Human Factors in
Software Development

CS 4750/PYSC 4750
Fall 1999

Page last updated Tuesday, November 23, 1999  

Wendy C. Newstetter, Instructor (contact information)
Michael Terry, TA (contact information)

Class Co-Web

Table of Contents

Announcements
Course Information
Syllabus
Additional Resources


Announcements


Course Information

Meeting times: Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1:05-1:55 PM
Meeting location: College of Computing, Room 53

Textbook: Human-Computer Interaction. Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, David Benyon, Simon Holland, Tom Carey. Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Class CoWeb: http://magritte.cc.gatech.edu:8080/cs4750
CoWeb Denizen: Colleen (colleen@cc.gatech.edu)

 

Wendy C. Newstetter's Contact Information

Email: wendy@cc.gatech.edu
Office Location: CoC 131
Office Hours: Monday and Wednesday, 2-3 PM

Michael Terry's Contact Information

Email: mterry@cc.gatech.edu
Office Location: CoC picnic table area or computer clusters near picnic table area - look for me in either location
Office Hours: Monday 3:15-4:15 PM and by appointment

 

Course Description

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) is a multidisciplinary subject that draws on concepts and skills from computer science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, industrial and graphic design. Broadly speaking, contributions to the field are made from three camps--technologists, behavioral scientists and designers. Each contributes a unique perspective and set of tools. This course introduces students to the issues and tools that each group brings to the design, development and evaluation of user-centric systems.

Course goals


Syllabus

Week

Monday

Wednesday Friday
1 Aug 23

Course introduction

Aug 25

Interfaces and usability.

Constraints and objectives.

Aug 27

"Looking for the interface"

Show-and-Tell.

Assignment 1 due

2

Aug 30

Human cognition and computer use.

Is there a science of the human mind that can help us design more usable systems?

READ 1-3

Sep 1

Human vision & computer graphics

How do people see and organize what they see on computer displays?

UROC job fair &free pizza (7pm-9pm; CCB102)

READ 4

Sep 3

Package interface studio

Analyze in advance one of the GaTech recommended software packages for freshmen (details announced in class)

3

Sep 6

Labor Day

Sep 8

  • Attention and memory constraints

Why are professors absent -minded and what could I as a UI designer do to help?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 5

 

Sep 10

Package interface studio

How could I evaluate the package more critically"

READ 29

4

Sep 13

Mental models

How do people employ concepts to work out what they are doing?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 6

 

Sep 15

Skill, expertise and learning.

Why are experts more expert than novices?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 8.1-8.2 and 15

 

Sep 17

Package interface studio

Assignment 2 due

 

5

Sep 20

Metaphor workshop

Why are they called web pages?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 7

Sep 22

Input devices

What kind of input devices are sensible for non-desktop computer use?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 11

Sep 24

Home appliance studio

Meet in Architecture Room #359 

Lecture given by Bill Curtis and Ed Curry. Info about their project can be found at here.

6

Sep 27

Interaction styles

How do human affect the applicability of interaction styles?

READ 13 & 16.2

Appliance Integration Exercise  

Step 1 Due

Sep 29

Interaction styles continued

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

Oct 1

Home appliance studio

Appliance Integration Exercise  

Step 2 Due

7 Oct 4

Presentations

Oct 6

Review

Oct 7

Midterm exam

8

Oct 11

Contextual analysis & interpretation

How could I use this in the Homecoming project?

Lecture Slides
(PowerPoint Format)

Lecture Slides
(HTML Format)

READ 32

Oct 13

Computer-supported cooperative work

How is CSCW usability different from single-user system usability?

READ 9, 10, 16.1

Oct 15

Home appliance studio

Assignment 3 due

Drop Date

9

Oct 18

Holiday

Oct 20

User-centered design

Who is the user and why should an engineer care?

READ 17 & 18

Oct 22

Project studio

10

Oct 25

Scenario workshop

How could I use these ideas for the project?

READ 22 ,27.1-27.2

Oct 27

Task analysis

How would I do a task analysis to analyze or design a camera's controls?

READ 20

Oct 29

Task analysis demonstration

11 Nov 1

Group pin-up session

Nov 3

Group pin-up session

Nov 5

Design rationale

How might designers of a freshman package explain their design decisions?

READ 26

12

Nov 8

Cognitive walkthroughs and usability inspections

How could I predict the usability of the project product?

Assignment 4 due

READ 33

Nov 10

Observing users and measuring usability

How would I evaluate usability for the assignment1 artifact or assignment 2 package?

READ 30-31

Nov 12

Homecoming studio

13

Nov 15

Measuring usability

How would I evaluate usability for the assignment 1 artifact or assignment 2 package?

READ 31

Nov 17

Usability experiments

Nov 19

User interface development technology

What tools would be appropriate for the different assignments this semester?

READ 27.3 & 28

Assignment 4 due

14

Nov 22

User interface development technology

What tools would be appropriate for the different assignments this semester?

READ 27.3 and 28

Nov 24

Surprise Thanksgiving topic

Nov 26

Thanksgiving

15

Nov 29

Pin-up session

Assignment 5 draft due

Dec 1

Pin-up session

Dec 3

Pin-up session

16

Dec 6

Pin-up session

Final Group Project due

Dec 8

Class review

Dec 10

Just in case...

 

Additional Resources

ACM SIGCHI - http://www.acm.org/sigchi/
The premier professional organization for academics and industry folks working in HCI. Publishes a huge number of magazines, journals, books and conference proceedings on HCI. Many are available on the web. Many conference proceedings are available in the GVU conference room library or from Colleen.
Human Factors & Ergonomics Society - http://hfes.org/
Another large and well-know professional society with lots of publications. Has a broader scope than SIGCHI in some ways, since it's not specifically focused on computers. Some publications are available in the GVU conference room library.
CHI-Atlanta http://www.ratio.com/chi-atlanta/
A local affiliate of SIGCHI. A great way to meet people in the field, find out about jobs in Atlanta, and see what practicing HCI professionals do. Meets about once a month.
The HCI Bibliographyhttp://www.hcibib.org/
A large database with bibliographic entries for books, articles, conferences, etc. Sometimes just a citation, but often includes an abstract. Does not contain full text articles.
Usable Webhttp://www.usableweb.com/
 A large index of web resources. If it's on the web and related to HCI, it's probably listed here.
HCI Journal http://www.parc.xerox.com/istl/projects/HCI/
A well-known journal for HCI practitioners. This site has archives of past issues.
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox Column http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
A twice-monthly column about current issues in web usability. Extremely interesting reading, especially for anyone who will be designing web pages or web technolgies (e.g. browsers).
HCI Theses-In-Progresshttp://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/hci/tip/
Students who are currently working on a PhD or Masters thesis in HCI often list their projects here. A good place to see what HCI "research" really means.
Past HCI Courses http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/
Web pages from past offerings of CS4753, CS6751 and CS6752 are listed on this page. They've been taught by many different professors, but it might be useful to see what other students have done in the past. Many contain slides, lecture notes, references to websites and students' projects. Note that these projects were assigned by different professors who had different requirements for the projects. Do not assume that these projects meet all the requirements for this quarter's projects.


Last Modified on Tuesday, November 23, 1999