L542: Human Computer Interaction, Fall 2003

L542: Human Computer Interaction (Fall 2003)

Course Description | Grade | Course Outline | Resources

Instructor: Katy Börner | Email: katy@indiana.edu | Office: Main Library 019 | Phone: 855-3256
Assistant Instructor: Chris Friend | Email: cmfriend@indiana.edu

Lecture: Thur 5:45p-7:00p LI001, 7:15p-8:30p, LI002
Office hours: Tue 4-5p, LI 019 (Katy), Mon 10-11am, LI020 (Chris)

Majordomo List: katy_L542@indiana.edu
Class Webpage: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/L542
Project Handin Webpage: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/handin/L542-F03/cgi/handinlogin.cgi

Textbook:
Human-Computer Interaction
by Alan J. Dix (Editor), Janet E. Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russel Beale (Contributor),
2nd edition (January 12, 1998), Prentice Hall; ISBN: 0132398648.

Additional Reading (on reserve in the SLIS Library)
Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., and Greenberg, S. (1995) Readings in Human-Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, California.
Caroll, J. M. (2002) Human Computer Interaction in the New Millennium. Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts.
Dertouzos, M. L. (January 9, 2001) The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us, Harperbusiness, 1st edition.
Dodsworth, C. (ed) (1997) Digital Illusion: Entertaining the Future with High Technology, Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts.
Jacko J. A. and Sears, A. (2003) The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Laurel, B. (ed) (1995) The Art of Human-Compter Interface Design, Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusetts.
Norman, D. (1998) Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex and Information Applicances Are the Solution, MIT Press.
Jordan, P. W. & Jordan, P. (2000) Designing Pleasurable Products: An Introduction to the New Human Factors. Taylor & Francis.
Preece, J., Rogers, Y. & Sharp, H. (Eds) (2000) Interaction Design: Beyond Human Computer Interaction. John Wiley & Sons.
Rubin, J. (1994) Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. John Wiley & Sons.

Course Description

Human-Computer Interaction, or HCI, tries to extend our understanding of what it means to interact with computers and how to use this knowledge to improve the design and evaluation of products. This course will examine human performance, aspects of technology, methods, techniques, and evaluation of interface design, as well as societal impact.
Students will be expected to do weekly readings, provide a presentation on specific readings, and participate in discussion. Extensive use will be made of web design tools to build a number of user interfaces. Students will conduct formal software evaluations and usability tests and present the results to the class. The course will be of particular interest for students interested in the development and testing of effective and efficient computer interfaces.

Upon taking this course, students should have a general understanding of

Main concepts in human-computer interaction, both past and present.
Basic cognitive psychology issues relevant to HCI.
Capabilities and limitations of todays input and output devices.
How to conduct a user and task analysis.
How to design web interfaces based on basic principles of human psychology and interface design.
Interface evaluation issues.
The software developer's professional and ethical responsibilites to software users and society as a whole.

Grade

The final grade will be based on class participation (20%), presentation of selected readings (10%), projects (30%), and a final project including its documentation (40%). Homework will not be accepted late unless previous arrangements have been made with the instructor at least two days in advance.
Grades are assigned according to the grading standards of SLIS.

Plagiarism: Clearly indicate if you use materials from other sources. Academic and personal misconduct by students in this class are dealt with according to the Student Disciplinary Procedures.

Participation:
Students will be expected to study the assigned readings before each class and to participate in class, via the class majordomo list and handin web pages by asking and answering questions and participating in quizzes. Readings are assigned for study in preparation for class discussion. Thus, class 3 readings should be completed before attending the third class.

Presentation of Selected Readings:
During the course each member of the class will make at least one 15 min presentation. Each presentation will address a specific topic/question and will be based on readings from the literature or internet. Sources will be provided. If you can find more that's great. See Preparation of Presentations for more details.

Projects:
There will be three lab projects. Except for the first project, you can work on them in teams of up to five. Submit links to resulting webpages via mail to katy@indiana.edu.

Final Project:
The final project primarily tests your knowledge of the material presented in class and the assigned readings. The focus of the final project is relatively open but must involve the design of a publicly accessible website and a written report that explains the motivation of the project, the user and task analysis, the design decisions made, and the conducted usability tests. Each project has to be presented during the last class. You can work in teams of up to five.

