CS 861 Human Factors and Usability Metrics
Spring 2009
| Instructor: |
Dr. Richard
Kline |
| Office: |
163 William
St. Room 234 |
| E-mail: |
rkline@pace.edu |
| Phone: |
212-346-1849;
for fastest response, send email instead of voicemail |
| Office
hours: |
Tue 2 - 5 pm; Wed/Thu 2 - 3:30 pm; or online |
Course Overview
This course surveys methods for evaluating user interfaces. Students
will perform a heuristic evaluation, a cognitive walkthrough, a
usability test and a comparison study. Class meetings will also
introduce, discuss and occasionally practice additional techniques
including user modeling, usage logging, surveys, and focus groups. A
primary goal is to learn how to conduct various methods for evaluating
user interfaces.
We will discuss principles which can be applied to improving how people
interact with all kinds of systems which incorporate computers, such as:
desktop computers the web, handheld
devices, and nontraditional systems such as the NYC
subway system. Throughout the semester,
the emphasis will be on learning through watching and doing,
rather than on formal lectures.
Textbooks
Task-Centered
User Interface Design, by Clayton Lewis and John Rieman. It is
published as a "shareware book." The authors suggest a donation of
$5.00 "if you find the book useful and if you can afford it." It is
up to you if you wish to send them a check. The book is available at
http://www.hcibib.org/tcuid.
Paper Prototyping,
by Carolyn Snyder, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. The book is also
available for reading online through the Books24x7 service, available
to you for free through the Pace Library. The book has a companion web site at http://paperprototyping.com.
Prerequisite reading:
Design of Everyday
Things
, Donald Norman
Basic Books: ISBN 978-0465067107
OR Currency/Doubleday: ISBN 0385267746
OR the hardbound edition, titled Psychology
of Everyday Things
OR available for reading free online at Books24x7 (through the Pace Library)
Class Structure
You will participate in several different
types of activities as part of this course. We will spend very little
time
in traditional lectures. You are expected to come to class prepared and
ready to actively participate in all exercises and discussions.
Do your assigned reading, and bring completed work to class when
appropriate.
DESIGN EXERCISES
The majority of our class meeting time and our efforts for this course
will be spent in a series of design exercises. These will
provide us with a means for exploring important
issues
in interface and usability design in an interactive (human-human as
well as human-computer) setting. These exercises will extend over
more than a single session. They will usually be conducted in small teams.
At the end of each exercise, the teams will give brief presentations
of their work, to be followed within a week by a written
report from each team which describes and illustrates their work and
lessons learned.
RESEARCH PRESENTATION
Much of the groundbreaking
work in the field of HCI has not yet made it into any textbooks.
During the second part of the term you will investigate
some aspect of usability by reading papers presented during
the past few years at major scientific conferences organized by the Association
for
Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics
Engineers (IEEE). The specific selections will be determined in
accordance
with your personal interests, in consultation with me, and will be
drawn
from the following sources, all of which are available through the Pace
Library web site:
- ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and
Technology (UIST)
- ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems (CHI)
- ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
- ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)
- ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies
(ASSETS)
After carefully and thoroughly digesting your readings, you will
present
and evaluate what you've learned to the class. Your talk should be
timed
to last approximately 30 minutes, which will be interrupted with and
followed
by discussion among the whole class.
Your mission will be not only to distill the important results
from your papers, but also to critique the work for positive and
negative
qualities, as may be appropriate, to seed the discussion. For your
talk,
you should use PowerPoint or similar presentation software as well
as
handouts for the class (materials can be photocopied for you at no charge).
OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES
The remainder of the course
grade will be based on your participation in activities run by
professional organizations devoted to improving usability. There are at
least two such societies with strong local chapters in New York: the
Usability Professonals Association (UPA) (upassoc.org)and the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) (ixda.org).
The local chapters of both of these groups hold meetings approximately
once per month on topics of interest to us in this course. You
will be asked to attend some of these events, held on weekday evenings,
and to report on what you learn from them.
Course Grade
Your course grade will be determined according to these weights:
| Item |
% of course
grade |
Design
Exercises
(individual percentages may vary) |
80% |
| Research
Presentation |
10% |
| Outside Activities |
10% |
The grades will be totaled to a scale of 100%, and the standard
university 90/80/70 assignment of letter grades will be used.
There
will be no curves on individual assignments. At the discrection
of the instructor, a curve may be utilized on the total course grades
at the end of the semester.
Course Policies
- You are expected to attend all class meetings. Most
activities are done in teams, and it is important that all team members
can be counted on. If you must miss a class for any
reason, you should contact me beforehand
unless an emergency prevents you from doing so.
- Assignments must be turned in either in
class
or through the Blackboard site for this course. Assignments
should not be submitted through e-mail.
- Assignment due dates are FIRM. An assignment can be
submitted up
to
11:59pm on the due date via the Blackboard course site and be considered on time. Blackboard
automatically
marks the time and date of each submission. Late submissions
will be
accepted for up to one week, earning reduced points according to this
table:
| Days Late |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| Point Reduction |
2% |
4% |
8% |
16% |
32% |
64% |
64% |
- You are expected to abide by the CSIS Statement of Student
Responsibilites, particularly its policy on academic integrity.
Any violations of these rules will be handled as described in that
document. This policy can be found on the CSIS
web site and the
Blackboard site
for this course.
- E-mail Policy: You are expected to
either check your Pace
e-mail account regularly or forward it to another reliable account that you
check often. Any official University communications (such as emergency
closings) or announcements for this course will be sent to your Pace
address.
- You are welcome to e-mail the instructor from any account,
but be courteous and sign your real name in the message if it is not
part of
your mail address. If your message includes any requests for private
information (such as grades received), the instructor
will send the response only to your Pace e-mail address.
Tentative Schedule
| Date |
Activities | Read before this class |
| Jan 27 |
Intro, Design Exercise #1 | TCUID Ch. 1, 2
PP Ch. 6 |
| Feb 3 |
DE #1: Identifying users and tasks | |
| Feb 10 |
DE #2: Cognitive walkthroughs | TCUID Ch. 4.1 |
| Feb 17 |
DE #2 | |
| Feb 24 |
DE #3: Prototype development | TCUID Ch. 3
PP Ch. 1 - 4 |
| Mar 3 |
DE #3, student presentation | |
| Mar 10 |
DE #3, student presentation | |
| Mar 17 |
SPRING BREAK | |
| Mar 24 |
DE #3, student presentation | |
| Mar 31 |
DE #4: Heuristic analysis, student presentation | TCUID Ch. 4.2 |
| Apr 7 |
DE #4, student presentation | |
| Apr 14 |
DE #5: Usability testing, student presentation | TCUID Ch. 5
PP Ch. 8 - 11 |
| Apr 21 |
DE #5, student presentation | |
| Apr 28 |
DE #5, student presentation | |
| May 5 |
Student presentations, wrap-up | |