Full glossary of terms used in alphabetical order.
Human Computer Interaction is "concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them." (ACM SIGCHI, 1992, p.6) A basic goal of HCI is to improve the interaction between users and computers by making computers more usable and receptive to the user's needs. Specifically, HCI is concerned with: - methodologies and processes for designing interfaces (i.e., given a task and a class of users, design the best possible interface within given constraints, optimizing for a desired property such as learnability or efficiency of use) - methods for implementing interfaces - techniques for evaluating and comparing interfaces - developing new interfaces and interaction techniques - developing descriptive and predictive models and theories of interaction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction Note: The term 'Human Factors' is sometimes used (in especially North America) as a synonym for HCI or Usability.
The use of the term is widespread in the HCI and interaction design community and has become particularly visible in the HCI or interaction design community because of Jakob Nielsen's 'Heuristic Evaluation' method (Nielsen 1994). Heuristic evaluation is a discount usability engineering method for quick, cheap, and easy evaluation of a user interface design. Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles (the "heuristics"). - InteractionDesign.org Definition
