Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics

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    Usability Testing

    Morten Hertzum

    Learner-Centered Design of Computing Education

    Mark Guzdial

    Computing education is in enormous demand. Many students (both children and adult) are realizing that they will need programming in the future. This book presents the argument that they are not all going to use programming in the same way and for the same purposes. What do we mean when we talk about teaching everyone to program? When we target a broad audience, should we have the same goals as computer science education for professional software developers? How do we design computing education that works for everyone? This book proposes use of a learner-centered design approach to create computing education for a broad audience. It considers several reasons for teaching computing to everyone and how the different reasons lead to different choices about learning goals and teaching methods. The book reviews the history of the idea that programming isn’t just for the professional software developer. It uses research studies on teaching computing in liberal arts programs, to graphic designers, to high school teachers, in order to explore the idea that computer science for everyone requires us to re-think how we teach and what we teach. The conclusion describes how we might create computing education for everyone.

    Statistics for HCI

    Alan Dix

    Many people find statistics confusing, and perhaps even more confusing given recent publicity about problems with traditional p-values and alternative statistical techniques including confidence intervals and Bayesian statistics. This book aims to help readers navigate this morass: to understand the debates, to be able to read and assess other people's statistical reports, and make appropriate choices when designing and analysing their own experiments, empirical studies, and other forms of quantitative data gathering.

    Statistics for HCI

    Alan Dix

    From Tool to Partner

    Jonathan Grudin

    This is the first comprehensive history of human-computer interaction (HCI). Whether you are a user experience professional or an academic researcher, whether you identify with computer science, human factors, information systems, information science, design, or communication, you can discover how your experiences fit into the expanding field of HCI. You can determine where to look for relevant information in other fields—and where you won’t find it. This book describes the different fields that have participated in improving our digital tools. It is organized chronologically, describing major developments across fields in each period. Computer use has changed radically, but many underlying forces are constant. Technology has changed rapidly, human nature very little. An irresistible force meets an immovable object. The exponential rate of technological change gives us little time to react before technology moves on. Patterns and trajectories described in this book provide your best chance to anticipate what could come next. We have reached a turning point. Tools that we built for ourselves to use are increasingly influencing how we use them, in ways that are planned and sometimes unplanned. The book ends with issues worthy of consideration as we explore the new world that we and our digital partners are shaping.

    Multitasking in the Digital Age

    Gloria Mark

    In our digital age we can communicate, access, create, and share an abundance of information effortlessly, rapidly, and nearly ubiquitously. The consequence of having so many choices is that they compete for our attention: we continually switch our attention between different types of information while doing different types of tasks–in other words, we multitask. The activity of information workers in particular is characterized by the continual switching of attention throughout the day. In this book, empirical work is presented, based on ethnographic and sensor data collection, which reveals how multitasking affects information workers' activities, mood, and stress in real work environments.


    Multitasking is discussed from various perspectives: activity switching, interruptions as triggers for activity switching, email as a major source of interruptions, and the converse of distractions: focused attention. All of these factors are components of information work. This book begins by defining multitasking and describing different research approaches used in studying multitasking. It then describes how multiple factors occur to encourage multitasking in the digitally-enabled workplace: the abundance and ease of accessing information, the number of different working spheres, the workplace environment, attentional state, habit, and social norms. Empirical work is presented describing the nature of multitasking, the relationship of different types of interruptions and email with overload and stress, and patterns of attention focus. The final chapter ties these factors together and discusses challenges that information workers in our digital age face.