Preface
The Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), or Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), is a relatively new development area with an interdisciplinary subject, like some associated to computers, relating computer science with many other fields of study and research.
Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface, which includes both software and hardware.
From a general point of view, the interface is all about user experience and computer working environment, such as organization, training or help.
Why it is so important to study the user interface? Because it is the most important part responsible of a sucess interactive application.
Therefore, the work that sets out tries to study the usability of any current interfaces that exist between users and computers in the new information spaces: the World Wide Web.
HCI disciplines. Image by Luis Leiva.
In order to study the human being role in the design of interactive systems, in addition to the computer aspect, it is necessary to consider other disciplines. It is necessary to study the psicological aspects of the user, equipment ergonomics, social aspects, design subjects and a long etcetera that requires something else than good programming knowledges.
The HCI basis to carry out this work are focused in: 1) to understand the psicological, ergonomic, organizational and social factors which determine how people works and makes use of computers and transfer this understanding to 2) develop tools and technologies that help designers to achieve better computer systems according to the desired activities, in order to 3) obtain an efficient, effective and sure interaction for individuals and groups of users.
The present work will try to cover the implementation and evaluation of any web interface, since this is a fundamental aspect to consider in the design of new interactive systems. This evaluation will be made through a user-centered design by means of the proposed application: a client-server architecture which will register the user mouse activity throughout the time that lasts any visit to a certain page, and also it will store and infer on the above mentioned data, which will be generated in real time.
— Luis Leiva, 2005
