[HCI] Does not compute...

I was challenged today, by a computer, to prove that I was a human. Not challenged to confirm my identity, but instead challenged to show that I was merely a human.

We interact with dozens, perhaps hundreds of machines each day and yet most of us aren't even aware of our interactions with them other than a vague feeling of a program or device being "easy to use" or -- worse -- "impossible to understand." Truth is, there are a LOT of bad designs and interfaces out there, but ironcially, it's not the designer's fault! I know this because I teach these people to build better interfaces.

The designer is the person who ultimately is responsible for building the machine code which will interprate your interactions as input, and conversely, the machine's representation of data into something that is recognizable to your eyes and ears. That is to say, the designer handles all of the Human-Computer Interactions. Problem is ... those very people who are best apt to build such things are often more likely to see things from the computer's point of view ... rather than the Humans! It's the 21st century version of a greek tragedy.

The result of this are interfaces that make perfect sense to technophobes, yet remain uncomprehensible to the masses.

Occasionally however, even geeks can get stumped... Can you figure out what the middle character is?




Sometimes a computer needs to check there really is a human on the other end of the internet. The current vogue is for the computer to take some letters, distort them a bit, and ask the person (or another computer!) on the other end to TYPE them back. The computer knows what to expect, so if you get it wrong, it assumes you can't read and type and therefore, are not human.

To understand fully the reasons why this is easy for a human and complicated for a computer would involve a computer science course on computer vision, which would itself rely on a strong background in college-level mathematics and computer science; ie, "it's really complicated and not that interesting." Suffice it to say then, that for the moment, the ability to write such a program has not yet been found among the pool of eligible people who might profit from doing so. In other words, it's not a fool-proof test.

And sometimes, it's just foolish.