DANCEST 805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Eniac, Optimal Design, Usability
Document Summary
A lot of human factors work nowadays is about computers and human computer interaction (as predicted by wickens in 2003). Hci is human factors with regards to computing technology. The idea is to adapt computing technology to humans, and not the other way around. Nowadays, the field has a strong focus on consumer products, so the idea that appropriating computing technology to humans and not the other way around is strong in this field. For designing good computing technology you need to know what people can do (capabilities, abilities, skills, etc. ), what they do (behavior, habits) and what they want (goals, desires). The dos are things that need to established through research, you don"t know them right away. Some relevant cans, dos, and wants, and the design examples related to it: Can: people have limited information processing, and are not very good at at remembering lots of details. Side-by-side comparison of products takes this can into account.
