Students Should Gain These Skills by the End of the Course

CSCE5270: Computer Human Interfaces

Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Stephanie Ludi,
Stephanie Ludi’s Office: NTDP F251
Office Hours: T,Th 1-2 & By Appointment

Overview: The topics covered in this course include user observation, participatory design, prototyping, iterative app design, and formal and informal usability testing for mobile systems.

Students should gain these skills by the end of the course:

1. Elicit requirements and develop a prototype for a mobile system’s user interface.

2. Use participatory design techniques to gather user feedback throughout the design process.

3. Use contemporary techniques and theories to design the workflow and user experience.

4. Design and conduct formal and informal user testing,

5. Analyze usability test data and report on the findings in written and oral form.

Textbook:

Banga, Cameron & Weinhold, Josh. Essential Mobile Interaction Design: Perfecting Interface Design in Mobile Apps (2014) Addison-Wesley

ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0321961570 or ISBN-10: 0321961579

Albert, William & Tullis, Thomas. Measuring the User Experience, 2nd edition Addison-Wesley

ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-0124157811 or ISBN-10: 0124157815

Interdisciplinary Interaction Design: A Visual Guide to Basic Theories, Models and Ideas for Thinking and Designing for Interactive Web Design and Digital Device Experiences; By James Pannafino

Assiduous Publishing

ISBN-10: 0982634811

ISBN-13: 978-0982634813

Research Papers

Prerequisites: Graduate standing or consent of instructor

Course grading

Late assignments are accepted at the rate of -20% credit for each day late unless accompanied by a university approved medical excuse. No make-up quizzes will be given if you are more than 10 minutes late to class.

Cheating will result in failure in the course. Please reference the UNT academic integrity policy for more information on cheating. We emphasize that individual work such as homework assignments and pop quizzes must be done on your own and that cheating will result in failure of the course. Do not discuss solutions or share copies of individual work.

The grading breakdown of the final course grade is as follows:

Pop Quizzes and Activities (lowest 1 dropped) / 30
Group Project (Grades scaled by peer evaluations of individual performance) / 40
Research Project / 30
Total / 100%

The following scale will be used to translate to letter grades:

A >= 90%

B >= 80%

C >= 70%,

D >= 60%,

F < 60%

A picture ID is required by all students taking pop quizzes. No make-up assignments or quizzes will be given, except in the case that a student has a university approved medical excuse.

Group project grades will be scaled for individual team members based on peer evaluations, so be sure to always speak up to volunteer and help your team as much as possible. It is not an acceptable excuse to say that your team did not give you enough work because I expect you to speak up and volunteer if you are not contributing your fair share! If you have a problem that you are not able to work out with your team, please contact me to mediate prior to project submission (and as early as possible).

Late policy: 20% of the grade for an assignment will be subtracted from your score for every day that it is late. Missed quizzes cannot be made up unless you have a university approved medical excuse.

Attendance: Attendance and class participation are strongly encouraged so plan to attend regularly. Students are responsible for any material and announcements covered in class.

Grading Questions: If you believe that there is a mistake in the grading on one of your assignments, quizzes, or projects, you must bring these inquiries to the professor within one week of when the graded work is returned in class BUT after 24 hours of when it was handed back. After this grace period, it is too late with the EXCEPTION of an arithmetic error in adding up the score.

Announcements: Please check Blackboard for any announcements before you go to class in case there is a cancelled class or reminder that you should be aware of.

Email Policy: During the week I can usually respond to emails with in a couple of hours (assuming they are sent during the day). During the weekend, I can respond to emails within 24 hours of receiving them.

Office Hours: If you can’t make my office hours in person, I can usually communicate with your via phone, Skype or Google Hangout – so if you have a question but can’t come to campus you do have options!

Disabilities: I am happy to make accommodations to students that have documentation of their needs from the UNT Disability Services. I encourage you to talk to me early in the term.

Project

Your project will be the design and testing of a mobile app for a platform of your choosing (you provide the hardware). It can be for a tablet or phone. You will work in a small team to identify and develop the app over several weeks, where there are several artifacts that are due for the project including.

