HCI Explained

The word "affordance" is everywhere in design — and almost always wrong. Don Norman borrowed a term from ecological psychology, put it at the heart of design thinking, and then watched it get mangled for three decades. Designers use it to mean roughly "what something looks like it does" — but that's not quite what Norman meant, and the gap between those two ideas turns out...

What makes a button feel clickable — and what happens when it doesn't? A button seems like the simplest thing in design. Press it, something happens. But beneath that transaction sits a surprisingly rich set of decisions: about visual signals, about feedback, about what it even means for an interface element to feel interactive. Get those decisions right and users never notice. Get them wrong...

Your font is already talking. The question is whether you're listening. Before you read a single word, the typeface carrying it has already made an impression — formal or casual, trustworthy or playful, easy or exhausting. That's not a metaphor. It's a measurable effect that shapes how people feel about the content, the interface, and the organisation behind it. In this episode, we slo...

One in twelve men can't read your colour-coded design the way you intended. That's not a niche accessibility footnote — it's a quiet, persistent failure woven into the fabric of everyday UX. Colour is one of the most powerful tools in a designer's kit, and one of the most routinely misused. This episode of HCI Explained asks a deceptively simple question: if you design with colour...

Your eye moves before your brain does. Visual hierarchy is why. Every screen you use has been designed — consciously or not — to pull your attention in a particular direction. The size of a heading, the weight of a typeface, the breathing room around a button: none of it is arbitrary. Researchers have been studying how people scan and read interfaces for decades, and what they've found is both...

Your eyes decide what matters before your brain knows you're looking. Most of us assume we read a screen the way we read a book — left to right, top to bottom, taking it all in. But decades of eye-tracking research tell a different story. Attention moves in jagged, skipping patterns, guided by visual weight, contrast, and position in ways that happen well below conscious awareness. Understandi...

Why does a button feel clickable? Why do some interfaces feel intuitive almost instantly? And why can cluttered apps feel exhausting to use? The answer often comes back to a set of ideas from early psychology known as Gestalt principles. In this episode of HCI Explained, we explore how principles like proximity, similarity, figure-ground, continuity, and closure quietly shape the way people percei...

User research did not always look like Zoom calls, heatmaps, and analytics dashboards. In this episode of HCI Explained, we trace how researchers studied people and technology from the 1980s to today. We explore the rise of usability labs, contextual inquiry, ethnographic fieldwork, remote testing during COVID-19, and the growing role of behavioural analytics in product design. Along the way, we u...

Failure is not an edge case. It is part of every user experience. In this episode, we unpack why designing for failure is essential in modern UX. From broken flows and system errors to unexpected user behaviour, the best products are not those that avoid failure, but those that handle it well. We cover: • What “failure” means in UX• Why most systems ignore failure states• How poor failure design b...

Modern technologies don’t always know, and pretending they do can be risky. From AI predictions and recommendations to navigation and health apps, uncertainty is built into how many systems work. The real design challenge is not removing uncertainty, but helping people understand and work with it . In this episode of HCI Explained , we explore what it means to design with uncertainty in Human–Comp...

Good UX is meant to help users — but what happens when it doesn’t? Many design patterns celebrated as “good UX” are optimised for engagement, speed, and convenience. Over time, these same choices can lead to overuse, manipulation, and loss of autonomy. In this episode of HCI Explained , we examine how good UX can still cause harm , even when intentions are positive. We discuss: Why usability and e...

Automation promises speed, efficiency, and scale — but it also raises a difficult question: how much control should humans give up ? As AI systems increasingly make decisions, take actions, and optimise outcomes on our behalf, issues of agency, responsibility, and trust move to the centre of Human–Computer Interaction. In this episode of HCI Explained , we examine the tension between human control...

Why do we trust some technologies and hesitate with others? As AI systems become more autonomous, adaptive, and opaque, trust has become one of the most complex challenges in Human–Computer Interaction. In this episode of HCI Explained , we unpack what trust really means in AI-driven systems and why traditional UX approaches often fall short. We explore: What trust means in HCI, beyond usability a...

