CS 4753
Human Factors in Software Development

Fall 1996
College of Computing 101
MWF 2:00-3:00

Catalogue Description:
3-3-4. Prerequisites: CS 1502, PSY 3304
Examines human factors in the software design and application process from initial requirements to testing and implementation, with emphasis on designing the user interface.

Instructor
John Stasko
stasko@cc.gatech.edu
253 College of Computing
894-5617
Office Hours MWF 3:00-4:00 or by appt.
Teaching Assistant
Alex Zhao
azhao@cc.gatech.edu
262B College of Computing
894-5622
Office Hours Tu,Th 3:00-4:00 or by appt.

General Info | Grading | Exams | HWs | Projects | Class Participation | Grading Summary | Disclaimer

General Information

This course will teach you about the importance of the human-computer interface in software design and development. The objectives of the course are

A planned (approximate) syllabus for the course appears below. Quite a few changes should be expected. 

Week  Reading           Topics
 1                  Introduction to and history of field.
 2    1-2, 5        Human capabilities.  Design methods and process.
 3    11, 7         Formative evaluation. Questionnaire design.  Observing users.
 4                  Experiments and studies.  Interpretive and predictive evaluation.
 5                  Rapid prototyping. Generating design ideas.
 6    3-4           Screen layout and organization.  Dialog styles.
 7    5             Design principles.
 8    10, 15        Window systems and UI toolkits.  Virtual environments.
 9    6, 12         User models.  Documentation and help.
10                  Multimedia, WWW, Internet.  Agents.

The actual material covered in class is presented below. Reading assignments are in italics at the bottom.

Date Mon Wed Fri
Oct. 7 - Introduction and
overview of HCI		 History of HCI
Oct. 14 Human physical and
cognitive capabilities
Chapter 1 		Video: Development
of GUI
Chapter 2 		Evaluation
Quest. design
Animated Icons paper
Oct. 21 Quest. design
Observing users		 Observng users
Usability specs.
Chapter 11 		Experiments
Videos: Example
studies
Oct. 28 Experiments
Quantitative methods		 Interpretive eval.
Predictive eval.		 Involving users
in design
Chapter 7
Nov. 4 Rapid prototyping
CDE Design brief 		GUI builder tools
dtbuilder 		Developing design
ideas
Chapter 5
Nov. 11 Design principles
Chapter 4 		Dialog design
Menus, GUI
Chapter 8 		Dialog design
Command langs
Nov. 18 Futuristic
videos 		Project day
Chapter 3 		Dialog design
Direct manip
Nov. 25 Dialog design
Speech recog 		Project demos --Thanksgiving--
Dec. 2 Class design
session 		Error handling Help and
documentation
Chapter 12
Dec. 9 WWW
Chapter 15 		Agents Review

You are expected to purchase the required text: Human-Computer Interaction, by Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale, Prentice Hall, 1993. We will be skipping around in terms of reading assignments, so watch for class or newsgroup announcements to discover the assigned reading for the next class period. There is no excuse for ignorance of the assigned reading material.

Grading

Your final grade is made up of three major components: homework assignments, projects, and an exam. The weighting of these components is described below.

Students are expected to do their own work at all times and to follow the university's codes of academic conduct. Cases of suspected collaboration or cheating will be immediately forwarded to the Dean of Student Affairs, and will be pursued to resolution. This is an unpleasant process for all involved, so please do not put yourself in this situation.

Students are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner-this entails showing up for exams at the appointed time. Late make-up exams will not be given, so beware of circumstances such as ``My alarm didn't go off,'' or ``I thought the exam was Thursday.'' If some form of prior commitment does not allow a student to take an exam at the given time, PRIOR arrangements should be made with the instructor.

Extra work, after the quarter, is not allowed to ``bring up'' a grade. A student's grade shall be earned from their performance solely on the quarter's assignments.

Grading is determined by a quarter long accumulation of points, weighed in percentage as stated for each component as summarized below. Determinations of the individual category breakdowns will be determined by looking for gaps or clumps in the final averages.

Examinations

A final examination is planned for the course. Most exam questions will reflect the material covered in lecture and assigned reading. The exams will consist mostly of short answer questions, with a few multiple-choice, T-F, and longer essay questions thrown in as well.

Homework Assignments

I anticipate giving around three homework assignments which will be carried out individually by each student. The topic matter of the assignments will be determined later. The HW assignments will be worth 15% of your grade. Individual values will be determined later.

HW1

Projects

One quarter-long interface design project will be given in this course. The project will be broken down into three assignments, each of about two and a half weeks in length. Each of these assignments is worth 20\% of your final grade. The project will have you develop an alternative interface for some computer-based application such as a library book search system, an airline reservation system, a calendar manager, etc. The three assignments will have you design questionnaires and evaluate existing interfaces, design and develop a new interface, and then make an evaluation of your designs. The material which you turn in should be presented professionally, and should stress grammatical correctness and clarity. It will be submitted via HTML on the Web. You will be judged on your originality, innovativeness, quality of writing, and correctness. Each assignment will be graded on a scale of 0 to 10. Further details will accompany each assignment.

Assignments
Project Info | Ass't 1 | Ass't 2 | Ass't 3

Project documents
Ass't 1 | Ass't 2 | Ass't 3

Class Participation

Reading assignments will be specified for each week. You are expected to come to class, and be prepared - that is, having read and having made an attempt to understand the material. You should be ready to discuss the material covered in the lectures and reading. Much of the material in this course is subjective. Feel free to describe your views.

Summary

Component          Non-graduating    Graduating
HWs                     5%             10%
Project part 1         22%             30%
Project part 2         22%             30%
Project part 3         22%             30%
Final exam             29%

Disclaimer

The professor reserves the right to modify any of these plans as need be during the course of the class.

Contact Information:

John Stasko
stasko@cc.gatech.edu
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280