This course would be of interest to students who want to develop skills in the design, implementation and evaluation of interactive computing systems.

Prerequisites:  COMP 2001

Availability: This course is usually offered once per year, in Fall or Winter.

Course Objectives

This course introduces the fundamental theories, methods, and research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), with an emphasis on understanding human behaviour while interacting with technology, general knowledge of HCI design issues, and a human-centered approach to software design.

Representative Workload

• Assignments 15%
• Midterm Exam 20%
• Course Project  35%
• Final Exam 30%

Representative Course Outline

• Introduction
  • History of human-computer interaction
• Design principles
  • Pathological designs
  • The psychology of everyday things
  • GUIs and WIMPS
  • Design thinking
  • Ideation
• Human processing
  • Information processing
  • Motor processing
  • Visual attention
• Prototyping
  • Low-fidelity
  • Medium-fidelity
  • High-fidelity
• Evaluation without the user
  • Heuristics
  • Usability inspection
• Evaluation with the user
  • User study design
  • Observational data
  • Quantitative evaluation
  • Qualitative evaluation: surveys, interviews, focus groups, think-aloud protocol
• Input and modalities
  • Indirect input: pointing, cursors, control display gain
  • Direct input
  • Physical and virtual touch
  • Tangible interfaces
  • Gesture
  • Speech
  • Gaze
• Applications
  • Ubiquitous computing
  • Information visualization
  • Computer-supported collaboration
  • Augmented and virtual reality (spatial computing)
  • Accessible technology
  • Games