As we look beyond 2025, the question isn’t what will definitely happen, it’s what might become possible . In this episode of HCI Explained , we explore what could be in store for technology in 2026 , drawing on emerging signals, open questions, and unresolved tensions shaping the future of tech. We discuss: Likely directions in AI, HCI, and product design Shifts in how people may interact with tec...

2025 was a defining year for technology, marked by major breakthroughs and equally notable missteps. In this episode of HCI Explained , we examine the biggest  tech successes and failures of 2025 , delving beyond headlines to understand  why  some ideas were successful while others failed. We cover: The most impactful tech successes and what made them succeed High-profile failures, flops, and cont...

Want to find usability problems before they frustrate your users? That’s where heuristic evaluation comes in — a quick, expert-based method that delivers powerful UX insights without needing large-scale testing. In this episode of HCI Explained , we explore how heuristic evaluation works and why it’s a must-have in every UX toolkit: What heuristic evaluation is and how it helps spot usability issu...

Ever tapped through an app and thought, who tested this ? That’s where usability testing comes in — one of the most practical and powerful methods in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and UX design. In this episode of HCI Explained , we unpack the essentials of usability testing: What it is and why it matters Step-by-step process : setting goals, recruiting users, creating tasks, running sessions,...

Every day, you’re already engaging in multimodal interaction, whether you’re tapping on a screen, speaking to a virtual assistant, or combining gestures and voice commands in your car. But what does it really mean when technology supports more than one way of communicating? And how does it change the way we design, use, and experience our digital tools? In this episode of HCI Explained , we explor...

What if your body wasn’t just a tool to operate technology but the interface itself? From swiping on a touchscreen to moving through a VR world, your body is already shaping how you experience the digital. This is the essence of embodied interaction, an HCI perspective that sees the body not just as an input device, but as central to how we think, act, and connect with technology. In this episode...

Every time you open an app, scroll through a website, or manage a cluster of browser tabs, your brain is doing more than you realise. It’s not just clicking and scrolling — it’s building a mental map of a hidden digital landscape . These internal representations, called cognitive maps , shape how we navigate, find information, and make sense of complex digital worlds. In this episode of HCI Explai...

Every tap, click, and swipe leaves a trace — and the system whispers back. That whisper is feedback. In this episode of HCI Explained , we dive deep into the fascinating world of feedback loops in Human-Computer Interaction, uncovering how they keep us informed, reduce errors, and help us build trust in the technology we use every day. Think about the everyday moments when feedback quietly reassur...

Ever wondered why some tech feels so intuitive while other interfaces leave you confused? In this episode of HCI Explained , we dive into the fascinating design principles of affordances and constraints —two forces that quietly shape how we interact with technology every day. We’ll explore how affordances suggest possible actions, from the obvious tap of a smartphone icon to the subtle hint of a s...

In today's fast-paced technological landscape, "User-Centered Design" (UCD) is a term often thrown around, but its true depth and transformative power are frequently misunderstood. Too many assume it's simply about conducting a single usability test or a quick user interview. But as this episode will reveal, UCD is a far more comprehensive, dynamic, and profoundly evolving practi...

Why do some objects feel intuitive while others leave us confused? In this episode of HCI Explained , we dive into the concept of affordances, the hidden (or visible) clues that guide how we interact with things. From doorknobs to app icons to anything else we feel like acting with, or being acted upon by, affordances shape our actions and expectations. We'll explore: What affordances are and...

Why do certain interfaces just feel right to use, while others frustrate us instantly? In Episode 4 of HCI Explained , we explore the psychology behind good design — how cognitive science, mental models, and human perception shape what we consider “usable.” In this episode, we unpack: Core psychological principles like Hick’s Law , Fitts’ Law , and affordances How attention , memory , and emotions...