Term and Year of Offering: Spring 2012

Course Number and Title: CS449, Human Computer Interaction

Course Description:

• Rapid ethnography and contextual design techniques to identify a well-defined user group’s needs
• Rapid, user-centered design techniques, including low-fidelity, high-iteration prototyping practices (e.g., paper-based prototyping and Wizard-of-Oz studies)
• Evaluation methods for measuring how a design compares to existing methods of accomplishing a task.

Course Objectives:

• Conduct in-situ interviews and observations of end-users
• Analyze qualitative data to produce models of users and their work practices
• Use rapid prototyping practices to design novel computational artifacts, where the designs may be situated in traditional desktop computing contexts and/or off-the-desktop computing paradigms (e.g., mobile computing, wall-based displays, tabletop systems, etc.)
• Evaluate their designs using expert evaluation techniques (e.g., cognitive walkthroughs), experimental methods, and/or discount evaluation methods (e.g., heuristic evaluation, Wizard-of-Oz evaluation)
• Describe current trends in HCI research

Course Overview:

1. Introduction to, and history of, HCI
Hours: 3
Goals:

• Ability to identify the primary luminaries relevant to HCI, as well as their visions (e.g., Vannevar Bush and his Memex; Ivan Sutherland and the Sketchpad; Douglas Engelbart and his system for augmenting human intelligence)
• Articulate the primary concerns of HCI practitioners: Understanding users and their needs within a sociocultural context; design; prototyping; and evaluation
  

2. Data gathering
Hours: 6
Goals:

• Describe the human rights and ethics issues in doing work with human subjects; know how to obtain informed consent; know when institutional approval is needed for human subjects research
• Articulate the strengths and weaknesses of both quantitative and qualitative methods of describing humans and human activity
• Ability to plan and conduct semi-structured interviews using common practices of qualitative researchers
• Ability to plan and conduct in-situ observations

3. Data analysis
Hours: 6
Goals:

• Ability to convert data collected from field studies into one or more of Contextual Design’s five models (flow, sequence, artifact, cultural, physical)
• Ability to develop and apply coding schemes to qualitative data
• Ability to extract, and articulate, design requirements from collected data

4. Design and prototyping
Hours: 9
Goals:

• Ability to differentiate between interaction design, interface design, and interface element design
• Ability to create both horizontal and vertical designs
• Ability to create low-fidelity, interactive prototypes using techniques such as paper-prototyping, storyboarding, role-playing, and video prototyping
• Ability to hold and participate in design critiques

5. Evaluation
Hours: 6
Goals:

• Describe the differences, relative merits of quantitative vs. qualitative, naturalistic vs. experimental evaluations
• Ability to form and execute an evaluation plan, identifying specific measures and goals of the evaluation
• Ability to apply discount usability evaluations to interface designs and prototypes, functioning applications, including Wizard-of-Oz prototyping and heuristic evaluation
• Articulate elements of good experimental design
  

6. Topics in HCI research
Hours: 6
Goals:

• Ability to identify major movements in HCI research, and their motivations, philosophies, and goals
• Articulate the current state of an area well enough to know what has been tried, what has been successful, what hasn’t, and why. For example: Speech interfaces, their limitations and successes

Required text:

Evaluation:

Late policy:

Rules for Group Work:

Indication of how late submission of assignments and missed assignments will be treated

Indication of where students are to submit assignments and pick up marked assignments

Grievance: A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70, Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy70.htm. When in doubt please be certain to contact the department's administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.

Discipline: A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity [check www.uwaterloo.ca/academicintegrity/] to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about 'rules' for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate Associate Dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy71.htm. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties, www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/guidelines/penaltyguidelines.htm.

Appeals: A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 (Student Petitions and Grievances) (other than a petition) or Policy 71 (Student Discipline) may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 (Student Appeals) www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy72.htm.

Note for Students with Disabilities: The Office for persons with Disabilities (OPD), located in Needles Hall, Room 1132, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the OPD at the beginning of each academic term.