CPE/CSC 484-W09 User-Centered Interface Design and Development Syllabus

General Information

Instructor

Dr. Franz J. Kurfess, Cal Poly Computer Science Department (http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~fkurfess/)

Office Hours

Starting in Week 2, my office hours are tentatively scheduled for Tue/Thu 10:10-11:00 pm, and Wed 2:10-5:00 pm. My office is in building 14, room 218.

Class Times

Course Description

The Cal Poly Catalog 2005-07 describes the course as follows:

Introduction to the importance of user-centered principles in the design of good interfaces and effective human-computer interaction. Topics include: study of human characteristics affected by interface design, effective requirements data collection and analysis, user-centered approaches to software engineering, and evaluation of interface and interaction quality. 3 lectures, 1 laboratory.

Prerequisites: Junior standing and CSC/CPE 307 or CSC/CPE 308. Students should be familiar with basic Web design and programming. Experience in the usage of the following Web design tools and technologies is advantageous:

• Design tools such as Frontpage, Dreamweaver.
• Advanced markup languages based on XML.
• Web scripting and programming methods such as Javascript, CGI, PHP, ASP, JSP.

Goals and Objectives

The goal of this introductory course in user interface design and development is to raise awareness for the importance of user-centered principles to the design of good interfaces and effective human-computer interaction. In order to achieve this, human characteristics that are affected by interface design will be identified and discussed. The collection and analysis of effective human-centered data for interface and interaction requirements provides a firm foundation for the actual user-centered interface design and implementation, and the evaluation of an interface and its interaction quality.

Class Theme

The overall theme of the class will concentrate on the design and development of systems that do not rely on mouse and keyboard as critical input devices. Such systems include mobile devices such as touchscreen phones (e.g. Apple's iPhone, or Google's Android system), PDAs, or tablet PCs, but also conventional computer systems that are used without heavy reliance on mouse and keyboard. So, for example, a system that uses a speech recognition for input from the user would also fall into this category.

Overview of Topics

I am planning to cover the topics below. Some adjustments in the sequence and coverage may be made as the quarter progresses.

• Introduction
  • What are User-Centered Design (UCD) and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)?
  • Components of UCD and HCI
• Human Aspects of UCD and HCI
  • Cognitive Frameworks for HCI
  • Perception and Representation
  • Attention and Memory Constraints
• Interaction/Interface Design
  • Principles of User-Centered Design
  • Methods for User-Centered Design
    • User Analysis
    • Task Analysis
    • Environment Analysis
  • Guidelines: Principles and Rules
• Interaction/Interface Evaluation
  • The Role of Evaluation
  • Collection of Usage Data
  • Methods for Conducting Usability Studies
• Technology Aspects of UCD and HCI
  • Input and Output Devices and Methodologies
  • Interaction Styles

Textbooks

The following textbook will be used in this course. The course schedule identifies the chapters in the book that correspond to a topic discussed in class. Students are expected to read the respective chapters before the topic is covered in class.

• Interaction Design by Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, and Helen Sharp. 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons: New York, 2007. ISBN: 0470018666.

For further reading, here are some more textbook and reference book suggestions:

• The Resonant Interface: HCI Foundations for Interaction Design by Steven Heim; Addison-Wesley, 2007. ( link to Amazon)
• User Centered Web Site Design, by D.D. McCracken and R.J. Wolfe. Pearson Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004. ISBN: 013041161-2.
• The Web Wizard's guide to Web Design, J.G. Lengel, Addison-Wesley, 2002. ISBN: 0201745623.
• Human-Computer Interaction, Alan Dix, Janet E. Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale; 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0-13-046109-1.
• Things That Make Us Smart: defending human attributes in the age of the machine, D. Norman, Perseus Books, 1993.
• User-Centered System Design: new perspectives on human-computer interaction, D. Norman and S. Draper (eds.); Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986.
• The Psychology of Everyday Things, D. Norman; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1986. Re-issued in paperback as "The Design of Everyday Things" by Currency Books, 1990.
• Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer-Interaction, B. Shneiderman; Addison Wesley; 4th edition, 2004.
• From Computing Machinery to Interaction Design, T. Winograd. http://hci.stanford.edu/~winograd/acm97.html.

To search for these and other books, you can do a price comparison via http://isbn.nu/ and similar sites.

Course Work

The main work in this class consists of five assignments, and one project.

Assignments

All assignments can be done either as individual assignment, or in teams.

One assignment will be a presentation on the analysis of the usability and user-centered design aspects of a product or system.

The other assignments are designed to give you some practical experience in the use of tools, literature review, and techniques such as interface storyboarding and usability evaluation. The assignments are intended to provide an introduction to skills needed to design and evaluate good interfaces, which will lead to effective human-computer interaction. The requirements may include written reports and/or summaries to be posted on the class web site as well as oral presentation of results and relevant discussion in class.

Design Project

The design project will involve the design and development of a component or system, with the emphasis on user interaction and interface aspects. You will be expected to demonstrate good user-centered design principles, including extensive user analysis, requirements gathering and justifiable design decisions. The topic for the project can be selected by the team, subject to approval by the instructor. It should be within the course theme of systems that don't rely on keyboard or mouse as the main input devices. Several milestones will be evaluated both by the instructor and by your peers during class and lab presentations:

Class Presentations and Participation

This class will rely on interactive classroom activities, such as participation in group discussions, presentation of ideas and results (from textbook, class or assignments), leading discussions on selected readings, providing written summary materials (as web files via Blackboard), etc. Success in this class depends on regular attendance, preparation of assigned readings and homework exercises, as well as a level of professionalism in the class presentations. Peer evaluations may be included as part of the grade.

Policy on Late Work and Extensions

Much of the graded work in this class depends strongly on presentations and documentation material. Once a team or individual has committed to a date for the presentation, extensions or changes in the dates will only be permitted for documented medical or documented emergency reasons.

Grading Policy

The table gives an overview of the calculation of the grades. I reserve the right, however, to change the formula used.

The project and most of the assignments will be done in teams. My evaluation will consider the performance of the team as a whole unless there is a clear disparity in the contribution of the individual team members. Should this be the case, I may ask for additional documentation like work sheets, email messages, or draft copies of documentation to evaluate individual contributions.

For the team grades, feedback through peer evaluations will also be considered (although I will not use it directly in th calculation of the score).