High Level Models of Human Behaviour
There are very few theories in HCI, and most tend to deal with low level phenomena such
as selection accuracy and speed (Fitts Law), or ways of modeling human goals into
low-level actions and predicting performance outcomes (GOMS). As an alternative, I provide
students with two high-level cognitive models of human behaviour that help them understand
how people interact with machines. These are Shneiderman's syntactic / semantic model, and
Norman's stages of interaction.
Overheads
Topics covered
- High-level models of user behavior
- Shneiderman's syntactic/semantic model
- Syntactic knowledge
- Semantic knowledge
- What it reveals to the designer
- Norman's stages of an interaction
- Intention, selection, execution and evaluation
- Gulfs of execution and evaluation
- What it reveals to the designer
Readings from Baecker Grudin Buxton and Greenberg
- Theory-based design (excerpt of Chapter 2), p.87-88, gives a brief overview of
Norman's model.
- Beyond GOMS (excerpt of Chapter 9), p.579-580, gives a brief overview of
several cognitive models. It also includes a figure of the stages in Norman's model.
- Optional reading: The growth of cognitive modeling in HCI since GOMS, p. 603-625.
describes the recent advances of cognitive modeling. It also shows how some theories
(GOMS) fit within Norman's model.
Videos
Major sources used to prepare lecture material
- The readings listed above
- Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, published by Basic Books, contains
a full description of Norman's stages.
- Ben Shneiderman's Designing the User Interface, 3rd Edition, published by
Addison Wesley, contains a full description of Shneiderman's syntactic/semantic model.
Last updated September 1997, by Saul Greenberg