Fundamentals of Human-Computer Interaction 2

2025-2026

Lectures: building 640 (PUIO), room E105, Friday 1:30pm-3pm - map
Instructor: Michel Beaudouin-Lafon mbl@lisn.fr
TA sessions: building 640 (PUIO), room E105, Friday 3:30pm-5pm - map
Teaching Assistants: Xinpei Zheng and Francesco Dettori – Website for TA sessions

No class on 5 September
Week 1: Lecture Friday 12 September, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 2: Lecture Friday 19 September, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 3: Lecture Friday 26 September, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 4: Lecture Friday 3 September, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 5: Lecture Friday 10 October, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 6: Lecture Friday 17 October, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105
Week 7: Lecture Friday 24 October, 1:30pm-3pm, E105 / TA 3:30pm-5pm, E105

Course Evaluation

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Course Summary

This is a mandatory course for the first year of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Specialty of the Master in Computer Science. It is also open to students from other specialties of the Master in Computer Science of Université Paris-Saclay and to the students of the Interaction, Graphics and Design Masters of Institut Polytechnique de Paris.

The course complements the Fundamentals of HCI 1 course to give an overview of the field of human-computer interaction, including a short history of HCI, a review of advanced interaction styles, a sampling of post-WIMP interaction techniques, including pointing techniques and instrumental interaction, and a range of theories and models for HCI.

This page and its content are solely for students enrolled in the 2025-2026 HCI Masters at Université Paris-Saclay. It contains instructor's material (slides and audio/video recordings) that are not to be distributed without the author's written consent, and copyrighted materials (such as articles) that are only made available under the fair use exception to copyright law.

Week 1 — 12 September 2025 — History of HCI

Handouts

• History of HCI

Audio recording

• Lecture 1

Historical Videos

• SketchPad
• NLS/Augment short segment on groupware - Full video of The "mother of all demos" - Edited version
• Xerox Star introduction video - Video of the Star User Interface (1984) - Video of the "Last Xerox Star Demo" (1998)
• WorldWideWeb emulation of the first World-Wide Web browser

Note: some videos don't play in the browser and must be downloaded to view them with VLC.

Readings about History of HCI

The first "computers":

• Antikythera mechanism - about 100BC
• Astrolabe - 4th century (the French wikipedia page explains how they work)
• Pascaline - 1645
• Jacquard machine - 1804
• Babbage's Analytical Engine - 1837
• Zuse's Z3 - 1941
• ENIAC - 1945

People:

• Women in computing
• Grace Murray Hopper
• Vannevar Bush
• Ivan Sutherland
• Douglas Engelbart
• Alan Kay
• Steve Jobs
• Tim Berners-Lee
• Ted Nelson
• Bill Buxton
• Mark Weiser

Systems and web sites:

• Memex
• Doug Engelbart Institute (used to be the Bootstrap Institute)
• Visicalc
• Xerox Star
• Apple Macintosh
• World-Wide Web
  • WorldWideWeb browser
  • Emulation of the WorldWideWeb browser
• Xanadu

Papers about history of HCI:

• The Xerox Star: a Retrospective. Jeff Johnson et al., IEEE Computer, 1989
• The Making of the Mouse. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Invention&Technology, 2002.
• Inventing the Lisa User Interface. Roderick Perkins, Dan Smith Keller and Frank Ludolph, ACM Interactions, 1997 (see the figures here)
• A Brief History of Human-Computer Interaction Technology. Brad Myers, ACM Interactions, 1998
• (In French) 50 ans d'interaction homme-machine : retours vers le futur. Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Interstices, 2016.

Papers about visions:

• As we May Think. Vannevar Bush, The Atlantic Monthly, 1947
• Sketchpad: A man-machine graphical communication system. Ivan Edward Sutherland, Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963.
• Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. Douglas Engelbart, SRI Report, 1962 (original report)
• The Computer for the 21st Century. Mark Weiser, Scientific American, 1991
• Interacting in Chaos. Dan Olsen, ACM Interactions, 1999

About innovation and invention:

• Innovation vs. Invention. Bill Buxton, Business Week, 2005
• The Long Nose of Innovation. Bill Buxton, Business Week, 2009
• Modeling and Forecasting the Information Sciences. Brian Gaines, Information Sciences, 1999

"Vision" videos to watch (and critique)

• Apple Knowledge Navigator (1987)
• Microsoft Future Vision 2010
• Microsoft Future Vision 2011
• Microsoft Future Vision 2015

Week 2 — 19 September 2025 — Pointing

Handouts

• Pointing techniques

Recordings

• Lecture 2

Videos on pointing and navigation shown in class / to watch

• Drag'n'pop - Web page
• Rake cursor - Web page
• Semantic pointing - live demo (click the demo link to get to the Java applet)
• Bubble cursor - Web page
• Dynaspot
• Pad++
• OrthoZoom - Web page
• Crossy - Web page

