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Introduction Usability of consumer-oriented products Human-computer interactionMan-machine systems design and evaluation Engineering psychology/ Psychophysics |
INTRODUCTION | |
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Usability
of consumer-oriented products
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| Typical examples of consumer-oriented products include consumer electronics, home/office products, telecommunication devices, software, website, etc., each of which has now become an important part of our everyday lives. As far as these products are concerned, usability means 'the ability of a product to satisfy the user in terms of the performance as well as the image/impression aspects (Kwahk, 1999)'. In this definition, the performance is similar to the traditional understanding of the usability concept (i.e, efficiency, effectiveness, etc.), whereas the image/impression indicates the emotional aspects of user satisfaction towards the product user interface. (more detail...) | ||
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Human-computer
interaction
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| Important issues in the Human-Computer Interaction field include how to design, evaluate, and implement software so that it can conform to the user, task, and environmetal requirements. It now covers a wider variety of applications including new technologies such as multimedia, hypermedia, world-wide web, virtual reality, etc. (more detail...) | ||
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Man-machine
systems design and evaluation
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| Literally, the term "man-machine system" means a machine and a human who operates it constitute a system. Have you ever seen the picture of a main control room (MCR) of a nuclear power plant? It has thousands of dispalys and controls each of which indicates critical parameter information of the plant operation. This may be one of the most complex examples of man-machine systems. Now, how to design a display so that it does not cause the cognitive overload of MCR operators? How to make the displays and controls which conform to the task requirements? Efforts have been made so far to answer these questions. (more detail...) | ||
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Engineering
psychology/Psychophysics
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| Basically, the design of any product that is supposed to be used by people needs to consider the cognitive, perceptive, or psychological characteristics of the human users. Studies of engieering psychology deal with human cognitive models, characteristics of cognitive/perceptive processes, how to apply those splended theories from the psychology studies to the design of human interfaces, etc. Besides, need to quantitatively measure the perceived magnitude of subjective, vague, or qualitative aspects in your evaluation practices? Psychophysics has the solution. (more detail...) | ||
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Research/experimental
design and analysis
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| Are you planning to collect data through a human factors experiment? Never make such a terrible mistake to conduct experiments without learning the principles of experimental design. Inconsiderate experimental designs lead to errorneous analysis, and as a due process, results in abuse and wrongful application of the results. (more detail...) | ||
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Development/application
of empirical models
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| Suppose you've just designed a new product, software, hardware, consumer electronics, or whatever. You may then want to figure out how good or bad this product is to be appreicated by the users even before you release the product in the market. A possible solution is to use empirical models to predict the functional relationship between the degree of goodness/badness and the design features of the product. (more detail...) | ||