Blair Nonnecke

Course Outline for CIS*6650 (F'08)
Human-Computer Interaction

Class time: Tuesday & Thursday 8:30-9:50 (Sept. 4 start)

Location: Mack 313

Overview

This course will expose students to a broad range of research methods and practices in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI) through readings, reviews of specific areas of HCI research and practice, and a usability evaluation.

Students are expected to have taken a previous graduate or undergraduate course in human-computer interaction and should have practical knowledge of usability, user-interface design, and the theoretical underpinning of HCI. Students without this background will need approval of the instructor and be prepared to make up for their lack of background with additional readings and work

Course Objectives

• Develop skills in finding, distilling, and understanding HCI literature.
• Broaden and gain a knowledge of HCI.
• Understand the relationship between practice and research.
• Gain skills in performing usability experiments/evaluations and writing papers/reports.
• Gain experience in publicly presenting findings.

Recommended Text Books:

• Interaction Design, Preece, Rogers and Sharp: former text for this course
• GUI Bloopers, by Jeff Johnson: packed with practical down to earth advice
• Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman: an amazing and informative rant
• Human-Computer Interaction, by Preece, Rogers, Sharp, Benyon, Holland and Carey: a largish reference on everything you ever wanted to know about HCI
• Usability Engineer, by Jakob Nielsen: a classic on usability that continues to be very worthwhile and will continue to be so
• User and Task Analyses for Interface Design, by Hackos and Redish: an authoritative text that covers just about every aspect of task analysis

Course Web Page

snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/courses/cis665f08/

Announcements

Students are responsible for regularly checking the announcements section of the Web page.
http://snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/courses/cis665f08/announcements.html

Marking Scheme (subject to change)

• Reviews of discussion papers and class participation (~30%)
• Usability method/concept investigation (~30%)
• ACM Contest (~40%)

Late Policy

Work submitted after the due date receives a grade of zero. If written documentation of extenuating circumstances is provided (e.g., doctor's certificate), then marking criteria or relative weighting may be adjusted.

Posting of Grades and Requests for Remarks

Requests for remarking of course work should be made to the course instructor. Any requests for remarks must be made within a week of marking. If a student requests a re-grade, the entire work will be remarked, and the new grade may be higher or lower than the original grade received.

Grades will be posted on the course Web site. It is a student's responsibility to verify that the posted grade corresponds to the grade actually received and notify the instructor of any error within one week of the posting.

Academic Misconduct

Please read and understand the University's regulations and procedures on academic misconduct. Faculty are provided with no leeway in this matter.