EECS 4441 Chapter 1

What events took place in the 1940s

Vannevar Bush publishes “As We May Think“

What events took place in the 1960s

Ivan Sutherland Develops Sketchpad

Douglas Engelbart invents the computer mouse

What events took place in the 1980s

Xerox Star Launched

ACM SIGCHI formed

Card, Moran, and Newell publish The Psychology of HCI

What events took place in the 2020s

40th Anniversary of “CHI“ the SIGCHI annual conference

Who published As We Way think and when

Vannevar Bush in 1945

What was As we May Think

Highly influential essay with 10,000+ citations on Google Scholar

focuses on Connecting information through personal, associative trails.

To address “information overload,” Bush proposed memex → a detailed concept (never built)

What was Memex

A hypothetical personal information machine that would let people store books, documents, notes, and other records so they could quickly retrieve them.

what was Bush’s insperation for Memex

The contemporary telephone exchange, which he described as a “spider web of metal, sealed in a thin glass container” (viz. vacuum tubes)

Who came up with Sketchpad and when

Ivan Sutherland in 1962

What was the Sketchpad

a graphics system that features direct manipulation

commands were not typed. Users did not “write letters to” the computer. Instead, objects were drawn, resized, grabbed and moved, extended, deleted – directly, using the light pen.

Who invented the mouse and when

Doug Engelbart in 1963

What was the first computer mouse like

• Wooden casing: It was carved from a block of wood.

• Two metal wheels: Mounted at right angles, one tracked horizontal movement and the other tracked vertical movement.

• One button: Allowed the user to select items.

• Wired connection: Connected it to the computer system.

What was HCI’s First User Study A comparative evaluation of

A computer mouse, joystick with position control, joystick with rate control, lightpen, grafacon, and knee controlled lever

What were the results of HCI’s First User Study A comparative evaluation

The knee controlled lever was the fastest followed by the light pen and then the mouse, these three were very close in score. The joystick was overall the worst The knee controlled lever and the light pen had a high error rate and the light pen was noted as being unconfortable to use overtime. Due to how low of an error rate the mouse had, it was most favorable.

What was the Experiment design of HCI’s First User Study A comparative evaluation

Participants: 13

• Independent variable

– “Input method” with six levels: mouse, light pen, Grafacon, joystick (position-control), joystick (rate-control), knee-controlled lever

• Dependent variables

– Task completion time, error rate

• Task:

– Press spacebar, acquire device, position cursor on target, select target

What was the Xerox Star

in Chicago at the 1981 NCC it was the first commercially released computer system with a GUI and point-select interaction using a mouse. In the end, not successful

What year was known as the “birth of HCI“ and why

1983

Notable events:

1. First ACM SIGCHI conference

2. Publication of The Psychology of HCI

3. Apple Macintosh announced via brochures and launched in 1984

ACM SIGCHI’s Mission

advance knowledge and practice in human–computer interaction (HCI)

what is ACM SIGCHI

ACM is the professional computing association, while SIGCHI is its special interest group dedicated to human–computer interaction.

What was The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction And when was it made

The book helped establish HCI as a more scientific, measurable discipline by using models of human thinking and movement to predict how people interact with computers. Card, Moran, and Newell (1983)

Apple Macintosh, what is it and when was it introduced

The first successful system with a graphical user interface (GUI) and point-select interaction. Introduced at a 1984 Super Bowl commercial.

What is direct Manipulation in HCI

Interaction style emphasizing visibility, rapid feedback, and reversibility.

What is the Model Human Processor?

A framework modeling human sensory, cognitive, and motor processors.

What is the desktop metaphor?

Using familiar office elements (files, folders) to model computer interaction.

Why was the Xerox Star not commercially successful?

It was expensive and a closed system.

What is the Human Factors Model?

A framework showing how human senses, brain, and responders interact with computer interfaces.

What is Newell's Time Scale of Human Action?

A model categorizing human activity timescales from deliberate acts (~100ms) to unit tasks (~10s).

What graphical interface concept did Bush anticipate?

hyperlinks.

What mission did AIP at Xerox PARC have?

Apply psychology to HCI through basic and applied research.

What award did Engelbart receive in 1997?

ACM Turing Award.

What was the main interaction problem with light pens?

User fatigue from holding the arm in the air.

What was a key finding from the first user study?

The mouse had the lowest error rate and fastest performance.

What are descriptive models in HCI used for?

They are tools for thinking and understanding human-computer interaction.

The essay "As We May Think" was written by Vannevar Bush and published in 1945.  The essay foretold of human-computer interaction (HCI) and, in particular, the World Wide Web.  Where was the essay published?

The Atlantic Monthly

The first user study including a computer mouse was reported by English et al. in a paper published in 1967.  The results for "Time" are shown below.  Time was lowest for the "Knee control" input device.  Why?

“Time" included access time -- the time to move the hand from the keyboard to the device.  For the knee control device, this was zero.

The first user study including a computer mouse was reported by English et al. in a paper from 1967.  The results for "Time" are shown below.  The measurement of time included access time and movement time.  What is access time?

The time to move the hand from the keyboard to the device

The National Computer Conference (NCC) of 1981 included an event that is considered import in the history of HCI.  What was this event?

The launch of the Xerox Star

What do the letters W-I-M-P stand for in WIMP?

Windows - Icons - Menus - Pointer

The first commercial system using a computer mouse was the Xerox Star.  See below.  What was a notable distinction between the Xerox Star mouse and the original mouse invented by Engelbart?

The mouse included with the Xerox Star used a rolling ball to sense device movement.

Many HCI research conferences emerged through the ACM and its special interest group on computer-human interaction (SIGCHI).  Many are regional conferences, some are specialized conferences.  One of the specialized conference is ETRA.  What is the expanded form of ETRA?

Eye Tracking Research and Applications