Imagine you go to three different restaurants and order something spicy at each one. At the first restaurant,  you have to call for the waiter to get you a glass of water. At the second restaurant the waiter, knowing your food is spicy, asks you if you’d like a glass of water. And at the third restaurant, even before you ordered your spicy meal, the waiter asks you if you need a glass of water. In all the three examples, the Interface — or waiter— is responsive, but something sets the three situations apart: At the first restaurant, through a series of interactions, you, the User, asked the waiter, or Interface for what you needed.  At the second restaurant, the Interface was smart enough to understand what the User wanted, even without interaction. And at the third restaurant, the Interface was hard-wired to deliver to the User, even if it wasn’t necessary. This is how HCI, or Human-Computer Interaction, works.

When it comes to computers and computing devices, good, responsive interfaces are crucial, just like with good customer service. Today there are several million examples of great interfaces—and even more millions of examples of bad ones.  Here with me to discuss Human-Computer Interaction is Florian Schaub, the Associate Professor of Information at University of Michigan, and D. Yvette Wohn, Assistant Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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