Human-Computer Interface: Design, Usability and Evaluation Report

This report delves into the field of Human-Computer Interface (HCI), focusing on the multidisciplinary design of computer technologies. It examines the interaction between humans and computers, exploring various aspects like user-focused design, user interaction, and user satisfaction. The report outlines the objectives of HCI, including designing and assessing interactive systems, reducing design time, and establishing procedures for interactive system design. It details the user's tasks and context, proposing software for teachers, students, and administrators, and providing user personas. The report also covers the proposed system's interfaces, design principles, interaction methods, and usability descriptions, including usability evaluation methods. It further addresses usability problems and solutions, providing a comprehensive overview of HCI concepts and their application in system development. The report also includes references to relevant research and publications in the field.

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HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERFACE
By
Course
Instructor
Institution
Name
Location
Date

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Human-Compute Interface
Human-Computer Interface (HCI) is a study focuses on multidisciplinary design of
computers technologies (Arora, Mahajan, Arora, and Mahajan, 2016, p. 535). The HCI mainly
work on the interaction between humans and computers. HCI focused system development has
expanded to integrate other fields of study such as computer science, cognitive science, and
human-factors engineering, as shown in the figure below:

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In the field of HCI development, there is an overlap between user-focused, user interaction, and
user satisfaction designs. The overall objective of HCI is to design and assess interactive
systems, reduce design time through cognitive systems and task models, and procedures and
heuristics of interactive system design.
Phase A
User’s Tasks and Context
The software will be used by teachers and students to access courses as well as view
modules. Students will use the software to get tutorials, upload assignments, and interact with
tutors and other learners. Teachers, on the other hand, will be using the software to upload
assignments for the students, make announcements to learners regarding important dates like
examinations, assignments, and other special days. Also, teachers will have used the software to
make and upload tutorials, learning notes, and interact with other teachers and learners. Notably,
the software will be used by outside users who would like to learn about the institution and the
type of modules institution offers. Thus, at the homepage, the external user should also be able to
create an account which will be used for module applications and registrations. The institute
information technology administrator will manage the software. The admin will regulate the term
and policies of use. Generally, the software should have a menu displaying students, teachers,
modules, and course resources. The menu should be visible and accessible by all users according
to their use. For instance, a student in need of course resource, it will be visible on the home page
and navigation is straightforward.
User Persona
Frances Miller

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She is 35 years and a mother of two and a teacher in Oman. She owns a home and lives with her
husband. She teaches mathematics and mostly uses the internet to access the resource, post
tutorials to her students.
Miller would like a system that enables the institution staff to interact with learners and other
staff. She has been using her email to send assignments and resource to her students. Therefore,
any system that would simplify the learning would be helpful to her.
User Accounts
i. Student users: Each student will have a password and user ID to access their account
in the system. They will be required to register to access the course resources and
register for modules.
ii. Teachers: Teacher will have higher privileges than students but lower than that of the
administrators. Each teacher will have a password and user ID to access the system.
iii. Administrators: The admin will have the absolute privilege over the system and will
control the data in and out of the system. He/she will handle the entry of critical data
into the system for other users to access.
iv. External users: External users will only have limited privilege where they will not be
required to create an account. They will use the home page to access general
information about the school, such as fee structure for each course and other services.
Proposed System
The team of developers will work on designing software for an institution in Oman. The
software will be used by teachers, learners, and administrators to interact at different levels. The
system will have a menu for students, teachers, courses, and departments. It will also have
contact information, FAQ, social, and log in or sign-up menus.

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Interfaces
The system will have labels for:
i. Log-in form and Sign-up form
a. Student panel

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b. Teacher panel
c. Administration panel

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ii. Main menu
iii. About us

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iv. Contact us
Design PrinciplesGuidelines
The user interface design is critical aspect in software development. Designers need to
follow heuristic design principles in software development (Paz and Pow-Sang, 2016, p. 175).

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They are the high-level concepts that are used to guide software design. Below is the discussion
user interface design principles.
i. Usability of system status: The software should be easy to use and always inform the
user of what is going on in the system. In so doing, the software should be given
feedback to the user at any given time.
ii. Match between system and the real world: Naturally, humans are comfortable in a
familiar environment. The software system should communicate to the users in a
language they understand. It should use words and icons that are familiar to the
general user rather than system system-oriented terms.
iii. User control and freedom: Users make mistakes during navigation in the system and
hence they should be able to exit any such function using a marked “emergency exit”
button. The exit functionality enables users to leave without restrictions. The system
should have undo and redo functions.
iv. Consistency and standards: Designers have the freedom and are not tied to specific
design standards. Thus, no design standard can provide an absolute user interface.
The design addresses user preferences and other domains that the user can easily
understand.
v. Error prevention: The system should communicate errors to the user in a manner that
is graceful, actionable, and clear. The communications help the user to avoid mistakes
during navigations. The developer should make it rear for the user to commit an error.
vi. Recognition rather than recall: The user should not be required to memorize the
system objects, actions, and options since they are visible and easy to follow. The
developer should make sure the user does not have to remember functions and

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dialogues in the navigations. Most importantly, instructions of use should be visible,
retrievable, and accessible.
vii. Flexibility and efficiency of use: The system so designed should easily be accessible
and usable by both experienced and novice users. In some cases, the user can
customize the system to suit their various actions.
viii. Help user recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: The developer should create
error messages that are clear in an understandable language. The message should be
precise about the mistake made and possible solution.
ix. Help and documentation: Although the system should be usable without the need for
instructions manual, it is necessary since it can be used to provide help and
documentation. Therefore, the documentation should be easy to get and should focus
on the tasks of usage in concrete steps to be followed.
x. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Developers should have dialogues that have relevant
information. Any information that is not relevant compete with valuable information
and hence reduces the visibility of needed information.
Interaction Methods
In the information technology, the user interface constitutes the information device with
which the user interacts with the device. They include display screens, keyboards, mouse and
appearance on the screen. As such, there are different ways of interacting with systems including
command line, graphical user interface, menu driven, form-based, and natural language (Zaveri,
Yaacoby, Woodman, and Domurat, 2018).

