(2019) Science and education, 3, 47-53. Odessa.

Inna Bedny,
Doctor of Psychological Sciences, professor,
Information Technology, UPS,
3, Nuthatcher Court, Wayne, New Jersey, USA

HUMAN FACTOR IN PERFORMING COMPUTER BASED AND COMPUTERIZED
TASKS: SYSTEMIC-STRUCTURAL ACTIVITY THEORY PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this article is to highlight the issues related to human-computer interaction (HCI) and demonstrate how application of the Systemic-Structural Activity Theory (SSAT) allows to solve some of the problems related to utilization of software. Wide spread HCI is a relatively new phenomenon. Today people of all ages use gadgets to connect with their friends and relatives, to purchase all kinds of necessities, to work, travel and play. Software developers are often concentrated on coding while ignoring the human element. The software intended for work that is used hundreds of times during the day should be designed differently from the interface for the customers that might have to use it once. SSAT considers human activity as a structure that unfolds in time. Suggested in this framework methods of analysis of human performance allows to analyze the structure of the task, find its critical points, determine the complexity of task performance and compare different versions of interface design to choose the best version. SSAT suggests new methods of algorithmic description of human performance that allow to conduct the qualitative analysis of the software used to perform the task and derive the quantitative measures of complexity. Special attention is paid to the decision-making process and to the reliability of human performance. The developed analytical methods can be used at the design stage when software does not exist yet. These methods help to choose the best design version saving a lot of resources at the early stages of the design process. Here we are going to demonstrate how applying these methods we can improve user experience by make the task performance less complex and more efficient.

 user experience, task analysis, design, complexity, reliability of human performance.

1. Bedny, G. Z., Bedny, I. S. (2018). “Applied and Systemic-Structural Activity Theories”, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group [in English].
2. Bedny, G. Z., Bedny, I. S. (2019). “Work Activity Studies Within the Framework of Ergonomics, Psychology, and Economics”, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group [in English].
3. Bedny, G. Z., Karwowski, W., Bedny, I. S. (2018). “Applying Systemic-Structural Activity Theory to Design of Human-Computer Interaction Systems”, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group [in English].
4. Bedny, I. S. (2019). Application of systemicstructural activity theory to evaluation of innovations. Washington, DC, AHFE [in English].
5. Bedny, I. S., Bedny, G. (2011). Analysis of abandoned actions in the email distributed tasks performance. In D. B. Kaber, G. Boy (Eds.). Advances in cognitive ergonomics. (pp. 683-692). Boca Raton, London: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group [in English].
6. Bedny, I. S., (2019). Application of SystemicStructural Activity Theory to Evaluation of Innovations. In: Janusz Kacprzyk (eds.) Advances in Neuroergonomics and Cognitive Engineering (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing), vol. 953, Springer International Publishing [in English].
7. Preese, J. (1994). “Human-Computer Interaction”, Harlow, England, Addison-Wesley [in English].
8. Shneiderman, B. (1998). “Designing the User Interface”, 3rd ed., Reading, Massachusetts, USA, Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. [in English].
9. Simon, H. (1999). “The Science of the Artificial”, 3 rd ed., Cambridge, Massachsette, USA, MIT Press [in English].
10. Zwicky, F. (1969). Discovering, Invention, Research – Through the Morphological Approach, Toronto, ON, Canada, The Macmillian Company [in English].