Human Computer Interaction Project Essays

Human Computer Interaction Project Essays Human Computer Interaction Project Essay Human Computer Interaction Project Essay An old saying that holds true. A picture can tell us more in an instant than a thousand words ever could. A picture records emotions, expressions, feelings and conveys them easily to the onlooker. Photographs capture hundreds of years of history be it on a world scale or at a personal level. We capture our weddings, births, birthdays and other occasions dear to us on camera because we want to hold on to that moment forever. Every time we look at a photograph we remember that day and relive that moment. The camera never lies. It takes a moment in time and freezes it. We rely on photographs as a tool to help us to understand and to remember the history of the world. Most of the worlds great historical events have been captured on film. A photograph of an innocent victim of war makes the victim real, like someone we knew rather than a name in a paper, and touches us far more deeply than stories in a book. Peoples descriptions of events are often tainted by exaggeration, imperfect memories and personal opinions but there is no denying the evidence of a photograph. The camera has come along way since the days of Niepcei. The first cameras were big and bulky, slow and inconvenient. Modern cameras incorporate a wide variety of functions. They are compact and you no longer require any special expertise in order to use one. One of the most revolutionary developments in recent years has been the onset of the digital camera. The digital camera has many advantages over standard cameras. No more messing about loading films or having to finish off a film so you can get it developed. No more waiting for them to be developed only to find out that most of the photographs were ruined or are unrecognizable. No more paying for films or developing. The digital camera allows you to view the pictures you have taken, to select which ones you actually want to keep and to print them off in your own time and in your own home. Retailers of digital cameras claim that they are every bit as straightforward and easy to use as conventional cameras. That even the most novice user could look like an expert within a short period of time. Our research aimed at putting these claims to the test. We wanted to determine whether or not the digital camera is as accessible as it sounds. To discover if anyone can use it or only those from technical backgrounds. To answer questions such as have the manufactures made the design too advanced? Has the camera now got so many functions that it confuses people? When using a camera you are often trying to capture a moment in time that is of some special meaning to you. Is the digital camera simple enough to use so that you do not miss this moment because you couldnt figure out which button did what? We wanted to find out what functions are available to the user and what functions the user is likely to actually make use of. We were interested in obtaining feedback on how easy or hard the camera is to use and to understand whether its buttons and other functions are unnecessarily confusing. In a world that is becoming increasing technology based, is the digital camera the next logical step in art of photography? Olympus is renowned for high image quality on all its digital cameras. Advanced technology and the fundamental expert know-how brought over from analog photography put Olympus digital cameras into world-leaders-position in image quality [1]. Our camera is the Olympus Camedia C-1400L. The resolution of the C-1400Ls digital photos is extremely high. Each digital image is made up of 1. 4 million pixels! The photos taken with the digital SLR cameras are stored on tiny replaceable Smart Media Cards which can be reused over and over again. The camera is shaped so that it is comfortable to hold, with a grip on the right hand side. Further details of the camera as well as copies of the two main diagrams which name all of the buttons and switches and levers on the camera can be found in Appendices E and G. The thinking aloud method is generally used in cooperative evaluation studies. These studies test out products on the target users. The aim of the studies, according to Monk et al [3], is to pinpoint the problems that users experience when they use software products and to suggest changes that could be made to improve the products usability. The basic principle behind the thinking aloud method is that users are asked to think aloud as they perform a task. The users are asked to voice their thoughts about the system they are working with and the tasks they have been assigned. They verbalize their understanding of what is happening in the system, the reasons why they have chosen certain options over others and what feedback they expect to receive from the system in response to the actions they have taken. The user is required to comment on any problems they encounter as they go along and on any aspects of a system which have caused them confusion. They are also encouraged to suggest any possible improvements to the system which would increase its usability. To summarize, this method requires the user to provides a running commentary of everything that occurs during a testing session. The thinking aloud method is very effective for pinpointing problems. If the user is given tasks to perform and is then interrogated on their performance afterwards it is often difficult for the user to recall everything that happened during the testing session. Users often experience difficulties articulating why they found a particular aspect of a system confusing, especially if this aspect has subsequently become clear to them. With the thinking aloud method these difficulties are recorded in the users comments and it becomes easier to determine why a particular problem occurred from these comments rather than from subsequent debriefings. Lewis [4] highlighted some disadvantages associated with this approach such as the fact that people may perform better when they are being observed, thinking-aloud throws off measurements such as how long it takes to perform each task and that it can be quite a time consuming process to analyse the information collected during testing sessions and to summarize the main problems encountered. Preece [5] also mentions the fact that verbal protocols can place added strain on users as they are required to do two things at once, perform a task and talk about their actions. It is often the case that during test sessions users forget that they are expected to talk out loud and must be continually prompted by the evaluator. However despite these disadvantages the thinking aloud method is a highly effective means of identifying the problems in a design and suggesting solutions. In selecting our test users we first took into consideration the target market of digital cameras. When they first appeared on the market digital cameras were fairly expensive and appealed mainly to people who worked with computers or those who love obtaining the latest techincal gagets. However these days digital cameras are being used by a much larger spectrum of the population. The cameras are growing quickly in popularity among young people who generally tend to be more familiar with, and more comfortable using, new technologies than the older generations. As people come to recognise the advantages of the digital camera, such as never having to develop photographs or purchase new rolls of film, more and more digital cameras are being purchased by families to replace their old standard cameras. The only requirement for owning a digital camera is a computer to download the photographs so we focused on users who owned their own computers. As the menu on the camera is somewhat similar to the menus on a computer we looked for users with varying levels of computer experience. Another factor that was taken into account was the users previous experience with digital cameras. We wanted to carry out the evaluation both on users who had never seen a digital camera before and on those who have experience using other models of digital cameras. As a lot of the functions on a digital camera are similar to those on normal cameras we also looked at the users history of using normal cameras and again we attempted to pick users with various levels of experience. We gave out a short questionaire (see Appendix A) to a number of potential users which addressed these factors and choose our four users from an examination of the anwers supplied.