Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities

Chapter 1. How Humans Interact with Computers

Timoni West

In this chapter, we explore the following:

• Background on the history of human–computer modalities

• A description of common modalities and their pros and cons

• The cycles of feedback between humans and computers

• Mapping modalities to current industry inputs

• A holistic view of the feedback cycle of good immersive design

Common Term Definition

I use the following terms in these specific ways that assume a human-perceivable element:

Modality

A channel of sensory input and output between a computer and a human

Affordances

Attributes or characteristics of an object that define that object’s potential uses

Inputs

How you do those things; the data sent to the computer

Outputs

A perceivable reaction to an event; the data sent from the computer

Feedback

A type of output; a confirmation that what you did was noticed and acted on by the other party

Introduction

In the game Twenty Questions, your goal is to guess what object another person is thinking of. You can ask anything you want, and the other person must answer truthfully; the catch is that they answer questions using only one of two options: yes or no.

Through a series of happenstance and interpolation, the way we communicate with conventional computers is very similar to Twenty Questions. Computers speak in binary, ones and zeroes, but humans do not. Computers have no inherent sense of the world or, indeed, anything outside of either the binary—or, ...