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.