Late Handin Policy
Late project submissions or incompletes are allowed only because of an unforeseen emergency that is preceded by diligent work, not for a pattern of weak performance. No individual student will be allowed to do extra work to raise the final grade or to make up missing work. All grades become final one week after the material is returned to you. No claims, however justifiable, will be considered after this deadline. If there is a medical or personal reason requiring you to miss an exam, you must present your excuse in advance and in writing, and we require some physical proof.

Course work handed in

Within the first 10 min past 8 pm will receive at most 90% of the possible points.

Between 8.10 pm to 9 pm receive at most 50% of the possible points.

Past 9 pm receive Z.

Make sure you handin in time and your handin is accessible and readable!

Credits: 3 for L542

Course Outline

Class 1 (09-04-2003)
Lecture: Introduction to HCI / Components of HCI Readings: Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design" & "Top Ten Mistakes" Revisited" & Ten Good Deeds in Web Design
Lab: Let's publish a webpage. Please read Ftp and telnet to 'ella' account by Alan Lin & study Resources about Web Design by Carol L. Smith & Mark Dial.
Project 1 (1week): Publish a Personal Home Page
Contrary to all subsequent projects you will be able and you should modify and update this webpage during the course of this class.
Please consult the Guidelines for Cross-Browser Web Design by Keith Hendee & Jiah Kim and Web Design & HCI by Min Xiao & Akshay Sharma
Due Tuesday 09-09-2003 at 10pm.

Class 2: (09-11-2003)
Lecture: Evolution of HCI Readings: Equal access webpage by Anne Schulte & Thomas Fowler.
Presentations: Richard W. Pew (2002) Evolution of Human-Computer Interaction: From Memex to Bluetooth and Beyond. In [Jacko & Sears] (...)
Lab: Web Design Tools: Fireworks. Read Handout on JavaScript Rollovers by Alan Lin.

Project 2 (2 weeks): HCI Related Theories and Laws
This exercise is intended to encourage personal research in HCI in the form of a web/literature survey as well as to improve your web page design skills.
Due Tuesday 09-23-2003 at 10pm.

Class 3: (09-18-2003)
Lecture: Perception & Representation, Attention & Memory Constraints Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], sections 1.1-1.3. & The Human Eye by H. Kolb, E. Fernandez, and R. Nelson & Visual Physiology Tutorial by George Mather
Presentation: Romeo Chua, Daniel J. Weeks & David Goodman (2003) Perceptual-Motor Interaction: Some Implications for Human Computer Interaction. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Mieko Furuhashi)
Lab: Read Handout on Animations by Alan Lin. Introduction to JavaScript.
Class 4: (9-25-2003)
Lecture: Knowledge Representation, Reasoning & Problem Solving Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], sections 1.4-1.7., [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 7, Optical illusions. Joy of Visual Perception by Pete Kaiser & Motion Perception Tutorial by George Mather
Presentation: Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, pp. 81-97. (Jessica Gerdes)
Gerrit C. van der Veer and Maria del Carmen Puerta Melguizo (2003) Mental Models. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (...)
Lab: User and Task Analysis

Project 3 (3 weeks): User and Task Analysis, Interface Sketches & Scenarios
Due Tuesday 10-14-2003 at 10pm.

Class 5: (10-02-2003)
Lecture: Input & Output Devices Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 2 & sections 15.1-15.7., Haptics Community Web Page
Presentation: Hiroo Iwata (2003) Haptic Interfaces. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Elijah Wright)
Lab: We are going to attend the talk by Mary Czerwinski on Large Display User Interface Design at Microsoft Research, in the School of Informatics, 901 East Tenth St., Room I 107, 7-8:30pm.
Class 6: (10-09-2003)
Lecture: Processing Limitations Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 2.6-2.8, Techniques for Creative Thinking
Presentation: Robert W. Proctor and Kim-Phuong L. Vu (2003) Human Information Processing: An Overview For Human-Computer Interaction. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Abubakar Tidal)
Shneiderman, B. (2000) Creating creativity: User interfaces for supporting innovation. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Vol 7, Issue 1, pp. 114-138. (Sangsook Bae)

Class 7: (10-16-2003)
Lecture: Interaction Frameworks & Interaction Styles
Presentation: Janice Redish and Dennis Wixon (2003) Task Analysis. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Kelsey Rinella)
Lab: Final Project Overview & Introduction to JavaScript
Final Project (7 weeks): Approaching the Real World
Due Tuesday 12-02-2003 at 10pm.

