Nowadays computer technologies are becoming more and more popular. It is impossible to imagine the life of a modern man without everyday interaction with a computer; especially when it concerns businesspeople, scientists, intellectuals, etc. Even schoolchildren are actively using computer technologies in the learning process. As computers are becoming more sophisticated, computer designers get challenged by the task of making them as easy to operate as possible. There are many factors that influence the process of human-computer interaction and each of them should be taken into account by the designer to make it efficient and convenient.
Many will argue that the most significant research of Human-Computer Interaction was provided by industry and others will argue that university research was the most significant. I would argue that many significant advances occurred in both industry and universities. Many major advances in applications and interface styles have been paid for with government funds to both industry and universities. It is equally important that government, university and corporations continue to funnel large portions of their budgets to future research in the area of Human-Computer Interaction.
Today Human-Computer Interaction is one of the most extensively studied areas at IBM. The aim of study and development is to comprehend the relationships among users’ objectives, their personal capabilities, the social conditions they are working in, and the computerized technology they deal with. All this is done to provide an efficient communication between a user and a computer. It should be emphasized that this discipline covers many aspects which in turn concern various fields of science. Among them there are computer science, software engineering, sociology, anthropology, psychology, management science, cognitive science, etc. Moreover, the question of the interactive system design requires that the computer configuration would be aesthetic, behavioral, and value-sensitive which involves much research and development as well. However, peculiarities of people, groups, and organizations are just as important.
Although we have already mentioned the main goal of this discipline, there are several minor goals which contribute to the fulfillment of the main one. Among them there are developing methodologies for designing usable interfaces, evaluating and comparing interfaces, developing new improved interfaces, developing new descriptive models and theories of interaction. Although the theory is extremely important in the process of interaction development, it seems to be of minor importance if compared to the practical issues. It is explained by the fact that even on the stage of preparation one should apply the principle of modeling which has the practical character as well. We will discuss mental and conceptual modeling later. As a whole, the designer’s work consists of developing new methodologies, experimenting with new hardware devices, prototyping new software systems, exploring new paradigms for interaction, and developing models of interaction.
Communication between users and computers occurs at the user interface, which includes not only system software but also hardware, from general personal computers to large industrial systems. It is evident that the interaction process influences the efficiency of work, which means that it is extremely important to do one’s best to make it as easy as possible.
Developments in computer science have significantly enhanced the processing power of computers and, at the same time, decreasing their size. This development has contributed greatly to the advances of underlying technology and enabled the creation of a larger variety of human-computer interactions. For example, the increased processing power, as well as emerging of network connection between computers influenced the process of emerging audio and video over the Internet, which is now viewed as a common thing. Moreover, technological advances provided the opportunity for audio and visual interaction with other people and the computer itself. What should be noted is that sophistication of the technologies enabled the combination of various types of interaction which resulted in the invention of the elements of virtual reality and improved the process of virtual reality experience.