CS 580 Human-computer interaction Lecture 01 Introduction TA. May Al Mousa

About the Course Number of credits: 3 lecture – 3 hours practice – 1 hours Pre-requisite courses: Data structure – CS 322 User Interface Software Tools - Based on prototypes

Schedule of Assessment Tasks : Assessment weight (%) Due week The nature of the evaluation function 15% Weekly Week 13 Practical project Project presentation 5% Lab work & presence Quiz 25 Total

Class Goals Motivate the field of HCI Learn Basics of interface design Evaluation of interfaces HCI research problems HCI community (conferences and people)

What the class will look like Lectures Quizzes + (?) Initial user study (web interface comparison) Final project Identify a client Create a new interface Evaluate the interface

Why take this course? Build your portfolio Study a unique topic Work on a project you’ve always wanted Study a unique topic A computer science course focused on users Skill building Important in most research Burgeoning job field

Intro What is a user interface? Why do we care about design? We see this all the time. What’s good about the design of this error box? The user knows there is an error What’s poor about the design of this error box? Not enough information No way to resolve the problem (instructions or contact info)

Why study human use of computer systems? Business view: to use humans more productively/effectively the human costs now far outweigh hardware and software costs Personal view: people view computers as appliances, and want it to perform as one Marketplace view: everyday people using computers now expect “easy to use system” not tolerant of poorly designed systems little vendor control of training heterogeneous group if product is hard to use, people will seek other products eg Mac vs IBM (Microsoft Windows)

Why study human use of computer systems? The system view: complex human complex computer complex interface between the two The human factors view: humans have necessary limitations errors are costly in terms of loss of time loss of money loss of lives in critical systems loss of morale design can cope with such limitations!