Usability engineering is about designing products that are easy to use. This text provides an introduction to human computer interaction principles, and how to apply them in ways that make software and hardware more effective and easier to use.

As its name suggests, the EHCI-DSVIS conference has been a special event, merging two different, although overlapping, research communities: EHCI (Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction) is a conference organized by the IFIP 2.7/13.4 working group, started in 1974 and held every three years since 1989. The group’s activity is the scientific investigation of the relationships among the human factors in computing and software engineering. DSVIS (Design, Specification and Verification of Interactive Systems) is an annual conference started in 1994, and dedicated to the use of formal methods for the design of interactive systems. Of course these two research domains have a lot in common, and are informed by each other’s results. The year 2004 was a good opportunity to bring closer these two research communities for an event, the 11th edition of DSVIS and the 9th edition of EHCI. EHCI-DSVIS was set up as a working conference bringing together researchers and practitioners interested in strengthening the scientific foundations of user interface design, specification and verification, and in examining the relationships between software engineering and human-computer interaction. The call for papers attracted a lot of attention, and we received a record number of submissions: out of the 65 submissions, 23 full papers were accepted, which gives an acceptance rate of approximately 34%. Three short papers were also included. The contributions were categorized in 8 chapters: Chapter 1 (Usability and Software Architecture) contains three contributions which advance the state of the art in usability approaches for modern software engineering.

Distinguishing between tangible user interfaces (TUI) and tangible interactive systems (TISs), this book takes into account not only the user interfaces but also looks at how interaction can be enabled by using digital information through the physical environment. TISs go far beyond the concept of tangible user interfaces, addressing large complex systems in the framework of human-centred design and putting the human at the center of the design process from the start. How can human-centered designers grasp the real world with computers? This question is explored by looking at concepts such as innovation, complexity, flexibility, maturity, stability, sustainability and art to see whether we can assess both physical and figurative tangibility during the design process before product delivery. Concepts like creativity, design thinking and team spirit are fundamental to TIS’s human-centered design, and are presented together with human-systems integration (HSI), agile development and formative evaluations to build a greater understanding of this new area of research. Tangible Interactive Systems would be an essential read to designers, academics and other professionals concerned with product design within HCI, industrial design, virtual engineering and other related areas.

A theory of HCI that uses concepts from semiotics and computer science to focus on the communication between designers and users during interaction. In The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction, Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza proposes an account of HCI that draws on concepts from semiotics and computer science to investigate the relationship between user and designer. Semiotics is the study of signs, and the essence of semiotic engineering is the communication between designers and users at interaction time; designers must somehow be present in the interface to tell users how to use the signs that make up a system or program. This approach, which builds on--but goes further than--the currently dominant user-centered approach, allows designers to communicate their overall vision and therefore helps users understand designs--rather than simply which icon to click. According to de Souza's account, both designers and users are interlocutors in an overall communication process that takes place through an interface of words, graphics, and behavior. Designers must tell users what they mean by the artifact they have created, and users must understand and respond to what they are being told. By coupling semiotic theory and engineering, de Souza's approach to HCI design encompasses the principles, the materials, the processes, and the possibilities for producing meaningful interactive computer system discourse and achieves a broader perspective than cognitive, ethnographic, or ergonomic approaches. De Souza begins with a theoretical overview and detailed exposition of the semiotic engineering account of HCI. She then shows how this approach can be applied specifically to HCI evaluation and design of online help systems, customization and end-user programming, and multiuser applications. Finally, she reflects on the potential and opportunities for research in semiotic engineering.

Esta enciclopedia presenta numerosas experiencias y discernimientos de profesionales de todo el mundo sobre discusiones y perspectivas de la la interacción hombre-computadoras

Work practices and organizational processes vary widely and evolve constantly. The technological infrastructure has to follow, allowing or even supporting these changes. Traditional approaches to software engineering reach their limits whenever the full spectrum of user requirements cannot be anticipated or the frequency of changes makes software reengineering cycles too clumsy to address all the needs of a specific field of application. Moreover, the increasing importance of ‘infrastructural’ aspects, particularly the mutual dependencies between technologies, usages, and domain competencies, calls for a differentiation of roles beyond the classical user–designer dichotomy. End user development (EUD) addresses these issues by offering lightweight, use-time support which allows users to configure, adapt, and evolve their software by themselves. EUD is understood as a set of methods, techniques, and tools that allow users of software systems who are acting as non-professional software developers to 1 create, modify, or extend a software artifact. While programming activities by non-professional actors are an essential focus, EUD also investigates related activities such as collective understanding and sense-making of use problems and solutions, the interaction among end users with regard to the introduction and diffusion of new configurations, or delegation patterns that may also partly involve professional designers.

The authors in this work focus on and explore human computer interaction (HCI) by bringing together the best practice and experience from HCI and interaction design.