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i. Command line interaction method: The method is the oldest method of interaction
with systems. The system administrators mostly use the command line. However, the
method is complex and requires expertise to communicate with the system.
ii. Graphical User Interface: The method uses windows, icons, menus, and pointers. The
developer utilizes the pointing devices like mouse, touchpads, or trackballs to help the
user in the navigation. The user interacts with the software through graphical icons
and visual indicators.
iii. Menus are driven: Most software and web-based applications use menus. A menu is a
series of icons that facilitates navigation by clicking using the pointer or touch screen.
iv. Form-based: The interaction is based on text-boxes, drop-down menus, text areas,
checkboxes, and other icons and which are used to create forms for entering data to
the system. In the institution software, the methods can be used to upload documents,
videos, and other learning resources but students and teachers.
v. Natural language: The user interacts with the computer by use of voices or gestures
and hence called conversational interface. The software can provide the capability to
record and store voices from users, which can encode and respond. The method is
widely used in Voice Recognition interfaces in mobile devices.
Phase B
Usability Description
Usability is a measure user interaction with the system, and it refers to effectiveness,
efficiency, and satisfaction that the user gets when interacting with the software (Khan, M.,
Ahmad, and Khanum, 2018). Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the institution’s software
usability to derive the value it will have to the users and fulfillment of the intended function. To

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test the usability of the software, developers will define it using multiple ways, including
semantics, features, and operations. Below is the illustration of the usability using a set of
features, semantics, and operations in terms of intuition, efficiency, and satisfaction.
i. Semantics: The test is performed about ease of use or user-friendliness. It is generally
how the software is by the look of it from the perspective of the properties of the
construct. Student, teacher, and another user should find it easy and satisfying to use
the software. The menus and other navigations should be accessible, and hence, both
experienced and novice users find it simple and straightforward.
ii. Features: These are the features that should be present to facilitate user interaction
with the software. Such features include windows, icons, menus, and pointers. These
features can either be present or absent depending on the software needs. In this case,
learning software needs all features that offer a desirable interface that enhances the
usability of the software.
iii. Operations: These are functions of the software in terms of performance and
effectiveness as manifested to the user in their various environments. Operation
usability is approached in the perspective of human functionality that enables easy,

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effective, and satisfactory to users for every user. Operation emphasizes the level of
interactions between the user and the system. Therefore, usability is the interactions
feature that is a context-specific measure of Human-computer interface.
Usability Evaluation Method
There are multiple methods for evaluating usability. The testing depends on the available
team, preferences for the software, and another matrix. As such, developers will use user-based,
expert-based, and model-based usability evaluation methods (Paz and Pow-Sang, 2016, p. 170).
i. User-based Evaluation Methods: The method uses users as a sample for measuring
performance in pre-determined tasks. The tasks are then controlled to observe the
reliability of the system. The method tests how the system serves the intended
purpose.
ii. Expert-based Evaluation Methods: It involves the HCI expert to examine the system
to estimate how it is serving the intended purpose. The evaluation is based on the user
judgment about the system performance and is subjective from the expert view on the
needed performance.
iii. Model-based Evaluation Methods: Though not mostly used, the models are used to
predict the performance of the system. The model can focus on certain aspect in the
system such as user interface.
Usability Problems and Solutions
There are emerging issues in the usability of the software as described by Sahni and Dubey
(2014, p. 65).
i. Poor navigation: The problem can be solved by placing menus and icons visibly that
enhance navigation. The sections in the system should easy to access.

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ii. Poor readability: Developers can use fonts and colors that are readable. The fonts
should be ample for headings and use color differentiation between various parts of
the software.
iii. Slow loading: Slow loading can be solved by improving the software codes and
server speeds and capacity.
HCI Concepts
HCI study how people interact with systems and the ways to improve human satisfaction
when using the system (Krogh, Petersen, O'Hara, and Groenbaek, 2017, p. 6449). The field
consists of users, computer, and interaction. The main goals are to produce a system that is
usable and safe as well as functional.

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References
Arora, R., Mahajan, A., Arora, R. and Mahajan, A., 2016. Human Computer Interaction.
International Journal, 2, pp.536-539.
Khan, M., Ahmad, F., and Khanum, M.A., 2018. Literature Review On Software Complexity,
Software Usability, and Software Deliverability. International Journal of Advanced
Research in Computer Science, 9(2).
Krogh, P.G., Petersen, M.G., O'Hara, K., and Groenbaek, J.E., 2017, May. Sensitizing concepts
for socio-spatial literacy in hci. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human
Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 6449-6460). ACM.
Paz, F., and Pow-Sang, J.A., 2016. A systematic mapping review of usability evaluation methods
for the software development process. International Journal of Software Engineering
and Its Applications, 10(1), pp.165-178.
Sahni, S., and Dubey, S.K., 2014. Web Usability: Issues, Challenges, and Solutions. Int. J. Adv.
Eng. Res. Sci. IJAERS, 1, pp.61-66.
Zaveri, J., Yaacoby, D., Woodman, A., and Domurat, J., CLOUDON Ltd, 2018. Systems and
methods for graphical user interface interaction with cloud-based applications. U.S.
Patent 9,965,151.