The intention of this paper is to provide an overview on the subject of Human-Computer
Interaction. The overview includes the basic definitions and terminology, a survey of existing
technologies and recent advances in the field, common architectures used in the design of HCI
systems which includes unimodal and multimodal configurations, and finally the applications
of HCI. This paper also offers a comprehensive number of references for each concept,
method, and application in the HCI.
Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction, Multimodal HCI, Ubiquitous Computing
1
Introduction
Utilizing computers had always begged the question of interfacing. The methods by which
human has been interacting with computers has travelled a long way. The journey still
continues and new designs of technologies and systems appear more and more every day and
the research in this area has been growing very fast in the last few decades.
The growth in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field has not only been in quality of
interaction, it has also experienced different branching in its history. Instead of designing
regular interfaces, the different research branches have had different focus on the concepts of
multimodality rather than unimodality, intelligent adaptive interfaces rather than
command/action based ones, and finally active rather than passive interfaces.
This paper intends to provide an overview on the state of the art of HCI systems and cover
most important branches as mentioned above. In the next section, basic definitions and
terminology of HCI are given. Then an overview of existing technologies and also recent
advances in the field is provided. This is followed up by a description on the different
architectures of HCI designs. The final sections pertain to description on some of the
applications of HCI and future directions in the field.
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FAKHREDDINE KARRAY ET., AL., HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: OVERVIEW ON STATE OF THE ART
2
Human-Computer Interaction: Definition, Terminology
Sometimes called as Man-Machine Interaction or Interfacing, concept of Human-Computer
Interaction/Interfacing (HCI) was automatically represented with the emerging of computer,
or more generally machine, itself. The reason, in fact, is clear: most sophisticated machines
are worthless unless they can be used properly by men. This basic argument simply presents
the main terms that should be considered in the design of HCI: functionality and usability [1].
Why a system is actually designed can ultimately be defined by what the system can do i.e.
how the functions of a system can help towards the achievement of the purpose of the system.
Functionality of a system is defined by the set of actions or services that it provides to its
users. However, the value of functionality is visible only when it becomes possible to be
efficiently utilised by the user [2]. Usability of a system with a certain functionality is the
range and degree by which the system can be used efficiently and adequately to accomplish
certain goals for certain users. The actual effectiveness of a system is achieved when there is a
proper balance between the functionality and usability of a system [3].
Having these concepts in mind and considering that the terms computer, machine and system
are often used interchangeably in this context, HCI is a design that should produce a fit
between the user, the machine and the required services in order to achieve a certain
performance both in quality and optimality of the services [4]. Determining what makes a
certain HCI design good is mostly subjective and context dependant. For example, an aircraft
part designing tool should provide high precisions in view and design of the parts while a
graphics editing software may not need such a precision. The available technology could also
affect how different types of HCI are designed for the same purpose. One example is using
commands, menus, graphical user interfaces (GUI), or virtual reality to access functionalities
of any given computer. In the next section, a more detailed overview of existing methods and
devices used to interact with computers and the recent advances in the field is presented.