HCI Trends for a New Era

Experts predict that the computer, at least as we know it today, will disappear in no time. The computer will be integrated into other devices and the user will not be aware of their existence rather than by the functions offered. This seems to mean the disappearance of the explicit user interface and the development of a new implicit interface, focused on concrete tasks, more intelligent, and able to communicate with other elements. Is not about the physical machine anymore, we are getting away from the desktop, interaction styles are different. In a couple of years we might not be conscious of computers are around (Rozanski, 2010).

The field of HCI will be characterized by two trends: an evolutionary progress in dealing with current systems interactions by improving their usability, developing new methodologies and design tools that are adapted to the industrial environment; and a revolutionary trend, trying to create a new generation of interfaces that are characterized by being smarter, mobile and less visible to the user.

The evolutionary trend of HCI will work in the development of new concepts of interface usability, increasing the knowledge that we have about the user perspective and developing new methods for implementing these ideas. However, many experts believe that current development of interaction systems has reached an impasse given that most of new designs are found to be variations on the same subject (Moulton, 1998). Achieving a substantial advance in this area requires profound changes that introduce new styles of interaction, including new input/output devices or mechanisms. Until now it was expected that these changes would come from the advancement of virtual reality systems and multimedia. Nowadays, most experts are betting on ubiquitous systems, mobile computing, interfaces for natural language, etc. 

Intelligence, personality, expression, the ability to understand meaning, interactivity, and sensory richness are all essential to good interface design. Future computers should be able to sense human presence and emulate face-to-face communication. These agents, will be endowed with enough intelligence to be knowledgeable about the user's taste's, interests, acquaintances etc. (Negroponte, 1995). 

The goal of trying to break the paradigm of desktop computer is common to the works on mobile, ubiquitous and wearable computing. They claim that the services provided by computers should be as mobile as their users and should allow taking advantage of the constantly changing context in which they are used. This can lead to active environments in which these computers interact with each other and with the user in an intelligent and non-invasive mode. The philosophy of ubiquitous computing is the opposite of virtual reality. VR tries to introduce the person inside the computer. Ubiquity however, talks about computers integrated into the lives of people under the slogan the world is not a desktop (Weiser, 1994).

Wearable computing provides us with computers integrated and adapted to the user personal space. This personal space could be comprised by the users clothes, body surface and even the interior of it organism. Wearable computer extends the reach of human senses; improve their memory capabilities and increases intelligence (Ross, 2000). It should be also a gateway access between human beings and the outside world, filtering what is not relevant and serving as a protective wall of cyber attacks (Mann, 1998). Wearable computers represent a real challenge for actual HCI designers and engineers because interfaces as we know it, invades the personal spaces of the user. As in other technologies, one of the most important drivers of change is the market. For example, graphical user interfaces (GUI) opened the market for personal computer users without IT knowledge. The need to seek new markets leads to deepening the concept of usability. It is noticeable that, even now that we count with technical capabilities to meet these revolutionary concepts of interaction, companies that design hardware and software tend to be very cautious. They are still using standard interfaces due to fear of that any drastic changes may cause rejection of the user. Progress is purely cosmetic, colors, shapes, designs, but not fundamental. Designers, meanwhile, blame users. According to them, users are very conservative and cling to the systems they know, avoiding adventures with other systems, even if they promise better features (Jiang, 2000).

The great challenge is to be able to build general purpose portable computers, which accomplish with five attributes described with Steve Mann (Mann, 1998). These devices should be: PERSONAL: Human and computer are inextricably intertwined. PROSTHETIC: You can adapt to it getting the sense as a true extension of your body. CORPOREAL: It does not make the user look strange to others. PRIVATE: Others can't observe or control it unless you let them. CONSTANT: Always on, always running, always ready. Formal HCI principles for designing software and hardware interfaces are the corner-stone to accomplish these objectives. However, it stills represents a big challenge given the actual conditions of technology advancement, such as computing power, energy consumption, physical limitations, hardware volume, etc. Experts predict drastic changes for human-computer interaction. The ability to track eyes, recognize speech, and to sense touch are important ways in which future computers can be improved to better respond to the needs of the user (Rozanski, 2010). These changes have much to do with disappearance of the computer as we know it. However, predictions on new input/output devices and new styles of interaction are based on existing products; some of them are only at the prototype stage. This calls into question the premise of “total change”. Surely the changes that will occur in the next five to twenty years, if they are to be truly revolutionary, are impossible to predict based on today's standards.

References

Rozanski, Evelyn. (2010) “Lecture on Human Computer Interaction”. Gollisano College of Computing and Information Sciences. Rochester Institute of Technology. Rochester,NY.

Moulton, Dave (1998) “Optimal Character Arrangements for Ambiguous Keyboards”, IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 415-23.

Starner, T. (2002) “Wearable Computers: No Longer Science Fiction”, Pervasive computing. 

Negroponte, Nicholas. (1995). “Being Digital”. New York, NY: Random House.

Preece, Jenny (1994). “Human Computer Interaction”. New York, NY: Wesley.

Mogridge, Bill (2006). “Designing Interactions”. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mann, Steve (1998). “WEARABLE COMPUTING as means for PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT”, Keynote Address for The First International Conference on Wearable Computing, ICWC-98, May 12-13, Fairfax, VA.

Mann, Steve (1998). “Humanistic Intelligence: `WearComp' as a new framework and application for intelligent signal processing”. Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 86, No. 11. Ontario, Canada.

Jiang, James (2000) “User resistance and strategies for promoting acceptance across system types” Information & Management, Volume 37, Issue 1, Pages 25-36. Amsterdam, NL.

Weiser, Mark (1994) “The World is not a Desktop”. Interactions, January 1994, pp 7-8

Ross, A. (2000) “Wearable Interfaces for Orientation and Wayfinding”, ASSETS’00, November 13-15, Arlington, VA.