Year:11/12
Department:Computing and Communications (School of)
Level:Part II (any yr)
Learning Hours:150
Credit Points:15
Weight:0.5
Course Convenor:Dr KWJ Cheverst
Status:Live
Assessment Rules
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Curriculum Design: Outline Syllabus
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The course consists of 30 hours of lectures covering theoretical and practical topics in human computer interaction. Some topics will be dealt with through assigned directed reading to free lecture time for dealing with motivating examples and practical case studies. Laboratory work will reinforce lessons learnt during lectures giving students hands-on experience of design, implementation and evaluation of simple interactive systems.
- Key Topics (lectures and directed reading)
- psychological underpinnings in human perception, cognition
- concepts of interaction techniques, devices, etc.
- evaluation and elicitation techniques
- user-centred design process
- user-interface architectures and design notations
- accessibility
- task-analysis techniques
- non-work-based interactions
- exposure to advanced and specialised topics (e.g. ubicomp, CSCW, intelligent interfaces, user modelling)
- practical issues in prototyping and implementation of interfaces
- motivating examples and case studies
Educational Aims: Subject Specific: Knowledge, Understanding and Skills
back to topTo provide an understanding of the underlying principles, theories and methods of human-computer interaction, to sensitise students to the importance of human aspects of system design and to expose them to examples of innovative and mundane interactive applications. To supplement this with practical applications of the principles learnt in small but real system design.
Learning Outcomes: Subject Specific: Knowledge, Understanding and Skills
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On successful completion of the module students should be able to:
You should understand why it is important to take account of user needs during all aspects of system design. You should know about basic aspects of human perception and cognition in order to apply them to interactive systems design. You should understand techniques to uncover user needs and to incorporate these into system design. You should understand the use of appropriate design techniques and notations including scenarios, task analysis and prototyping. You should understand the relevance of effective evaluation and techniques to approach this at different stages in the design process. You should understand how internal system design impacts on external user interface behaviour. You should understand the importance of accessibility to make systems available for all kinds of users regardless of different abilities, age, gender, cultural background, expertise, etc. You should know of a range of examples of particular systems and understand how theoretical and practical interface design issues affect them. You should be able to apply the theoretical knowledge learnt to the design, implementation and evaluation of small interactive systems.
Curriculum Design: Select Bibliography
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[A] A. Dix, J. Finlay, G. Abowd and R. Beale. Human-Computer Interaction, third edition. Prentice Hall, 2004.
ISBN 0-13-239864-8.
[B] J. Preece, Y. Rogers and H. Sharp. Interaction Design, Wiley, 2002.
ISBN 0-471-49278-7
[B]Shneiderman. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, Third Edition. Addison Wesley, 1997.
ISBN: 0-321-19786-0
[C] Human-Computer Interaction Handbook, J. Jacko and A. Sears. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003.
ISBN 0-8058-4468-6
