Course Description of SEng 609.05: Graphical User Interfaces: Design and Usability

Course Description
Contact information	Prof. Saul Greenberg Email: saul or saul@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Where: room MS 616, 220-6087 or check the human-computer interaction lab on the same floor
Why do this course?	When people have a choice of products with similar functionality and cost, they will choose the one that best fits their job and that is easier to use. As a result, the success of software products in a competitive marketplace, as well as its adaptation by users within an organization, is intimately tied to the quality of its user interface. This course is about giving software engineers the knowledge and skills to design and engineer usable graphical interfaces.
What you will learn	Through this course, you will learn a software engineering process that will help you design interfaces that are usable by people. You will discover: how to determine user-centered design requirements; how to follow the major steps in a graphical user interface development cycle; how to rapidly prototype interfaces; how to debug your interface through low-cost evaluation methods; how to apply principles of good design to any graphical interface.
Structure of the course	The course will unfold by examining specific aspects of interface design, prototyping, and evaluation. Theoretical lectures will be augmented by case studies and discussions of interface successes and failures. You will also apply the theoretical knowledge learnt to your own interface designs.
The student	This course is oriented towards software engineers and computer scientists who expect to be involved (at some point in their careers) in an interface design process. This is almost everyone! Because it is an introductory course, it is only available to students who have not received prior credit for a course in human-computer interaction (such as CPSC 481). Eligible students may be complete beginners, or may already have some industrial experiences in interface design: project managers who direct software development that includes graphical user interfaces project team members who are trying to fit interface development into the software engineering design cycle programmers and other members of a team designing a graphical user interfaces people responsible for purchasing software that must be usable by people
Schedule	The course will be presented through a series of workshops, followed by occasional short lectures during the term to coordinate project work. Actual times will be announced shortly.
Assessment	Project: Iterative design and prototyping (85%) You are responsible for designing an interface, where you will use methods and logical design progressions as taught in this course. You will create a portfolio of your developing work. Grading will be based upon the sophistication and maturity of the work, the elegance of the designs, and the logic of the written and oral presentation. The portfolio will graded in several stages as the course progresses. Your major steps will include: Articulating tasks and rationalizing the functional requirements Developing initial prototypes Performing a task-centered walkthrough Prototype redesigns Prototype evaluations Participation in class discussions (15%) You must attend class and regularly participate in discussions. You should have all required readings and assigned work done ahead of time so that you can contribute to the discussion. Absence from class will be considered the same as non-participation. Notes Deadlines are strictly enforced. Late deliverables will be heavily penalized or not accepted. No extensions will be given without medical documentation. Plan your time. The project requires research and thought and cannot be carried out in the last minute.
Course texts	Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., and Greenberg, S. (1995) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000 (2nd Edition), 950 pages, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc, California. ISBN 1-55860-246-1, Dewey Catalog QA76.9.H85R43. Back-cover blurb This book contains a huge amount of material related to HCI, much which goes far beyond this course. It contains over 70 important papers written by HCI researchers, structured into 14 chapters. Each chapter introduces and briefly surveys its particular topic, and includes many references to other literature as well as appropriate technical videos. Chapters and excerpts relevant to the class are noted along with the topic descriptions in each topic page. Lecture notes. I will make copies of my lecture notes and handouts available as paper booklets you can buy at cost, and through the web. Additional papers will be available for you to copy.
The instructor	Saul Greenberg (email saul@cpsc.ucalgary.ca) is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Calgary. He regularly teaches introductory and advanced courses on human computer interaction at both the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as to industry. His course has been featured in the ACM SIGCHI Bulletin, as well as the ACM Interactions magazine. Saul Greenberg is an active researcher in Human Computer Interaction, and now specializes in Groupware. He is the author and editor of several books, including "The Computer User as Toolsmith" (Cambridge University Press, 1993), "Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Groupware" (Academic Press, 1992), "Groupware for Real Time Drawing" (McGraw Hill, Europe), and "Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000" (Morgan-Kaufmann, 1995). He has served on many academic reviews committees, and is on the editorial board of the "International Journal of Human Computer Studies", and "Computer Supported Cooperative Work".