction of an arrow
Pointing Devices
● Pointing tasks
● Path
– Series of position and\or orientation tasks
– e.g. Creating a free form line in a drawing program
● Quantify
– Specifying a number
– e.g. manipulating a 1D selection tool for numbers
● Gesture
– Swipe motions
– e.g. quick back-and-forth to erase
● Text
– Text editing in 2D
Pointing Devices
● Direct control
● User directly controls the pointing on the screen
surface
● e.g. touchscreen or stylus
● Claim: easier to learn
● May hide display during usage (hand in the way)
● Indirect control
● User controls pointing away from the screen surface
● e.g. mouse, joystick, etc.
● Claim: take more time to learn
Direct-control Pointing Devices
● Lighten, touch screen, stylus
● e.g. light pen
● Works under same principles as “light gun”
● Touchscreens often integrated into public-
access devices
● Less learning involved
● Robust: No moving parts!
● e.g. Walt Disney World - only touchscreens have
prevailed long term
● Arm fatigue issue
– Solution: tilt screen, provide arm rest
Direct-control Pointing Devices
● Early touch screens were poor quality
● Imprecise pointing
● Now high precision
● As a result, has filtered into many new application
domains... military, banking, medical, consumer
mobile, etc.
● Stylus?
● Familiar and comfortable to users
– Especially as a method of writing
● Problem: require physical stylus, must be picked up
put down, and stored
Indirect-control Pointing Devices
● Eliminates certain issues:
● Hand-fatigue
● Obscuring the screen space
● Introduces other issues:
● More cognitive processing
● Hand-eye co-ordination
● Moving part to break
● Space required for indirect device itself
– e.g. mousepad
Indirect-control Pointing Device
● Mouse
● Long motions with small finger movements
● Must grab mouse, desk space is consumed
● Wired mouse: cord may get in the way
● Variety of technologies, designs
● Physical, optical, acoustical
● Placement of sensors
● Wheel for scrolling
Indirect-control Pointing Device
● Trackball
● “upside-down mouse”
● Rotating ball
● Moves cursor on screen
● Can be made very wear-resistant
● Joystick
● Found in aircraft-control, earlier video games
● Many variations, versions
– Stick lengths, extra buttons
Indirect-control Pointing Device
● Directional pad (i.e. D-Pad)
● Video game console origins
● 4 directional arrows arranges in a cross
● Trackpoint
● Small isometric joystick embedded in keyboards
● Between letter G and H
● Doesn't move, sensitive to pressure
● Very effective for applications which require
switching between pointing and typing
● e.g. word processing (business-focused Leveno
laptops!)
Indirect-control Pointing Device
● Touchpad
● Like touch screen input, but with users' hands off of
the screen
● Often built in below keyboard on laptops, substitute
for mouse
● Graphics tablet
● Touch-sensitive surface
● Usually laid out on desktop
● Fingers, stylus, used to touch screen
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Dream in earlier Sci-Fi
● Complex in reality
● Reduced role in more recent Sci-Fi
● Issues:
● Recognition
● Generation
● Processing
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Speech
● Limited load on users' working memory than
hand/eye co-ordination
● Speech recognition
● More difficult than speech store and speech
generation
● Speech output
● Worse bandwidth than visuals
● Difficulty scanning\searching
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Discrete-word recognition
● Recognizing individual words spoken by a specific
person
● Speaker-dependent training vs. speaker-
independent systems
● Speech interfaces tend to have specific
application areas where they are successful
● e.g. speaker's hands are busy (Xbox, Car systems)
● Common computing applications?
● Speech interfaces tend to perform poorly
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Continuous-speech recognition
● Interpretation of phrases and sentences
● e.g.speech-dictation products
● Issues
● Recognizing boundaries between spoken words
● Divers accents
● Variable speaking rates
● Disruptive background noise
● Emotions
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Voice information systems
● aka Interactive Voice Response
● Voice used to access information
● Seen with telephone information systems, personal
voicemail systems
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Opportunities
● When users have vision impairments
● When the speaker's hands are busy
● When mobility is required
● When the speaker's eyes are occupied
● When harsh or cramped condition preclude use of
the keyboard
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Technologies
● Speech store and forward
● Discrete-word recognition
● Continuous-speech recognition
● Voice information systems
● Speech generation
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Obstacles to speech recognition
● Increased cognitive load compared to pointing
● Interference from noisy environments
● Unstable recognitions across changing users,
environments, and time
Speech and Auditory Interfaces
● Obstacles to speech output
● Slow place of speech output when compared to
visual displays
● Ephemeral (def: existing only for a brief time) nature
of speech
● Difficulty in scanning/searching
Displays - Small and Large
● Display characteristics:
● Physical dimensions
● Resolution (number of pixels available)
● Number of available colours
● Luminance, contrast, glare
● Power consumption
● Refresh rates
● Cost
● Reliability
Displays - Small and Large
● Usability properties
● Portability
● Privacy
● Saliency
● Ubiquity
● Simultaneity
Displays - Small and Large
● Display technologies:
● Raster-scan cathode-ray tubes (CRT)
● Liquid crystal displays (LCD)
● Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
● Some more standard display types...
● Desktop monitors 15-30”
● Laptop monitors 10-21”
● Mobile device displays
Displays - Small and Large
● Newer or less standard display types:
● Information walls (perhaps interactive)
● Digital white boards
● Multiple-desktop displays
– Useful for creativity applications
● Heads-up displays
– On windshield of airplane o car
● Head-mounted display (HMD)
– Virtual reality
Menu Selection Guidelines
● Use task semantics to organize menus (single,
linear sequence, tree structure, acyclic and
cyclic networks)
● Prefer broad-shallow to narrow-deep
● Show position by graphics, numbers or titles
● Use items as titles for subtrees
● Group items meaningfully
● Use brief items; begin with the keyboard
● Use consistent grammar, layout and
terminology
Menu Selection Guidelines
● Allow type ahead, jump ahead, or other
shortcuts
● Enable jumps to previous and main menu
● Consider online help, novel selection
mechanism and optimal response time, display
rate and screen size
Form Fill-in Guidelines
● Meaningful title
● Comprehensible instructions
● Logical grouping and sequencing of fields
● Visually appealing layout of the form
● Familiar field labels
● Consistent terminology and abbreviations
● Visible space and boundaries for data-entry
fields
● Convenient cursor movement
Form Fill-in Guidelines
● Error correction for individual characters and
entire fields
● Error prevention where possible
● Error messages for unacceptable values
● Marking of required fields
● Explanatory messages for fields
● Completion signal to support user control
References
Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction / 5th edition, by Ben Schneiderman & Catherine
Plaisant (2010)
