Course website and syllabus: http://eagle.union.edu/~tartaroa/CSc280/
Quick Links: Schedule | Assignments | Blackboard | Design Blogs | Projects
To give you a feel for some of the different perspectives in HCI, readings for the course come from various texts as well as research articles. All readings are available on Blackboard or through reserve at the library. Most readings will be available electronically and the books will be in the reserve room. You might consider purchasing Norman's Design of Everyday Things because we are reading too much of the book to make it available electronically. It is suggested reading at the bookstore. Please see the bibliography for further details on the readings.
| Title | Authors | Publication Information |
| About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design | Alan Cooper, Robert Reimann and Dave Cronin | Wiley Publishing, Inc, 2007 |
| Human Values and the Design of Computer Technology | Batya Friedman (Editor) | CSLI Publications, 1997 |
| The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applicatons | Julie A. Jacko and Andrew Sears (Editors) | Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, 2003 |
| Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design | William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler | Rockport Publishers, Inc, 2003 |
| Designing Interactions | Bill Moggridge | MIT Press, 2007 |
| Usability Engineering | Jakob Nielsen | Academic Press, Inc, 1993 |
| The Design of Everyday Things | Donald A. Norman | Basic Books, 1988; 2002 |
| Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Edition | Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rogers and Jenny Preece | John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2007 |
The majority of the assignments are building blocks of the quarter long project developing an application for a mobile device that has support for gps, accelerometer, graphical display and sound. The focus of the project is the design process, rather than building a robust application, and emphasizes working with users at each stage of design. The assignments are designed to not only introduce you to different design techniques, but also develop skills you would use as an HCI practioner or researcher: collaboration (including division of labor), writing and presenting. After the first assignment, you will form project groups that you will work with for the remainder of the quarter. Deliverables for each assignment will include both a written report and class presentation. Your audience for the reports and presentations will be someone who knows about usability engineering but is not familiar with your particular project. Please also include at the end of your written report a brief statement describing how the work was divided for the assignment. Assignment descriptions, detailing requirements and deliverables, will be linked to each assignment below. Read each carefully, as they may include additional due dates for email approval of your plans for the assignment. I will also hand-out and discuss each assignment in class the day the previous assignment is due.
Handing in assignments: Your presentation will be at the beginning of class the day each assignment is due. A hard copy of your written report is also due at the beginning of class. Finally, an e-mail (to: tartaroa@union.edu) containing your written report, in Word or .rtf format, and your presentation, in Powerpoint or .pdf format, is due by 20 minutes prior to class (2:45pm).
In addition to the project, you will also keep a weekly design blog and read and comment on your classmates' design blogs. Please read the details in the assignment description.
Finally, class attendance and participation is a critical component of the course. Please discuss any necessary absences with me.
| Assignment | Goal | Individual or Group | Grade Weight | Due |
| Project Assignment 1: User Observation |
Identify a context that interests you and uncover user needs, goals, artifacts and usage patterns with an eye towards understanding problems and revealing opportunities for design. | Individual | 5% |
M 9/21 |
| Project Assignment 2: Requirements Analysis |
Understand the people, technology and physical, as well as social, context that play a role in the problem area for which you are designing. | Group | 10% |
W 9/30 |
| Project Assignment 3: Conceptual Design |
Generate a huge body of design ideas for your problem area in a systematic way. | Group | 10% |
W 10/14 |
| Project Assignment 4: Paper Prototype and User Test |
Try out and test different design scenarios. | Group | 15% |
M 10/26 |
| Project Assignment 5: High Fidelity Prototype and Evaluation Proposal |
Develop an initial prototype of your system, design the goals, questions and protocols for your study, and pilot test your plan. | Group | 15% |
M 11/9 |
| Final Project Assignment: Functional Prototype, Evaluation and Proposed Re-design |
Carry-out an evaluation of a functional prototype of your system and propose changes based on the results. | Group | 25% |
Finals Week T.B.D. |
| Design Blog | Open your eyes to good and bad design, and generate discussion that applies reading and class content to real world design examples. | Individual | 10% |
Sundays @ noon |
| Class Participation | Contribute thoughtfully to class discussions, in-class exercises and presentations. | Individual | 10% |
each class |
Attendance
Class participation is a critical component of the course and attendance is mandatory. Please discuss any necessary absences (eg. athletics, religious holidays, emergency, illness) with me. You may be asked to make up for missed material.
Late Assignments
Due to class scheduling, presentations must be given on the day they are due. Missing a presentation drops your grade for the assignment 1 full letter grade (eg. your max grade is a B). Written reports turned in late will drop your grade for the assignment one letter grade per day. For example, reports handed in after 3:05 on the due date, but before 3:05 the next day have a max grade of B.
Students with Disabilities
It is the policy of Union College to make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. I encourage students wtih disabilities to make an appointment to meet with me as soon as possible to discuss accommodations that might help facilitate your learning. You will need appropriate documentation from the Student Support Office. All discussions will remain confidential.
Academic Integrity
Scholastic dishonesty is misrepresenting someone else's work as your own, which is a form of stealing, and will not be tolerated. You are responsible for reading and understanding Union's policies regarding Academic Conduct in the student handbook (http://www.union.edu/StudentLife/Handbook/) and Union's statement on plagarism (http://www.union.edu/Library/refroom/statement.htm). If you need help understanding how and when to cite sources, please see me.
