Instructor

Class Schedule and Location

Tuesday and Thursday at 2:00-3:15 pm in Rekhi G05.

Perquisite

You will not be required to program, but you will need experience working with a team.

CS5760 Course Goals

The course goals are knowledge of User Experience (UX), proficiency in user interface evaluation, and advance knowledge of a specific topic in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).

Learning Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to do the following:

• evaluate a system to meet the clients needs within realistic constraints.
• perform usability analysis and evaluation.
• communicate analytical results to a broad audience.
• function on a multidisciplinary team.
• conduct a literature search on a specific topic in HCI and write a paper on the topic.
• communicate advance concepts in HCI to a broad audience.

Referenced Textbooks

I used these text books to prepare the class notes:

• Human-Computer Interaction, Dix et. al.,  Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-12-239864-8
• The Humane Interface, Raskin, Addison Wesley,  ISBN 0-201-37937-6
• Usability Engineering, Rosson and Carrol, Morgan Kaufmann, ISBN 1-55860-712-9
• Designing the User Interface, Shneiderman, Addison Wesley Longman, ISBN 0-201-69497-2
• Interaction Design, Preece, Robers, and Sharp, Wiley, ISBN 0-471-49278-7
• The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, Card, Moran and Newell, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Publishers, 1983
• User-Centered Website Development, McCracken and Wolfe, Printice Hall, ISBN 0-13-0411611-2
• Usability Testing and Research, Barnum, Longman Publishers, ISBN 0-205-31519-4
• Volume 1: Xlib programming manual by Adrian Nye, 3rd edition, June 1992. O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.
• Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Graphics Press, ISBN 0-9613921-0-X
• Edward R. Tufte, Visual Explanatins, Graphics Press, ISBN 0-9613921-2-6
• Universal Principles of Design, William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Bulter, Rockport  Publishers Inc., ISBN 1-59253-007-6
• The Resonant Interface, Steven Heim, Addison Wesley, ISBN 0-321-37596-3
• Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton, Focal Press, ISBN 0-12-374037-1
• Software For Use, Larry Constantien and Lucy Lockwood, Addison Wesley, ISBN o-201-92478-1
• Research Methods in Human-Computer Interaction, Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng and Harry Hochheiser, Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-72337-1

Approximate Schedule of Major Work

Projects

The course has two major projects, HCI topic study and UI evaluations.  The HCI topic study is preformed during the first half of the semester. It consists of proposing a topic, studying the literature, writing a paper and a presentation. You may choose your own topic.

The UI evaluation project is a semester long project. You also assist the undergraduate projects by making formal evaluations of their design and at the end of the semester you will design, conduct and analyze a usability test on one of the undergraduate projects.

Surveys

There are several surveys at course end. The surveys are used to evaluate the course and collaboration with the undergraduate team. The surveys are required.

Class Participation

You must be present for the all undergraduate project presentations; absolutely no excuses.  You must also come to assigned scheduled class hours so that you can collaborate with graduate students and discuss topics. Class attendance will be recorded using Zoom’s usage report, so you should use your MTU account to attend the Zoom meeting. You are allowed 2 unexcused attendances at scheduled class hours. More than 2 unexcused attendance will result in grade reduction.

Communications

In this course you will interact with a team working on a project project. The project involves many stakeholders, consequently proper communications is essential. Communication media are

• Emails – Be sure that you have access to the course email list. Also learn the email-list of the team assigned to you. Use the email to communicate with team.
• Interviews and meetings – You will have meetings and interviews with your scientists/client, undergraduate/development team, and me/instructor.
• Discord – I will assign to your undergraduate team discord channels. The channel is used for their internal communications. If you and your team wish for to participate in Discord, let me know.
• Websites – You will create a UX consultant website and your undergraduate/development team will make a website. The websites are another medium for communication between your team and scientist. Be sure to tell your scientist/client about your consultant website.
• Presentations – You will make several presentations. You must attend all presentations.
• Repository – I will assign your undergraduate/development team a GitHub repository. The repository is another medium for your team to communicate their code. If you and your team want that you should have access to the repository, let me know.

Effective communication has several aspects:

• Sincerity – Miss leading or dishonest communication is not effective communication.
• Respect – Respectful communication is respect for others. If your audience does feel respected, they will not listen. Consequently, disrespectful vocalization is disruptive to the proper content of your message. Respectful communication is also giving others time to speak.
• Listening – Communication is two way. You need to listen more than you speaking.

Improper communication will result in a grade reduction.

Assignments

Due Date and Time

Another category for assignments are “paper” and “presentation” (or “presentation like”) assignments. Canvas does not offer a convenient method for scheduling presentation due dates and times, so I have adopted a technique for scheduling “paper” and “presentation” assignments in Canvas.

I schedule “presentation” due dates either on the Monday at 11:59 pm for the week of presentation, or for short presentations the day before the class at 11:59 pm. Naturally, the actual due date and time for your presentations are the scheduled times for your presentations or in the case of short presentations when I call you. The due dates and times is NOT the day before at 11:59 pm.

“Paper” assignments are scheduled either Tuesday or Thursday at 3:30 pm, the end of class. I am little lenient with paper assignment due dates. You need not worry about the assignment marked down for being late if I have not graded the assignment. Generally, I will not grade the assignment at 3:30 pm on the due date. The assignments generally are graded the following evening. So, please do not email me for an extension to the assignment.

In summary, my convention is if the assignment has a due time for “3:30 pm” in Canvas then the assignment is due at the end of the day. If the assignment has due time for “11:59 pm” in Canvas then the actual due time is the scheduled time for your presentation.

late Assignments

All assignments are required. If you cannot complete any assignment on time you still must submit it, but I will not give you feedback on the assignment. Sometimes I miss an assignment submission, so if have not given you timely feedback on your assignment, please email me a reminder with the subject line “cs5760 – Missing feedback” and the body of the email explain what assignment is missing and when you submitted it.

Canvas Grading

In Canvas, all the assignments have points for grades. I do NOT sum all the points for all your assignments to determine your final grade. Rather I review the progress that you and your team has made and use the points for individual assignments as notes to myself on your performance at that time. More important than the points on an individual assignment is to read the feedback that give you in the rubric for the assignment.

Assessment

Your grade will be determined by your performance on:

• HCI topic project
• UI Evaluation
• Course participation
• Survey completion

Course participation includes working with your undergraduate team, other teams, and participating in discussions.

You must satisfactorily perform on all aspects of the course to pass the course

Late assignments are not reviewed and do not receive credit.

This is a project based course, so I will not give you percentage breakdown of the grading.

Academic Integrity

Graduate students work with teams and may discuss any aspect of the project with their team and other graduate students, but writing the assignments or reports for the team is to be an individual effort.

Disabilities

Please let me know if you have a disability that requires special arrangements.

References to University Policies

University policies on Academic Integrity, Assessment, Disabilities Services, Institutional Equity and Inclusions, Veteran/Military, and Equal Opportunity, Discrimination, or Harassment Statement can be found at:

http://www.mtu.edu/ctl/instructional-resources/syllabus/policies.html