CSCI 4163 / CSCI 6610, Winter 2014 Human-Computer Interaction web.cs.dal.ca/~hawkey/4163 Dr. Kirstie Hawkey,

Basic Info  Instructor: Kirstie Hawkey  TA: Jeevitha Mahendiran  Office: Room 225, Goldberg building  KH Office hours: 2-4 pm, Wednesdays  Course is offered as both an undergrad course (4163) and a graduate course (6610)  NOTE: Tutorial/Lab in TL 4 on Wednesdays, 10:35-11:55  Website: web.cs.dal.ca/~hawkey/4163

Class style  Pre-assigned readings  Additional resources  Some lecture content  Interactive exercises  HCI topic seminars (breadth!)  Group work:  2 mini-projects  Understanding the user’s needs  Controlled laboratory evaluation of a technique  Individual work:  Topic seminars  Research paper (grad)  Reading responses  Participation/peer evaluation/quizzes  2 tests

Human Computer Interaction  Human  The user of a computer program, computerized device, or other information technology artifact  Computer  The physical device, artifact, or hardware that runs the program  Interaction  The communication between the human and the computer

Why Care about the human?

Moore’s Law transistors speed discs cost Slide idea by Bill Buxton Computer abilities Slide: Saul Greenberg

Psychology BC human abilities Slide idea by Bill Buxton

Where is the bottleneck? Slide idea by Bill Buxton system performance Slide: Saul Greenberg

Human Computer Interaction  A discipline concerned with the  of interactive computing systems for human users design implementation evaluation Slide: Saul Greenberg

User Centered Design process figure:  Our focus: 1. Methods for understanding user needs 2. Methods for evaluating interfaces and techniques with users 3. Theories/models of human performance NOT DESIGN (3160 in the Fall for user interface design, prototyping, discount usability evaluation)

User Interface Design  HCI CSCI 3160: UI Design  Iterative Design  Design architecture of system  Draw UI sketches/task scenarios  Prototyping  Evaluate with users (primarily formative)  Redesign  Implement Prototypes and evaluate (heuristics, cognitive walkthroughs)  Design Considerations  Graphic output/input  Errors  Design and layout  Task  Software  E.g., GUI toolkits, CSCI 4163 – HCI  Understand users  Learn about their needs, tasks, etc.  understand how users do something to help inform design decisions  Critically understand different experimental approaches to understand and evaluate systems  When to use which approach (advantages and disadvantages)  Analyze results and use these to develop guidelines  Quantitative and qualitative data  Evaluate high fidelity prototypes, interaction techniques, etc. (often summative, comparative)

Course goals  To understand strengths and weaknesses of different experimental methods in HCI  To learn about how theories/human models of human performance impact interaction  To develop an appreciation for experimental HCI research and how it can refine the theories/models  To be able to apply these techniques to do basic HCI research  To learn about User Experience as a career path

Homework for Thursday’s class  Read Chapter 2 of The Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction  design.org/encyclopedia/human_computer_interaction_hci.htm l design.org/encyclopedia/human_computer_interaction_hci.htm l  (FB?) Jeevitha 2 questions/comments about the reading by 10pm Wednesday night  Excellent (2 pts): thought provoking, insightful, original, good discussion points  Good (1 pt): relevant  Bad (0 pt): completely irrelevant, comments not sent or sent late