Readings on pointing and navigation

• Fitt's Law as a Research and Design Tool in Human-Computer Interaction, I. Scott MacKenzie, Human-Computer Interaction, 1992.
• "Beating" Fitts' law: Virtual Enhancements for Pointing Facilitation, R. Balakrishnan, Int. J. Human-Computer Studies, 2004.
• Semantic Pointing: improving target acquisition with control-display ratio adaptation, Blanch, Guiard & Beaudouin-Lafon, CHI 2004.
• Bubble cursor - enhancing target acquisition by dynamic resizing of the cursor's activation area, Grossman & Balakrishnan, CHI 2005 - web page - Chrome extension.
• Dynaspot - Speed-dependent Area Cursor, Chapuis, Labrune & Pietriga, CHI 2009.
• Pad - An Alternative Approach to the Computer Interface, Perlin & Fox, SIGGRAPH 1992.
• Orthozoom - 1D Multi-Scale Navigation, Appert & Fekete, CHI 2006 - web page.
• Crossy - A crossing-based drawing application, Apitz & Guimbretiere, UIST 2004 - web page.

Week 3 — 26 September 2025 — Instrumental Interaction

Handouts

• Instrumental Interaction

Recordings

• Lecture 3

Videos shown in class

• 3 palettes
• CPN200
• StickyLines
• SideViews
• Para Procedural Drawing
• Object-Oriented Drawing
• Textlets

Readings

• Instrumental Interaction: An Interaction Model for Designing Post-WIMP Interfaces, Beaudouin-Lafon, ACM CHI 2000.
• Reification, Polymorphism and Reuse: Three Design Principles for Designing Visual Interfaces, Beaudouin-Lafon & Mackay
• The Architecture and Implementation of CPN2000, A Post-WIMP Graphical Application, Beaudouin-Lafon & Lassen, ACM UIST 2000. CPNtools web site.
• Beyond Snapping: Persistent, Tweakable Alignment and Distribution with StickyLines, Ciolfi Felice et al., UIST 2106.
• Side Views: Persistent, On-Demand Previews for Open-Ended Tasks, Terry & Mynatt, UIST 2002.
• Supporting Expressive Procedural Art Creation through Direct Manipulation, Jacobs et al., CHI 2017.
• Object-Oriented Drawing, Xia et al., CHI 2016.
• Textlets: Supporting Constraints and Consistency in Text Documents, Han et al., CHI 2020.
• Au-delà des applications : Substrats et instruments d'interaction, Beaudouin-Lafon, IHM 2023.

Week 4 — 3 October 2025 — Theories and Models (1)

Handouts

• Theories and Models (up to slide 42)

Recordings

• Lecture 4

Readings

• Flat Earth
• Heliocentrism and the Copernician revolution. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo
• Karl Popper. His most famous book:
  The Logic of Scientific Discovery
• HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks, John Carroll (Ed). Available also on ScienceDirect. I used this book extensively to prepare this lecture.
• Science in action, Bruno Latour - an empirical study of science and technology.

Action and perception:

• Pre-attentive processing - infovis wiki.
• Gestalt perception
• Ecological Psychology. James J. Gibson's seminal book:
  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (also on Google Books)
• Affordances vs. Signifiers by Don Norman
• Hick's law (also known as Hick-Hyman law). Research papers:
  On the rate of gain of information, W.E. Hick, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1952.
  How Relevant is Hick's Law for HCI?, W. Liu, J. Gori, O. Rioul, Y. Guiard, M. Beaudouin-Lafon, Proc. ACM CHI'20, 2020.
• Fitts' law. Research paper:
  The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement, P. Fitts, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1954.
  Fitts' Law as a Research and Design Tool in Human-Computer Interaction. Scott Mackenzie, HCI Journal, 1992.
• Kinematic chain - this entry describes the general concept of a kinematic chain.
  Asymmetric Division of Labo in Human Skilled Bimanuel Action: The Kinematic Chain as a Model, Y. Guiard, Journal of Motor Behaviour, 1987. Research paper about kinematic chain and bimanual interaction.
  A study in two-handed input, W. Buxton and B. Myers, Proc. ACM CHI'86, 1986. The first study of bimanual input (HTML version).
• Toolglass and Magic Lenses: The See-Through Interface, E. Bier et al., Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH 93, 1993. An advanced bimanual interface using Guiard's principles. Video
• Bricks: Laying the Foundations for Graspable User Interfaces, G. Fitzmaurice, H. Ishii, B. Buxton, Proc. ACM CHI 95, 1995. Web page (with video).

