Assignment 3, COS 436 HCI Technology

Due Wednesday, Oct. 22, in class

Come up with three example tasks from everyday life (not computing), where the sense or hearing or touch is most important, and vision is not at all (or just minimally) important. Come up with one example of one sense, and two of the other (one touch + two hearing, OR one hearing + two touch).

Things to report on:

• Is the main sensory component a feedback
  (real-time or near real-time reaction to the user input)

  or a data display
  (presentation of new information from the outside world, not controlled by the user)?

  What are the physical characteristics of the audio/touch stimuli?
  (estimate the bandwidth, number of different levels, etc.)

  In other words, How much information is carried in those stimuli
  (levels, degrees, qualities, timing, etc.)?

  How time-critical is/are the stimuli?

Write down your observations in a nice orderly form.

Now think deeply about one of the situations/tasks, as it might relate to the computer interface domain.

• Write some about how this could inform an improved computer interface,
  or suggest a whole new type of interaction/interface.

• Describe and sketch a system that could use this interface/interaction.

• Describe how you might go about designing an objective test, to see how well this system works.

• Also describe how you might go about designing a subjective survey to see how well users like this system.