Social issues influencing HCI design and use

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Communication Considerations

The concept of ‘user interfaces for all’ implies the availability of and easy access to computer-based systems and services among all people in all countries worldwide. Therefore, it is essential to consider the differences among user groups with different cultural backgrounds during user interface design. Interaction is defined as the means by which users communicate input to the system and the feedback supplied by the system. [1] Thus the design of computer user interfaces for multicultural groups presents a challenge to interface designers since, for user interface behavior to be perceived as a message it must be observed by someone, and it must elicit meaning. The meanings and interpretations of these messages depends on how the participants perceive the message, and this perception is dependent on the participants’ cultural backgrounds that provide the framework within which messages are encoded and decoded. Culture therefore plays an important role in communication. [3] Another communication challenge for Human Computer Interface design comes in the design stage between different teams trying to create a final product. Thus we divide the communication challenges in two categories as follows:


Multidisciplinary team communication consideration for HCI design and use:

The development team working for designing the HCI should consist of people from a variety of disciplines, including human factors, programming, graphic design, documentation, marketing and management. While these people bring different areas of expertise to a project, they frequently have different agendas. Ideally, team members will communicate to reach a common ground, and work towards a shared vision of the final product. Communication problems and lack of consensus within a diverse group can hinder the design in its initial stages, and as development progresses. After decisions are finalized, poor communication can prevent design decisions from being applied. Issues should be resolved clearly, and decisions enforced, to reduce implementation error and costly revisions. Schedules and requirements of departments external to development frequently impact the flexibility of the design as documented. The importance of coordinating schedules and communicating design revisions with departments supporting application development should be understood by designers. Revision once development is underway may be limited or precluded by the needs of departments such as Documentation, Graphic Design, Marketing, and Quality Assurance. [2]

Cross cultural communication consideration for HCI design and use:

As mentioned earlier for user interface behavior to be perceived as a message it must be observed by someone, and it must elicit meaning. The meanings and interpretations of these messages would depend on how the participants perceive the message, and this perception is dependent on the participants cultural background.

For e.g. the garbage can symbol on the Windows OS represents deleted items this idea is intuitive to people who have seen garbage cans but it is possible that in some other part of the world the people do not know the concept of garbage can and so the garbage can symbol would mean nothing to them. Thus when trying to design a HCI to communicate with people from different cultural background:

  • The first step is to determine user differences to find out which user characteristics predict differences in overall performance.
  • The next step is to isolate the source of variation in a particular task
  • The final step is to redesign the interface to accommodate the differences among users [3]

Cultural Considerations

HCI or Human Computer Interaction, is a study of how people interact with computers and to what extent computers are developed for successful interaction with human beings. One of the most important factors of HCI is the fact that different users form different conceptions or mental models about their interactions and have different ways of learning and keeping knowledge and skills. In addition to this cultural differences play a part.

Living in a globalized world, cultural identities strongly influence our interpretation of behaviour in others. Users are forced to adapt their way of interaction and interpretation to a given perspective. Earlier cultural background was not a key factor in designing computer systems, however now it is an important subject, since computers are used world wide. A great example is of the windows operating systems. To a person who is familiar with a Recycle Bin, the icon of the Recycle Bin on the Desktop means delete an object. However, to people who have never seen a recycle bin, it may be a mystery.

Guidelines used during HCI construction

Visibility of system status:

The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real world:

The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

User control and freedom:

Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.

Consistency and standards:

Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.

Error prevention:

Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall

Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

Flexibility and efficiency of use:

Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.

Allow users to tailor frequent actions
Aesthetic and minimalist design:

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors:

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentation:

Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Conclusion

As we know some non-educated people who are not familiar with technical devices, may be encouraged to use it if a well understood HCI is composed. Translating language for example is of no use if the user cannot read. any entity that is meaningful to a culture may be added to the product so that it not only makes it easy for people to use but adds emotional value hence a better liking for the product.


Bibliography

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