Class 8: (10-23-2003)
Lecture & Lab: Direct Manipulation Interfaces & Agent-Based Interfaces Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 3 & 4. Shneiderman, B. and Maes, P. (1997) Direct manipulation vs. interface agents, Interactions, Volume 4, Issue 6, pp. 42-61.
Presentations: Ahlberg, Ch. and Shneiderman, B. (1994) Visual Information Seeking: Tight Coupling of Dynamic Query Filters with Starfield Displays, Conference Proceedings on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 313 - 317. (....)
Maes, P., Guttman, R.H., and G. M. Alexandros (1999) Agents that buy and sell. Communications of the ACM 42, 3 (Mar. 1999), pp. 81-92. (Joseph Tucker)
Justine Cassell (2000) Embodied conversational interface agents+. Communications of the ACM 43, 4 (Apr. 2000), pp. 70 - 78. (Ryan Lauer)
Lab: Presentations & discussion of your ideas for the final project.

Class 9: (10-30-2003)
Lecture: Usability Heuristics & Evaluation Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 11 and Evaluating Quality on the Net
Presentations: Frøkjær, E., Hertzum, M., and Hornbæk, K. (2000) Measuring usability: Are effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction really correlated? Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 345- 352. (Cristina Lucas)
Lab: Usability Lab Tour with Maggie Swan & Communication Research Lab tour in Telecom RTV building, room 326 by Seungwhan Lee
Write a paragraph about benefits and problems of using video in experimentation and handin by 11-05-2003 as Quiz 1.
Oct 31, 2003 CAVE Tour, Lindley Hall 135.

Class 10: (11-06-2003) No class. Katy is attending/presenting at Digital Biology: The Emerging Paradigm, NIH, BISTIC, Bethesda, MD.
Please study Conducting Usability Studies.

Class 11: (11-13-2003) [Quiz 2: T-Test. See slide 30 in class 11 ppt. Handin by 11-19-2003.]
Lecture: Usability Studies Readings: Cost of User Testing a Website, [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 6 and Questionnaires in Usability Engineering, Fogg, B.J., Marshall, J., Laraki, O., Osipovich, A., Varma, Ch., Fang, N., Paul, J., Rangnekar, A., Shon, J., Swani, P. and Treinen, M. (2001) What makes Web sites credible? A report on a large quantitative study. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. pp. 61 - 68.
Presentations: Chi, Ed H., Pirolli, P., Chen, K. and Pitkow, J. (2001) Using information scent to model user information needs and actions and the Web. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. pp. 490 - 497. (Jocelyn Lewis)
Rekimoto, J., Ullmer, B, and Haruo Oba, H. (2001) DataTiles: A modular platform for mixed physical and graphical interactions. Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 269 - 276. (Li Fu)
Lab: Template for a Site Visit Plan

Class 12: (11-20-2003) [Quiz 3 List five features of sociable interfaces. See slide 5 in class 12 ppt. Handin by 12-03-2003.]
Lecture: Group Work, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 13 & 14. Dieberger, A., Dourish, P., Höök, K., Resnick, P. and Wexelblat, A. (2000) Social navigation: Techniques for building more usable systems. Interactions 7, 6 (Nov. 2000), pp. 36 - 45.
Presentations: Gary M. Olson and Judith S. Olson (2003) Groupware and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Stephanie Randolph)
Scott Brave and Clifford Nass (2003) Emotion in Human-Computer Interaction. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (...)
Lab: Designing & Evaluating Groupware Interfaces. Usability Study in Active Worlds. UbiTable demo in Informatics.
Class 13: (11-27-2003) Thanksgiving!

Class 14: (12-04-2003) [Quiz 4 Explain the design and functionality of a wearable computing device that you
would like to use in your daily work/leisure time.]
Lecture: Visions of the Future & Social Implications Readings: [Dix et. al, 1998], chapter 13 - 15, Wearable Computing & Affective Computing.
Presentation: Jenny Preece and Diane Maloney-Krichmar (2003) Online Communities: Focusing On Sociability and Usability. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Nicole Evans)
Justine Cassell (2003) Genderizing Human-Computer Interaction. In [Jacko & Sears, 2003] (Dorrie Hutchison)

Class 15: (12-11-2003)
Group Presentations of the Final Projects