Week 5 — 10 October 2025 — Theories and Models (2)

Handouts

• Theories and Models (from slide 43 to slide 62)

Recordings

• Lecture 5

Readings

Cognition and behaviour:

• Action Theory, from The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman, 2002. revised edition.
• Plans and Situated Action, Lucy Suchman. PDF version.
• Human-Machine Reconfigurations, recently revised version of the above.
• Activity Theory
• Beyond the Interface: Encountering Artifacts in Use, L. Bannon and S. Bodker, in Designing Interaction: Psychology at the Human-Computer Interface, 1991. Introduced Activity Theory into HCI.
• Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design, V. Kaptelenin and B. Nardi, 2009. A recent book on activity theory and HCI.
• The Human-Artifact Model - an Activity Theory Approach to Artifact Ecologies, S. Bødker and C. Klokmose, Human-Computer Interaction, 2011.
• Cognitive Dimensions of Notation. Research paper:
• Notational Systems – the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations framework, A. Blackwell and T. Green, in HCI Models, Theories and Frameworks, 2003. Web site with additional resources.

Interaction:

• A Morphological Analysis of the Design Space of Input Devices, S. Card et al., ACM Trans. Office Information Systems, 1991.
• The UAN: a user-oriented representation for direct manipulation interface designs, R. Hartson, A. Siochi and D. Hix, ACM Trans. Office Information Systems, 1990.

Videos

• Ethnography and the PARC copier

Week 6 — 17 October 2025 — Theories and Models (3/3)

Handouts

• Theories and Models (from slide 63)

Recordings

• Lecture 6

Readings

Interaction:

• GOMS, Keystroke-level model
• The Psychology of Human Computer Interaction, S. Card, T. Moran and A. Newell, 1983.
• Project Ernestine: A validation of GOMS for prediction and explanation of real-world task performance W. Gray et al., Human-Computer Interaction, 1993.
• Extensions of GOMS analyses to expert performance requiring perception of dynamic visual and auditory information, B. John, Proc. ACM CHI'90, 1990.

Software engineering:

• User Interface Management Systems: Present and Future, M. Beaudouin-Lafon, Eurographics, 1994.
• MVC, see also history of MVC
  A cookbook for using the model-view controller user interface paradigm in Smalltalk-80, G. Krasner and S. Pope, Jal Object-Oriented Programming, 1988.
• PAC
  PAC, an Object-Oriented Model for Dialog Design, J. Coutaz, Proc. INTERACT 87, 1987.
• MVVM
• SwingStates: Adding state machines to Java and the Swing toolkit, C. Appert and M. Beaudouin-Lafon. Jal Software Practice and Experience, 2008. Web site with downloadable library and examples.
• ENACT: Reducing Designer–Developer Breakdowns When Prototyping Custom Interactions, G. Leiva, N. Maudet, W. Mackay and M. Beaudouin-Lafon. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2019.

Videos

• ENACT: Reducing Designer–Developer Breakdowns When Prototyping Custom Interactions

Week 7 — 23 October 2025 — Collaborative Computing

Handouts

• Collaborative Computing
• The design of interactive things (Wendy Mackay)

Audio recording

• Lecture 7
• Lecture DOIT (Wendy Mackay)

Readings

Books:

• The Information, James Gleick, 2011.
• Media Space - 20+ Years of Mediated Life, Steve Harrison (ed), Springer
• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Beaudouin-Lafon (ed), Wiley, 1999.
• Video-mediated Communication, Finn, Sellen, Wilbur (eds), Routledge, 1997.
• Readings in Groupware and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Baecker (ed), Morgan Kaufmann, 1993.

Articles about the history and defintion of the field:

• CSCW: Four Characters in Search of a Context. Liam Bannon and Kjeld Schmidt, Proc. European CSCW Conference, 1989.
• Groupware - Some Issues and Experiences. C.A. Ellis, S.J. Gibbs and G.L Rein, Communications of the ACM, 1991.
• Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: History and Focus. Jonathan Grudin, IEEE Computer, 1994.
• Groupware and Social Dynamics: Eight Challenges for Developers. Jonathan Grudin, Communications of the ACM, 1994.

Other articles of interest:

• The Computer for the 21st Century. Mark Weiser, Scientific American, 1991.
• The metaverse at the crossroads of illusions. Interview of Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, CNRS Journal, 2022.

Videos shown in class / to watch

• Webstrates - web site.
• Clearboard (Ishii et al., 1992).
• Spacetime (Xia et al., 2018).
• CamRay (Avellino et al., 2017).
• Soylent: A Word Processor with a Crowd Inside, 2010. Interview, 2011. Web site.
• Ethics + Accountability in Tech, Frances Haugen, Olin College, April 2022.