Redundant Human Computer Interface:Concept, Design Methodology And Application

Human-Computer-Interface (HCI) is a communication platform between the human and real world application. It is composed of both hardware and software. The real world application can be everything from the natural environment to engineered device or artifact. There have been many studies on both HCI and its design methodology. However, little attention is paid to the robustness of the HCI in literature. The robustness is the ability of a system (HCI in this case) that the system still functions under disturbances and/or interruptions. In addition, a systematic design methodology for HCI is still unsatisfactory not withstanding a highly robust HCI. Finding solutions to these two problems is the motivation for this thesis study.The specific objectives of this thesis were thus defined as:(1) to explore a new structure of HCI to increase the degree of robustness and (2) to devise a more systematic and rational procedure to HCI.A comprehensive literature review on both the HCI system and on the HCI system design methodology was conducted first, which gives further confirmation of the initial finding of the problems. Next, the study proposed a concept called redundant HCI, which goes beyond the existing concept of the multi-modality HCI in literature, and the study subsequently proposed a more systematic and rational procedure to design a HCI including redundant HCI. To give verification of the theoretical developments, a prototype for a guiding system in the subway station was built and an experiment was conducted on the prototype. Two hypotheses were studied in the experiment:(1) hypothesis I:the proposed redundant HCI increases the degree of understanding comprehension from the human user to the subway station and (2) hypothesis Ⅱ:two types of interfaces (function-based and structure-based) do not have a significant difference. Note that the two hypotheses are partially related to the robustness of HCI, as both were targeted on the characteristics of redundancy in HCI.This thesis can draw the following conclusions:(1) the redundant HCI is promising to improve the robustness of a HCI; (2) the structure-based HCI and the function-based HCI can be an excellent redundant means to increase the degree of robustness of HCI.