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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 31/01/2013 02:14, Natasha Vita-More
wrote:<br>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Human-computer interaction is one field I
am teaching two classes in (theory and prototyping) and I’d
like to ask you all for any insights, suggestions, latest
theories, methods, etc. that would be helpful to these
undergrad students who want to their work at a master’s level.</p>
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<br>
Hmm, HCI is tricky. When I took it it was heavy on cognitive science
models, which was frankly rather boring. At the same time it borders
on design and very creative topics.<br>
<br>
I think a key skill is being able to critique designs. To actually
take something, play around with it, and then not just tell whether
it feels good or bad (useful/useless, easy/hard, whatever) but to
articulate *what* makes it feel like that. This is not just good for
feedback and commentary, but for discovering how things can be made
better. Even if you don't know how to fix a problem, by formulating
it clearly others can help - and often even formulating it tends to
resolve what should be done.<br>
<br>
Norman was my start too, he is good. I am also a great fan of Edward
Tufte (who isn't?), and since so much of the complexity of current
computers is about showing (or not showing) information he is quite
relevant to HCI. A lot of the wild and wonderful designs found in
the archives of <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://infosthetics.com/">http://infosthetics.com/</a> and
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://benfry.com/projects/">http://benfry.com/projects/</a> ought to be inspirational.<br>
<br>
Finally, something I think was totally lacking when I studied HCI
and I hope has become relevant now: motivation. Looking at the user
interfaces of Bryce or World of Warcraft shows something that would
have failed all the criteria discussed: too messy and idiosyncratic.
Yet people learn them, and become very good at using them. Why?
Because they are delightful to use, or the program itself allows you
to do something highly motivating. The work on gamification (and
MacGonigals work on ARGs) suggests to me that if you make the
interfaces motivate users in the right way the strangest interface
will be learnable. So maybe the core issue is not to fix the
epistemic/perceptual aspects but the emotional and motivational: if
your software has the right built in motivators (and demotivators)
it will drive the right kind of learning and use. But whether there
is a good theory for this yet, I do not know. Maybe the game design
literature is worth a glance. <br>
<br>
(Hmm, having an active wordcount in the lower border of a window
might actually be a simple gamification of writing, rewarding me
with "points" for writing... maybe it should also list the number of
misspellings - wordprocessing as a game!)<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University </pre>
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