Reflection- Introduction to HCI
Week 1 of PDTP (Programming as a Design Tool for Prototyping) has been insightful more than being a learning. I understood the requirement/ non requirement of Designer to know coding. Both types are different and both have their own merits and demerits. On knowing coding a designer’s imagination could become limited to the set of actions a computer can perform and on the other hand not knowing coding may lead a designer to build designs which are user centric but lack the back end side of development strategy or can never be converted into a model.
On personal level, this served as an introduction to Human Computer Interaction, Experience Design and also certain commands of Coding. I could trace back interaction design to when mouse was invented and served as first interactive object ever designed and it was something different and significant because now actions of human body could directly indicate the command instead of having to search every key and pressing it to give commands. In 1998, CrossPad XP came as another significant contribution to world of interaction design. This was a digital pad on which user could draw/write as he would on slate and it will get transferred digitally, by this interaction was taken to a new level as this project was more human centric.
Brainstorming about Wizard of Oz model for making a conversational interface gave us insights about how human computer interactions happen in digital world and how it looks from physical world. I could understand that every tap, click etc. is based on command lines which is the reason we are able to use them. I could also differentiate between a system design and an interface design. Both work on same principles but have different deliverables.
I also got an introduction to conversational agents and interfaces. I could understand the broader meaning of conversational agent in terms of interaction design. They work on prompts given by user. It is as if conversing to an intelligent machine. Overall week 1 gave me a good introduction about HCI and oriented my mind towards every digital interaction we have everyday.
