10th Workshop "Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering" Ivanjica, Serbia, 5-12 September 2010 First experience in teaching HCI course Dusanka

10th Workshop "Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering" Ivanjica, Serbia, 5-12 September 2010

First experience in teaching HCI course

Dusanka Boskovic

Faculty of Electrical Engineering

University of Sarajevo


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Content

• Background

• Organisation

• Course of study

• Some statistics

• Conclusion


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HCI Course

• Background: capstone project within “ante-Bologna” course Digital Computers and Software Organization

• Introduced 2009/2010• Master studies at Automatic Control and Electronics

Department, 3rd semester, elective course• D. Boskovic and Nihad Borovina

• Learning outcome:– Human Computer Interface - Design and

implementation

• Designing HCI as approach to develop usable software


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What?• Fundamental concepts of HCI• Human factor• Interaction and interface classification • User interface design methods

– User cantered methods– Task oriented methods– Prototyping

• Interface design patterns • Evaluation approaches

• Theoretical concepts

• Textbook: Jenifer Tidwel: Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, 2005.


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What?

• Input: A lot of theoretical concepts

• Output: Change in a way of student thinking

• And a lot of practical work to be done on the way


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How?

• Give students something to think about

• Surprise them

• Expose to effects of good and bad designs

• Send a clear message with assignments and lab exercises


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Mental models


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Course organisation

• 10 lectures (2 hours) • 12 lab exercises (3 hours)

• 24 students AE• 27 students CI

• Attendance (10 points)• 4 Homework assignments: (20 points)• Project: (30 points)

– Project documentation– Application– Evaluation of another project

• Final exam (40 points)


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Assignments

• Weeks 1 - 7:– HW1: Looking for an interface– HW2: GOMS method– HW3: Sensor network prototype – design patterns

• Week 8: Midterm exams• Weeks 9 – 14:

– Project documentation– HW4: Heuristic evaluation of a web page– Project implementation


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Lab exercises

• Discussing examples of a good and bad interface

• Tests for measuring accessibility and visibility, human factors

• Designing a prototype for a TV remote control

• Space organization evaluation• Designing ATM interface prototype and

discussion


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Lab exercises

• Designing ATM interface prototype and discussion

• Smart home remote control paper prototype

• Complex data visualisation

• Animation techniques

• Project inception, planning and implementation


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Homework 1: Looking for interface

• Looking for good or bad examples of user ‘interface’• Not software, but device, map your finding to select one

selected interaction principle

• Problem with stating I LIKE or I DISLIKE

• Message: think as a user, remember feeling happy or frustrated

• 23 students AE average grade 4.3 • 20 students CI average grade 4.5


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Lab: Memory test

• Students were presented with screenshot of a commonly used application which they could observe for a 30 seconds and than they had to answer some questions that will show what they have noticed and remembered


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Memory test


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Memory test

• Questions about user interface details for applications students use daily

• Message: how to draw attention, how to distract user, user memory span


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Lab: Space issues

• Measuring areas of a web page

• Tool: MS Paint

• Some of UI features can be easily measured and quantified


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Lab: Paper prototyping

• Smart home remote control• Customers and developers teams• One customer per developer team

– Customers define requirements, not detailed and too specific

– Developers make paper prototype– Customer evaluates prototype with

developers team– Customer and developers present the solution


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Homework 2: GOMS

• GOMS – goal, operator, method and selection

• Working in pairs• Students defined

goals and operators• One student

performed task – other analysed interaction


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Homework 2: GOMS

• 23 students AE average grade 3.3

• 22 students CI average grade 4.3

• Messages: there are interaction analysis methods that are formal, detailed, think of time needed, applicability, results achieved,...


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Homework 3: Prototype

• Sensor network – design patterns


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Homework 3: Prototype

• Sensor network design patterns


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Homework 4: Evaluation

• Ten usability heuristics (J. Nielsen) – Visibility of system status – Match between system and the real world – User control and freedom – Consistency and standards – Error prevention – Recognition rather than recall – Flexibility and efficiency of use – Esthetical and minimalist design – Recovering from errors – Help and documentation


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Homework 4: Evaluation

• Message: If you are not part of a solution you are part of a problem

• 24 students AE average grade 4.2 • 2o students CI average grade 3.4

Grades related to number and quality of identified problems, problems not identified, quality of recommendations


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Projects

• Open for student proposals• Projects from other courses welcomed or

applications for master thesis• Implementation language: open (C++; C#;

Java; Matlab)• Project proposal – rationale for a project• Demonstrated adoption of UI design

principles – visibility, consistency, patterns applied


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Exam

• Report

• Questionnaire: every lesson with several questions (2-7)

• Provide answers related to the project– Describe their typical user– Describe method used in design, and

rationale for method selection


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Statistics

0,00

1,00

2,00

3,00

4,00

5,00

HW1 HW2 HW3 HW4

AE

CI

HW1 HW2 HW3 HW4

AE 23 23 21 20

CI 20 22 22 18

24 students AE average grade 9.4 27 students CI average grade 8.6


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Projects statistics

• Project documentation – 5 or 0 (5 points)

• Implementation (20 points)– 24 students AE average grade 14.5 – 27 students CI average grade 18.5

• Evaluation– 24 students AE average grade 4.5 – 27 students CI average grade 4.7


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Statistics

• Final grade– 24 students AE average grade 9.4 – 27 students CI average grade 8.6


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Conclusion

• Very successful – for us– Learned a lot – Gained a lot of useful material– Some problems can be anticipated - more strict rules

for hw submittance – Homework grading will change (more points for HW3

and HW4)

• Students rated the course with high grades• Messages delivered successfully

Documents

10th Workshop "Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering" Ivanjica, Serbia, 5-12 September 2010 First experience in teaching HCI course Dusanka