You and your team will propose 3 projects where there is consensus. The project needs to be complex enough for your team to work on for most of the term. After you propose your list of THREE projects (in no particular order of preference), the instructor will select from that list. There may be some guidance on the project if the instructor foresees issues or challenges.

In addition, the following criteria must be satisfied.

THE PROJECT CAN:

·  Be done in a language of your choosing (other than just CSS/HTML).

·  Be web-based, hybrid or a native app (but you supply your own hardware).

THE PROJECT MUST:

·  Have appropriate scope for the size of your team over the term.

·  Have a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

·  Have some portion that is used by a person.

·  Have at least three potential users that you can communicate to gather ideas for features and feedback from.

THE PROJECT MUST NOT:

·  Be trivial.

·  Be static web pages or screens.

·  Be a game.

·  Harm the security or privacy of users/bystanders.

·  Be used by minors (as the primary users).

Project deliverables include:

1.  Set of 3 app ideas

2.  A brief requirements document that outlines the features of the app

3.  A design document, including a prototype of the user interface

4.  The app itself

5.  Usability testing documents

6.  Test data collection and analysis

Research Project

With a partner, each student will conduct a small research project related to the course. A list of topics will be provided to help in topic identification, though other topics can be proposed (approval needed to pursue such a topic). A topic and partner sign up sheet on BlackBoard (in the Forums) will help students see who is working on what topic in order to avoid duplication. You are expected to use quality, peer reviewed sources in your work and to conduct your work ethically using appropriate techniques.

1.  Problem Statement

2.  Literature Review

3.  Project Data

4.  Report to be 6-8 pages in ACM format (see ACM for their conference template). The report sections are to be: Introduction, Related Work, Design (depending on the topic), Methodology, Results, Conclusions and Future Work

Course Schedule

Week # / Date / Topics / Readings / Due
1 / 1/17 / Intro to the Class, Overview of HCI / Ch. 2 (Banga) / Team Member List Due Saturday at 11:59pm
1/19 / User-Centered Design and involving the user
2 / 1/24 / Workflow / Ch. 3 (Banga) / List of 3 ideas Due Saturday at 11:59pm
1/26 / Workflow continued
3 / 1/31 / Prototyping / Ch. 4 (Banga)
2/2 / continued
4 / 2/7 / Brainstorming and Getting Feedback from the Users / Project Feature Document + Repo url due Saturday at 11:59pm
2/9 / Visual Design
5 / 2/14 / Research Topics Overview / Ch. 5 (Banga)
2/16 / Designing the Workflow
6 / 2/21 / Design as Simplicity, Environment, and Context / Ch. 9 (Banga) / Prototype due Saturday 11:59pm
2/23
7 / 2/28 / Prototyping Revisited / Research Topic and Question due Saturday 11:59pm
3/2 / Peer Feedback
8 / 3/7 / Project Time – Check in
3/9 / Project Time – Check in
3/13-3/17 / SPRING BREAK
9 / 3/21 / Usability Testing Overview / Ch. 10 (Banga) / Test Plan due Saturday 11:59pm
3/23 / Collecting Data; Research Design
10 / 3/28 / Heuristic Evaluation Planning and Activity / Heuristic Eval Due Saturday 11:59pm; Literature Review Draft Due Saturday 11:59pm
3/30
11 / 4/4 / Test Planning / Ch. 3 (Albert)
4/6 / Continued
12 / 4/11 / Research Check In / Ch. 4-6 (Albert) – read over but will use for reference
4/13 / Data Analysis
13 / 4/18 / Project Check in / Data Spot Check (in class on 4/20)
4/20 / Data Checking (from testing – app and research)
14 / 4/25 / Research Check in
4/27 / Project Check-in
15 / 5/2 / Project Presentations / Project Presentations
5/4
Finals / Final Demos + Research Reports due

I reserve the right to adjust the course schedule as needed.

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