Human-computer interaction: an important neglected area

Human-computer interaction: an important neglected area

Hundreds of teachers and students who care about human-computer interaction listened to the first lecture of the "Outstanding Chinese Human-Computer Interaction Lecture Series".

Mouse, keyboard, browser, touch screen ...

When many people are still unfamiliar with the term "human-computer interaction", these iconic products of human-computer interaction technology have already penetrated into our daily life.

Now, with the emergence of new concepts and technologies such as the Internet of Things and the Information Physics System (CPS), the importance of human-computer interaction technology has become more prominent. In the process of the fusion of the real physical world and the virtual information space, how to design a human-computer interaction interface that can be easily used by the public without learning has become one of the focuses of Chinese and foreign scientists.

From October 2009 to June 2010, the China Computer Society, Microsoft Asia Research Institute, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Software Institute jointly held a series of lectures on outstanding Chinese human-computer interaction scholars, hoping to drive Chinese human-computer interaction to the world.

Focusing on the development status of human-computer interaction in China, the latest advances in international frontier technologies and other topics, a reporter from Science Times interviewed Hu Shimin, deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Computer Society and professor of the computer department of Tsinghua University, Dai Guozhong, a researcher at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Microsoft Asia The Institute's president Hong Xiaowen and many other experts.

The gap with the international frontier
Like Dong Shihai, a professor at Peking University, Dai Guozhong was one of the earliest scholars to develop human-computer interaction in China.

Dai Guozhong told the "Science Times" reporter that human-computer interaction is the information technology closest to the public. Ordinary people really understand computers by starting with human-computer interaction. Previous research in this area in China basically followed the technical route abroad, and there is a certain gap between the level of international frontier research. This is mainly manifested in the relatively small research team in China.

Investigating the reason, Hu Shimin told the "Science Times" reporter, mainly because of the characteristics of the human-computer interaction discipline itself.

"China's human-computer interaction has been led by its predecessors. After nearly 30 years of research, thanks to the support of many national research programs, it has achieved quite a lot of results." Hu Shimin said, however, because human-computer interaction is computer science The product of combining with cognitive psychology also involves many subjects such as ergonomics, sociology, physiology, medicine, linguistics, philosophy, etc. It is a very comprehensive science, so the knowledge structure of researchers high expectation.

"Many scholars do not have the knowledge background to engage in human-computer interaction research, and they are also reluctant to invest a lot of energy in learning, which directly leads to the small scale of human-computer interaction research team in China, and not many staff." Hu Shimin said.

In recent years, human-computer interaction has become a neglected field and has not received due attention. After many old experts retired, young scholars gradually abandoned this field due to knowledge structure or other reasons, which is another reason for the decline of talents.

However, when talking about the current status of human-computer interaction research in China, Hu Shimin said: "At present, there are still many scientific research institutes and famous universities in China that take human-computer interaction as an important research direction and pay more and more attention." For example, the Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beijing Normal University, Dalian Maritime University, Beijing Institute of Technology, etc.

Among them, the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was one of the earliest units to start research and development of human-computer interaction technology. Under the leadership of Dai Guozhong, the Institute has done a lot of distinctive research on pen interaction. In addition, Peking University's multi-channel interaction, Tsinghua University's multimedia and interaction technology integration, and Beijing University of Technology's touch interaction have also achieved certain results, and have a deep research foundation and conditions.

However, "as the most important new technology in the computer field and the key to serving the public with information technology, the scale and achievement display of human-computer interaction research in China does not match the importance of this discipline." Hu Shimin said If there is innovation in a discipline, a group of high-level research teams must promote each other in order to create a good innovation environment and produce valuable innovation results. He hoped that with the help of such activities as the series of lectures by outstanding Chinese human-computer interaction scholars, more Chinese scholars would be encouraged to pay attention to and participate in human-computer interaction.

Future direction: natural user interface
On October 26, the first lecture of the "Outstanding Chinese Human-Computer Interaction Scholars Lecture Series" was held at the Software Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before the meeting, James Landay, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and Desney Tan, a researcher in the field of visualization and interaction at Microsoft Research Institute of the United States and Dai Guozhong, all led the team to present their latest results to the media. That night, Microsoft Research Institute principal investigators Jonathan Grudin and Desney Tan also introduced hundreds of Chinese teachers and students who are concerned about the development of this field to the world ’s most cutting-edge human-computer interaction research and development results, and published their views on this field.
"Science Times" reporter got close to the idea display (IdeaNote) developed by Dai Guozhong and others: holding a stylus and writing and drawing on the tablet like an ordinary pen, you can complete all the thought editing Work, and save the final document to the computer in a regular format.

Dai Guozhong told reporters that mobile office is one of the mainstream applications of human-computer interaction in the future. There are four main activities of human beings: thinking collection, communication, creation, and contribution in the way of work. The existing software technology is difficult to support thinking collection, and it is also difficult to support the expression of creative thinking, so they developed this software, hoping to support the most important thinking collection activities in the four activities and solve the problems that traditional office software cannot solve.

Unlike Dai Guozhong, James Landay focused his research on the impact of human-computer interaction on people's daily activities. The Ubigreen application he introduced uses action inference technology to display information about the mode of transportation used by the owner on the screen of the mobile phone, reminding the owner of the weekly vehicle usage and carbon dioxide emission reduction at any time. If the owner ’s mode of transportation can reduce the impact on the environment, such as walking, cycling or public transportation, the software will give positive feedback on the mobile phone: the big tree on the mobile phone screen will grow and bloom Big red apple.

Desney Tan is a young scholar born in Singapore and raised in the United States. According to him, in the history of the development of computer technology, the human-machine interface has undergone several major changes. It was originally a control interface composed of indicator lights and mechanical switches in the 1940s and 50s. The composed character interface, and then the graphical user interface (GUI) since the 1980s. He believes that the future human-computer interaction is a natural user interface. Without any learning, people can interact with the computer very naturally, just like human interaction.

Opportunities in China
"With the development of technologies such as CPS and the Internet of Things, if the technical bottleneck of human-computer interaction is overcome, China will have more opportunities than European and American countries." Hong Xiaowen told the "Science Times" reporter.

According to him, since its establishment in 1975, human-computer interaction has always been one of the most important projects in the history of Microsoft. "The Internet has existed since 1969. The reason why it is so popular is because of the breakthrough of the human-machine interface." Hong Xiaowen believes. Before the popularity of the Internet, whether it was e-mail, instant messaging, or various databases, in fact already existed, but there were few people who used them, and it was not until the browser that these applications were truly widely used. This is a huge revolution similar to the industrial revolution brought to humanity by the human-machine interface.

It is understood that there are more than 200 Ph.D. researchers in Microsoft Asia Research Institute who are engaged in research work. They all have different educational backgrounds, such as computing technology, psychology, industrial design, programming, hardware, and even Do art design and equipment. Hong Xiaowen believes that human-computer interaction is one of the most interdisciplinary studies in all disciplines.

To this end, he said that doing human-computer interaction requires some core technologies, such as voice, vision, and touch. Only through interdisciplinary communication and cooperation can an excellent human-machine interface be made.

He believes that China's progress in the past 30 years of reform and opening up is obvious to all. All walks of life are booming, and manufacturing, IT, and automotive industries all need design. And these designs are not only beautiful, but also easy to use. Now, people not only have to deal with machines, but also with objects and cars. These all require human-machine interfaces. "Therefore, many people are now beginning to study the human-machine interface, which is a very important part of various innovations, and it touches the core of innovation." Hong Xiaowen said.

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