Transcript materials (Bui, Brown, Christensen)

Chapter 5
Understanding How
Interfaces Affect
Users
Christina Bui
Stephen Brown
Casey Christensen
Affective Aspects
•
Affective - producing an emotional response.
•
•
•
•
Recognizing facial expressions and body language
Responding appropriately
Affective Computing - designing computers that
recognize and express emotions the same way
that humans do.
How can systems be designed to make people
respond in certain ways?
Expressive Interfaces
•
Attempt to convey a computer’s “emotional
state”.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dynamic icons that indicate state
Animations
Spoken messages for instructions
Sounds to indicate actions or events
Friendly interface agent
Emoticons (emotional state of the user)
Aesthetics of an interface can have a positive
effect on people’s perception of the system’s
usability.
User Frustration
Computer interfaces inadvertently
elicit negative emotional
responses.
User Frustration

An application doesn’t work properly or crashes.

The system doesn’t do what the user wants it to do.

The user’s expectations are not met.



The system does not provide sufficient information to enable the
user to know what to do .
Error messages pop up that are vague, obtuse or condemning.
The appearance of an interface is garish, noisy, gimmicky or
patronizing.
Sources of Frustration
Ranked from most to least frustrating:
• Error Messages
• Overburdening the user
• Appearance
• Gimmicks
!
The operation has expectedly
quit, due to poor coding in the
operating system.
YOU STUPID PIECE OF CRAP!!!!!
It’s okay, I know you didn’t mean it.
I’m sorry I crashed. I realize I am
a failure and a disappointment to
you, the user. In the future, I’ll try
to do a better job of running your
programs.
Anthropomorphism
Attributing human qualities to nonhuman objects, such as cars, pets,
cartoon characters, or robots.
Anthropomorphism in Design?
• Systems are more enjoyable and fun to
•
•
•
interact with.
People, especially kids, are more
motivated to carry out suggested tasks.
First person dialog and screen characters
are deceptive. (Shneiderman)
People quickly become annoyed and
ignore suggestions.
Kinds of Agents
•
•
•
•
Synthetic characters- lifelike character, as in a
video game (1st or 3rd person).
Animated agents- play a collaborating role at the
interface.
Emotional agents- have personality and allow
the user to manipulate moods.
Embodied conversational interface agentsemulate human conversation.
•
•
•
Recognizing, responding to, and generating output
(verbal and nonverbal).
Coping with breakdown and turn-taking
Signal the state of the conversation
Making Characters Believable
• Appearance- parsimony and simplicity
• Convincing behavior- point out relevant
•
objects, lead with its eyes
Mode of interaction- emulate human
conversation (difficult) or simple artificial
conversation
Discussion Points
Chapter 5
How Interfaces Affects Users
Today I am feeling…
Happy
Tired
Bored
Confused
Frustrated
Sad
Exhausted
Expressive Interfaces

Dynamic Icons

Animations

Spoken Messages

Sounds

Interface Agents
User Frustrations

POP UPS !#$!@!!%!
User Frustration






Error messages
FATAL, ERROR,
INVALID, KaBOOM!!
Expectations not met
Gimmicks
Too flashy, noisy
Overburdening
Applications crashes
Coping with frustration
 Should




computers say they are sorry?
Reeves and Naas argue that they should
What do you think?
Do you think the apology would be sincere?
Would you forgive it?
“I’m really sorry I crashed. I’ll try not to do
it again.”
Virtual Characters

Synthetic


Animated


Tutors, wizards,
helpers
Emotional


3D characters in video
games
Predefined personality
and emotions
Conversational

Humanlike
Virtual Characters
 Miss

Boo.com
Sales Agent for a virtual shopping mall
 Rea

MIT Embodied Agent
Design Concerns

Apple’s Knowledge Navigator “Phil”

Which one do you like better?
People, Places, and Projects
Chapter 5
Humanoid Robotics
Group
 MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Humanoid Robots


Cog (http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-roboticsgroup/cog/cog.html)
Kismet (http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-roboticsgroup/kismet/kismet.html)
• video


And the newest member Coco
Rodney Brooks - director of the MIT Artificial
Intelligence Lab, the founder of the humanoid robotics
group
 http://www.ai.mit.ed
 u/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/
James C. Lester

Associate Professor
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina State University

Animated Pedagogical Agents
• Herman the Bug
• Cosmo

Ph.D., Computer Science (1994)
University of Texas at Austin
 http://www4.ncsu.edu/~lester/imedia/james.ht
ml
Aaron Marcus

Founder of Aaron Marcus and Asociates, Inc.
 Cultural Dimensions and Global Web UserInterface Designer


One design white American females
European adult male intellectuals
• But what happened??? Everyone agreed that one was
best

http://www.amanda.com/
Ben Shneiderman





Department of Computer Science
University of Maryland
ACM CHI (Computer Human Interaction)
Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001
Developed guidelines on how to design good
error messages
Author of Leonardo’s Laptop
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~ben/
Clifford Nass and Byron
Reeves
 Stanford
in the Department of
Communications
 Main authors of The Media Equation
 Everyone responds to PCs as if they
are social actors



uses such techniques as brainwave monitoring, home video, and
questionnaires to measure peoples’ response to media in all its
forms
perception is more important than reality
form of media isn’t an issue; the same social responses can be
elicited from multiple and varied forms of media
Microsoft’s Bob

Friendly interface agent
 Aimed at new computer users
 “Stupid”
Questions? Comments?