On-line materials: To supplement the somewhat dated text book,
there will be additional material made available through the class
web site:
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/~shipman/courses/cpsc436/home.html
This material will include useful pointers and references for your
projects and homeworks. Questions about the on-line materials will be
included on the exams.
Exam I 15% Exam II 15% Final 15% Team project 20% Short assignments 25% Class participation 10%
Homework late policy:
10% is deducted from your grade for every
school day late up to a maximum of one week after the original due
date.
Programming for projects:
done in language and operating system of your choice on
machines to which you have access.
Class participation:
Most class periods will include a
discussion of two chapters from the textbook. Each student will sign
up to present a brief (10 minute) overview of the material for one
chapter in the book. This will be followed by class discussion of the
materials in the textbook and those provided on-line. All students
are expected to have done the readings and be able to participate in
discussions. Lectures and discussions will include material not in
the book that will be covered by the exams.
Projects:
Students will form three-person teams and define
a semester project. There will be two preliminary progress reports for
the projects emphasizing particular phases of the interface design
process:
(1) identifying a topic, determining cognitive and social issues, and
determining an approach,
(2) creating an initial system design, and instantiating the design in
a prototype implementation.
The final project report will also require the design of an evaluation
procedure for refining the resulting interface. The in-class
presentations of project progress will be 5-6 minutes long and the
final presentation on the project will be 15 minutes long and include
all members of the team.
Individual Assignment Topics:
During the course of the semester there will be a number of
assignments that will involve considering the design of a particular
class of computer interface. Below is a list of applications that
may be helpful when coming up with a topic.
Example topics: word processor, spreadsheet, Internet browser, operating / file system, tax preparation software, drawing program, image processing software, inventory software, retail checkout software, presentation software, encyclopedia, dictionary / thesaurus, first-person action game, strategy game, ATM software, VCR software, videoconferencing software, meeting room whiteboard software, visual programming environment, math tutoring software, medical information software, air traffic control software, home design software, legal advice software, electronic textbook, music composition software, video editing software, home-control software, grocery shopping system, airline reservations system, foreign language translator, project management software, system debugging software, scanning / OCR software, real estate / rental location tool, electronic mail reader, computer chat system, peronalized newspaper, computerized roadmap, idea generation tool, visualization software, real-time shared editor, calendar / meeting scheduling system, algorithm visualization tool, software debugging tool, WWW visualization tool
Aug. 29 Introduction to class, overview Aug. 31 Components of HCI, cognitive science Chapter 1-2 Sept. 5 Frameworks, perception & representation Chapter 3-4 Sept. 7 Attention, memory, & knowledge Chapter 5-6 Sept. 12 Mars Medical Assistant (guest lecture) Sept. 14 Text and Interfaces (guest lecture) Sept. 19 Project progress reports (topic, cognitive issues, approach) Sept. 21 Metaphors, models, and learning Chapter 7-8 Sept. 26 Social and organizational aspects Chapter 9-10 Sept. 28 Input and output devices Chapter 11-12 Oct. 3 Exam I (over chapters 1-10 & paths & lectures) Oct. 5 Interaction styles, windowing systems Chapter 13-14 Oct. 10 User support, CSCW, virtual environments Chapter 15-16 Oct. 12 User-centered design Chapter 17-18 Oct. 17 Requirements gathering & task analysis Chapter 19-20 Oct. 19 Structured and unstructured design Chapter 21-22 Oct. 24 Design support and guidelines Chapter 23-24 Oct. 26 Project progress reports (design, prototyping) Oct. 31 Standards, metrics, design rationale Chapter 25-26 Nov. 2 Prototyping, software support for design Chapter 27-28 Nov. 7 Exam II (chapters 11-22 & paths & lectures) Nov. 9 Evaluation, collecting data Chapter 29-30 Nov. 14 Experiments, interpretive evaluation Chapter 31-32 Nov. 16 Predictive evaluation, comparison of methods Chapter 33-34 Nov. 21 Special topics Nov. 28 Project Presentations Nov. 30 Project Presentations Dec. 5 Study day Dec. 8 Final Exam (3-5 pm)