CSCI 4260/8266: User Interface Design and Development
Spring 2012
| Meeting time: | MW 7:00-8:15 |
| Classroom: | PKI 157 |
| Instructor: | Dr. Harvey Siy |
| Office: | PKI 281B |
| Phone: | (402)554-2834 |
| Office Hours: | By appointment (call or email in advance) |
| Email: | hsiy at unomaha dot edu |
| Textbooks: | The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, Basic Books, 2002 |
| About Face 3.0 by Alan Cooper, Wiley, 2007 |
| (optional) | Building Interactive Systems by Dan Olsen, Cengage Learning, 2010 |
Description
This course focuses on engineering and scientific approaches to user interface design and evaluation.
Supplementary Material
Supplementary material may be drawn from the following and will be provided as handouts:
- User Interface Design: A Software Engineering Perspective by Soren Lauesen, Addison Wesley, 2005.
- Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (4th edition) by Ben Shneiderman and Catherine Plaisant, Addison Wesley, 2004.
- Designing Interactive Systems: People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies by David Benyon, Phil Turner and Susan Turner, Addison Wesley, 2005.
- Paper Prototyping by Carol Snyder, Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
- The Elements of User Interface Design by Theo Mandel, Wiley & Sons, 1997.
- Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests by Jeffrey Rubin, Wiley, 1994.
- Cost-Justifying Usability (2nd edition) by Randolph Bias and Deborah Mayhew, Morgan Kaufmann, 2005.
Learning Objectives
Students who complete this course should have knowledge of process, methods, tools used in user interface development and usability testing.
Topics covered
- Introduction to usability concepts
- Review of human-computer interaction
- User-centered design
- UI implementation issues
- Usability testing
Prerequisites
Required:
1) Software engineering background
2) Proficiency in web development or Java or C# programming.
Recommended:
1) Human-Computer Interaction (CSCI 4250/8256).
2) Prior experience with GUI programming.
Lectures
(See BlackBoard for current list.)
Evaluation
Students taking the class as CSCI4260 will be evaluated as follows:
| Homeworks | 20% |
| Projects | 40% |
| Exams | 35% |
| Participation | 5% |
Students taking the class as CSCI8266 will be evaluated as follows:
| Homeworks | 10% |
| Projects | 35% |
| Exams | 35% |
| Participation | 5% |
| Research paper | 15% |
Homeworks
Some assignments will revolve around readings of book chapters from The Design of Everyday Things. The book will be used for in class discussions of design principles. A writeup is to be submitted before every discussion.
Other assignments may include an interview and persona development exercise and implementation exercise.
Policy on late homeworks
- For assignments to be used in class discussions: Late submissions will receive a 50% deduction per day if submitted after the class discussions have been conducted.
- For other types of assignments: Late submissions will get a 20% deduction per day, for each day past the due time (as timestamped on Blackboard).
- Paper submissions must be handed directly to me on the day it is due.
Project
The semester project is intended to put into practice the interface design principles learned throughout the course. The project can be any application as long as:
- it involves significant/nontrivial user interaction or presents a challenging usability problem.
- you have access to several types of prospective users to interview and test out the prototype.
Exams
Exam dates:
- Midterm - March 12 (tentative)
- Finals - April 30, 8:00PM
Graduate Student Research Paper
Students taking the class as CSCI8266 will also write a paper on an advanced topic in a user interface research area. Each student must also make a 20-minute presentation on their paper near the end of the semester.
Participation
Throughout the semester, there will be various opportunities for class participation, including interactions during lectures, structured discussions, demos, etc. Try your best to participate in all activities.
There may also be an opportunity to participate in a usability study project. More details later.
Academic Integrity
Cheating will not be tolerated for project assignments, exams and other assignments. Consult the UNO Student Policies and Department of Computer Science Policies and Procedures for formal policies about cheating and plagiarism.