Note: Subject to change. Be sure to check for updates at: http://eagle.union.edu/~tartaroa/CSc280/
| Date | Topic | Reading | Assignments due |
| W 9/9 | Introduction | ||
| M 9/14 | Design Process | Norman Preface (2002 Edition), ch 1; Nielsen sec 1.3 | |
| W 9/16 | Requirements Analysis Part 1 |
Sharp Ch. 7, pp. 498-499, 515-517 | |
| M 9/21 | Requirements Analysis Part 2 | Moggridge pp. 667-681 | 1: User Observation |
| W 9/23 | Designing for People | Norman ch 2; Gaver (1991); Lidwell pp. 82-83 | |
| M 9/28 | Conceptual Design Part 1 | HCI Handbook pp. 1010-1013 (Exploring the Design Space - Contracting the Design Space); Cooper ch 5 | |
| W 9/30 | Conceptual Design Part 2 | Cooper ch 6 | 2: Requirements Analysis |
| M 10/5 | Inputs & Outputs | EXTRA blog assignment: IN ADDITION TO your weekly design blog, find, read & blog about a conference article regarding an input and/or output technique - due 24 HOURS BEFORE CLASS. Please send a reference to the article to me by FRIDAY 10/2. READ your classmates posts by class. Conference suggestions: CHI, Interact, Interaction Design and Children, SIGGRAPH, etc. Email or see me if you want help finding or choosing and article. | |
| W 10/7 | Prototypes | Moggridge pp. 683-723; HCI Handbook pp. 1013-1021 (Prototyping Strategies and Rapid Prototypes | |
| M 10/12 | Evaluation | Norman ch 5; Nielsen p. 20, www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html, www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html | |
| W 10/14 | Evaluation 2: Experimental Design | Nielsen ch 6 (up to 6.9) | 3: Conceptual Design |
| M 10/19 | Evaluation 3: Analysis and Presentation | Sharp ch 8 (up to 8.6) | |
| W 10/21 | Design Process Reprise and Discount Usability Engineering | Nielsen p. 224 (table 10), sec 1.4 | |
| M 10/26 | Ethics & Design: Introduction* | Friedman ch 13; Friedman, Kahn & Borning (2002); Feng (2000) | 4: Paper Prototype and Evaluation |
| W 10/28 | Ethics & Design: Participatory Design* | HCI Handbook ch 54; Druin (2002) | |
| M 11/2 | Ethics & Design: Ethics in Social Technologies* | Bos, Olson, Gergle, Olson & Wright (2002); Hancock, Toma & Ellison (2007); Sharkey & Sharkey (in press) | |
| W 11/4 | Ethics & Design: Inclusive Design - Global Design* | HCI Handbook ch 23; Foucault, Russell & Bell (2004) | |
| M 11/9 | Ethics & Design: Inclusive Design - Special Population* | Lazar (2007); Meyers & Wobbrock (2005); Tartaro & Cassell (2008) | 5: High Fidelity Prototype and Evaluation Proposal |
| W 11/11 | Ethics & Design: Catch-up and Wrap up* | ||
| M 11/16 | Special Topic: Class Choice! | TBA. Possible Topics: Collaborative Technology, Instructional Technology, Design for Children, Graphic Design, etc… | |
| Friday, Nov 20, 11:30-1:30 |
Final Presentations | 6: Functional Prototype, Evaluatation and Re-design |
Beaudouin-Lafon, M. & Mackay, W. (2003). Prototyping Tools and Techniques. In J. A. Jacko & A. Sears (Ed.), The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications, pp. 1006-1031. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Cooper, A., Reimann, R. & Cronin D. (2007). About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
Feng, P. (2000). Rethinking Technology, Revitalizing Ethics: Overcoming Barriers to Ethical Design. Science and Engineering Ethics, 6(2), 207-220.
Friedman, B. & Kahn, P.H. (1997). Human Agency and Responsible Computing: Implications for Computer System Design. In B. Friedman (Ed.), Human Values and the Design of Computer Technology. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Friedman, B., Kahn, P.H. & Borning, A. (2002). Value Sensitive Design: Theory and Methods (UW CSE Technical Report). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
Gaver, William W. (1991): Technology Affordances. In: Robertson, Scott P., Olson, Gary M. and Olson, Judith S. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 91 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference, April 28 - June 5, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana. pp. 79-84.
Lazar, J. (2007). Introduction to Universal Usability. In J. Lazar (Ed.), Universal Usability: Designing Computer Interfaces for Diverse User Populations (pp. 1-12). Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Lidwell, W., Holden, K. & Butler, J. (2003). Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design. Glouster, MA: Rockport Publications.
Marcus, A. (2003). Global and Intercultural User-Interface Design. In J. A. Jacko & A. Sears (Ed.), The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications, pp. 441-463. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Moggridge, B. (2007). Designing Interactions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Muller, M.J. (2003). Participatory Design: The Third Space in HCI. In J. A. Jacko & A. Sears (Ed.), The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications, pp. 1051-1068. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Nielsen, J. (1993). Usability Engineering. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, Inc.
Norman, D. A. (1988, 2002). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.
Sharp, H., Rogers, Y. & Preece, J. (2007). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.