WEBVTT

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I'm guessing the reason you're watching this video  
now at this moment is because you've got  an interest in human-computer interaction.  
However, that doesn't perhaps mean  you know exactly what it is. Maybe you  
just guessed. Or you just think it sounds like a  good idea. So what is human-computer interaction?  
Well, it's got two sides to it. On one side,  there's an academic discipline which is about  
studying the way people interact with technology,  and in particular the computer technology.  

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Nowadays, computers are in virtually everything.  It's quite hard sometimes to tell the difference.  
But then there's another side to it, which is the  design discipline and I think probably quite a lot  
of you watching this video will be from a design  side – you're interested in user experience design  
and interaction design. One side of Human-Computer  Interaction is the academic discipline and the  
other is the applied design discipline, which  is about how you create interventions with  

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technology that make a difference to people. So,  one side is studying that computer technology  
and how it has an impact on people  – so the way in which it works.  
The other is more about saying that, how do  we practically change that academic study,  
that interesting information we have  about the way people work, into action?
The two of course interact, so on  one hand the professional experience  

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informs the academic discipline. And you'll  probably notice that I use lots of examples,  
some from my own experience, some from  stories I know about from elsewhere.  
I use those from all sorts of times in order  to inform my general understanding.
Because it works the other way around. The academic  understanding, that more generic understanding,  
feeds back into the design discipline too. So, if  I understand how people interact with individual  

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computers, how people interact together in a group  when they're using technology, how environments  
change the way people are – if those environments  have technology in. Then I'll be in a better  
position to be able to design things effectively  for them. So, these two are intermingled.
So, if you want to understand Human-Computer  Interaction, if you want to be part of this, what  
kind of things would I like you to know about?  What would I hope you would learn from studying HCI?

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Well, first of all is bare facts. Facts about  the nature of computers. There's facts about the  
nature of human psychology, physiology – a whole  range of things – social interactions.
There are facts that you can read in a book, and I've got  my own textbook that I produced on this.
And there are many, many others. Also on the web there are  vast amounts of material. So, in some sense the  

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facts are easy to get and then you will get some  of those. Now hopefully when I talk about  
HCI you get some of those facts. However, perhaps  there are other things which are more important.
The second thing I hope you learn from HCI  is about analysis. It's about looking at a  
situation and trying to make sense of it:   what's going on there. Because if you understand  
a situation then you can apply the facts to  the situation.

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So, it's about analysis, about picking some things apart.
Picking the problems  that you're having or picking the opportunities apart.
And then of course, once you've done that  analysis, together with the facts and knowledge
from that, you can then do a design job. So  you can bring these things together in order  
to synthesize them, in order to create something  that will be a solution to somebody's problem.
But perhaps more important almost  than all that: obviously you need  

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the knowledge side and you need the skills to  do it. But perhaps the most important thing  
within HCI, particularly if you think of it in  terms of moving on into design, is an attitude  
of mind. An attitude that focuses on people that  sees real users, real situations as center place.  
That is seeking to understand people  however different they are from you.
And to do things which are good for them and  makes sense in their lives. So, that's sort of what  

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our purpose is in a way, particularly as we move  from just studying people to actually saying,
"How do we design something for them?" So, what kinds of things might you want to know about these?
And the sort of things I'll often talk about in  this context?
One set of things is about the basics of design, you know.
So, this goes from sort of the processes that people use when they're
doing design and you may be using yourself, to  methods of evaluation to understand the nature  

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of human experience.
However, undergirding that  is fundamental, undeniable, underlying knowledge
and theories. Some of those, particularly  about the human, about human perception,  
cognition, emotion – that also leaks into how  to understand the way computers work as well,  
to the extent that it's important from the  point of view of their interactions with people.
And then from a sort of practical point of view,  

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you also need to think about and  be aware of the issues that happen  
when systems are implemented. Again, that's partly  about the way they're implemented in the computer,  
but also the way in which they get deployed into  the world. This will vary from place to place,  
but some of the general principles of how you make  sure that this wonderful system that you designed  
actually gets used by people in the real  world and makes a real difference to people.