1. Software Usability Course notes for CSI 5122 - University of Ottawa
Section 1:
Course Outline and Required Work
Timothy C. Lethbridge

2. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Themes of the course
Main theme: Software Usability Engineering:
How to develop software systems that are highly usable
Sub-theme: Adapting the software engineering process to produce more usable software
Sub-theme: Enhancing your skills at design and evaluation of usability
Secondary theme: How do do good research in software engineering, HCI, and Usability
Critical evaluation and writing papers in the usability domain
Subtheme: How to design a good experiment, analyse usability data and present the results
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

3. This is not a ‘pure HCI’ course
It is an ‘applied HCI’ course
‘E’course in OCICS
There are also related A/S courses available at Carleton, taught by profs such as Robert Biddle and Sonia Chiasson
We will focus on engineering practicalities
Less consideration of HCI theory
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

4. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Background required
Just being a grad student in CS, SE, E-Business or a related subject should be enough
All grad students should have had some undergrad background or work experience in software development
No HCI course is assumed as background
So far this is not required in undergrad CS programs
Those who have an HCI course or other HCI background will have only a small advantage
Come to class, but 20% of the material may be review
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

5. Learning about each other:
Who am I
I have taught
CS since 1985
SE since 1990
Usability at the undergrad/grad level since 1993
Main current research topics
Software Modeling (Umple) and complexity reduction
Software engineering tools, including their usability
Software Engineering Education
Research projects with several companies over the years
Worked at Nortel for 2 years in the 1980’s
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

6. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Who are you – Hands up
University?
Program?
(MSc, PhD)
(OCICS, OCIECE, Systems Science, E-Business)
Registered or not yet?
Some of you tell me: Why are you interested in this topic
Some of you tell me: Experience doing User interface development or testing
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

7. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Topics In The Course
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

8. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Topics for the course 1
Not necessarily covered exactly in this sequence
What is usability
How it compares with other qualities
Doing research in general
Usability in the Software Engineering
SE methods to improve usability
The Users and Usability Maturity Model
Economics of usability
Justifying an investment in usability
Measuring usability
Setting realistic usability objectives
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

9. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Topics for the course 2
Design for usability
Task analysis
User centred design
Evaluation techniques
Heuristic Evaluation
Evaluating usability by analysis of videos of users
Experimentation and analysis of results in general
Conducting formal experiments to validate usability
Internationalization and localization
Access for the disabled
Other topics covered in reviews of papers and student presentations
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

10. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Pedagogical method
I will lecture about half the time (plus or minus, depending on number of student presentations)
We will look at a lot of case studies
You will read research papers and reports and we will discuss them together
Everybody will study all the papers
One student will start the discussion by summarizing the paper
You will do projects, and present some of results
Topics include, UI design, UI evaluation, experiments, research
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

11. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Motivational example 1
Microsoft Excel
Poor error message when it can’t find an item
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

12. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Work Plan
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

13. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Your work plan: Your grade will be tailored, based on a plan you will prepare
20% Everybody writes a final exam unless you already have A+ (> 90%) from the other components
80%: your choice of some combination of the following
If you do components worth> 80% then I scale the grade so it is out of 80%
a) 10%: 7 mins: Summarizing a paper in class
b) 30%: Research (literature review) paper (8-12 pages)
c) 40%: Conducting a formal experiment with 5+ users, and writing up (8-12 pages including charts and statistical analysis)
d) 25%: Heuristic evaluation or cognitive walkthrough of a user interface and formally writing it up – (12-15 pages including screenshots).
e) 30%: Evaluation of a user interface with 2+ users formally writing it up – (12-15 pages including screenshots).
f) 20%: 20 min Presentation of results from b, c, d and/or ein class,
g) 10%: 7 Min lightning presentation of results from b, c, d or e in class
h) 10% Creating a guest post for my course blog, regarding b, c, d or e
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

14. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Your work plan - 2
We will learn how to do the tasks listed in your work plan
What constitutes a good research paper
How to run an experiment and analyse the results
How to do different types of evaluation and present the results
How to do a presentation
Use the Excel template on the course website for your plan
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

15. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Your work plan - 3
For research topics, evaluation topics, experiment topics:
Give a brief topic outline in your work plan
As you refine the topics, ask me to approve changes
Avoid flooding me with s if you can
Asking me before or after class is a good idea
Upload your request as an Excel file to me at a Private URL I will send you by (I can’t write it here for security reasons)
I must approve each work plan before you start
I reserve the right to adjust your plan (and first-come, first-served)
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

16. Ideas for finding topics for research papers
Browse the literature
I will give you some techniques for this later in this slide deck
I will not allow certain topics if I am going to teach them in class
The following are a few examples of allowed topics:
Metrics
Specialized design techniques
Specialized usability guidelines for particular system types
Specialized evaluation techniques
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

17. Research paper basic criteria
Must be written in the same style as if you are submitting a paper to a journal or top conference
E.g. SIGCHI, ICSE
We will be reading many papers in the course, so you can learn from the style of those papers
But I will also point out some bad things to avoid
You must have at least 6 peer-reviewed references (from good conferences or journals)
You must analyse what you have read
Just giving me lots of facts is no good
At all costs, avoid plagiarism.
To avoid getting zero on the work or F in the course
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

18. Evaluation project basic criteria
The system can be
open source
commercial
your thesis topic
something from a work environment (past or present)
Students in the class must be able to see it, so avoid highly confidential software
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

19. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Deadlines
Give me your work plan By January 18
I will assign you deadlines spread through the course
Any people who are late (including late registrants) cause me much more work, so:
I reserve the right to define your work plan for you:
To tell you the topics you must research/write/present
I might assign (possibly much) higher weight to the final exam or to a large research report
If you drop the course PLEASE let me know so I can give your time slots to others
Once deadlines are set, you are held to them!
5% marks lost per day for each item that is late
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

20. Interim feedback on draft materials
Optional: Send me a draft of any work item 6 or more working days before it is due
I will skim it and give you some ideas for improvement
I will not have time to read it in detail at the draft stage, so I can’t guarantee that I find any or all faults
But I will give you some basic feedback
Also optional: Send me your presentation slides 3 working days before your presentation date.
I will give you a URL for sending me drafts.
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

21. Experiment plans involving people
Mandatory: Send me a 3 page summary the design of any experiment 4 working days before you start executing it with people
So you don’t waste people’ time
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

22. Motivational example 2:
Skype for the Mac
Creating a group of users
Accidentally deleting a conversation
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI

23. Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Homework
For next week please read: Regina Nuzzo, “Scientific method: Statistical errors: P values, the 'gold standard' of statistical validity, are not as reliable as many scientists assume.” Nature, 12 Feb 2014,
Section 1: Course Outline and Work To Do
Lethbridge - CSI