Course Descriptions

Social Web: Content, Communities, and Context

With the growth of online environments like MySpace, Second Life, World of Warcraft, Wikipedia, blogs, online support groups, and open source development communities, the web is no longer just about information. This course, jointly taught by a computer scientist and a behavioral scientist, will examine a sampling of the social, technical and business challenges social web sites must solve to be successful, teach students how to use high-level tools to analyze, design or build online communities, and help them understand the social impact of spending at least part of their lives online. This class is open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students with either technical or non-technical backgrounds. Course work will include lectures and class discussion, homework, class presentations, and a group research or design project.

Syllabus for a recent offering of the course is at http://socialweb09.hciresearch.org/

Organizational Communication

Most of management is communication. You communicate to get information that will be the basis of decisions, coordinate activity, to provide a vision for the people who work for and with you, to and to sell yourself and your work. The goal of this course is to identify communication challenges within work groups and organizations and ways to overcome them. To do this requires that we know how communication normally works, what parts are difficult, and how to fix it when it goes wrong. The focus of this course is on providing you with a broad understanding of the way communication operates within dyads, work groups, and organizations. The intent is to give you theoretical and empirical underpinnings for the communication you will undoubtedly participate in when you move to a work environment, and strategies for improving communication within your groups. Because technology is changing communication patterns and outcomes both in organizations and more broadly in society, the course examines these technological changes. Readings come primarily from the empirical research literature.

Designing Human-Centered Software

This course introduces the skills and concepts of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that enable computer scientists to design systems that effectively meet human needs. A concrete illustration of the practice of HCI, this course covers iterative design processes, interactive prototype construction, discount evaluation techniques, and the historical context of HCI. The course is intended for undergraduates and graduate students not majoring in HCI. Students considering a major in HCI should take 05-410, User-Centered Research and Evaluation instead.

Applications of Cognitive Science

The purpose of this course to develop an understanding of how basic cognitive science becomes an application—or tries to. It is an excellent complement to Human Factors. The course will sample applications stemming from basic research in perception, learning, memory, and cognitive neuroscience, in collaboration with other disciplines. Examples are virtual reality environments, computer-generated navigation systems, cognitive tutors, decision aids, guidelines for eyewitness interrogation, neuro-marketing, and speech recognition and synthesis. No background in psychology is required, as the general topics will be covered along with the applications. The goals are for students to acquire fundamental knowledge of cognitive science and to learn how basic research is applied. As the course progresses, the class arrives at a shared understanding of how promising and relevant research becomes an application, as well as what stands in the way.

User-Centered Research and Evaluation

This course provides and overview and introduction to the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). It introduces students to tools, techniques, and sources of information about HCI and provides a systematic approach to design. The course increases awareness of good and bad design through observation of existing technology, and teaches the basic skills of task analysis, and analytic and empirical evaluation methods. This is a companion course to courses in visual design (05-650) and software implementation (05-630, 05-631). Course is open to undergrads and graduate level non-hci majors. Sophomores must get permission of the instructor.

Human Factors

This course uses theory and research from human factors, cognitive science, and social science to understand and design the interactions of humans with the built world, tools, and technology. The course emphasizes current work in applied domains such as automotive design, house construction, medical human factors, and design of information devices. The course also will emphasize not only individual human factors (e.g., visual response, anthropometry) but also the organizational arrangements that can amplify or correct human factors problems. Through reading, discussion, and projects, you will learn about human perceptual, cognitive, and physical processes that affect how people interact with, and use, technology and tools. You will learn why we have so many automobile accidents, voting irregularities, and injuries from prescription medication. You will learn some tried and true solutions for human factors problems, and some of the many problems in human factors that remain. You will also have gained experience in research in this field.

Computer-mediated Communication

This course examines fundamental aspects of interpersonal communication and considers how different types of computer-mediated communications (CMC) technologies affect communication processes. Among the topics we will consider are: conversational structure and CMC, tools to support nonverbal and paralinguistic aspects of communication such as gesture and eye gaze, and social and cultural dimensions of CMC. Students will be expected to post to weekly discussion lists, to write a paper on a specific aspect of CMC, and to present a talk on their final project to the class. The course should be appropriate for graduate students in all areas and for advanced undergraduates.

Programming Usable Interfaces

This course is for those with moderate programming skills who want to express their interactive ideas in working prototypes. The course will cover several prototyping tools and require a number of prototypes to be contstructed in each. These will range from animated mock-ups through fully functional programs. The course will also cover usability testing of interactive prototypes. Prerequisities: proficienty in a programming language such as C, programming methodology and style, problem analysis, program structure, algorithm analysis, data abstraction, and dynamic data. Normally met through an introductory course in programming in C, C++, Pascal or Java.

Note that students must simultaneously enroll in 05-433 / 05-633, User Interface Lab.

Software Structures for User Interfaces

This course is intended for those with advanced programming skills who want to do serious development of graphical user interfaces. This course includes: an introduction to task analysis and functional design of the user interface; basic principles of computer graphics used in UI implementation; event handling and event dispatching models; screen update algorithms and multi-view architectures; input syntax formalisms and their transformation into programs; interactive geometry; architectures for advanced features such as cut/copy/paste, macros and groupware. The course is intended for computer science majors. In some cases, the student and the Program Director will jointly determine the choice of 05-430 or 05-431, based upon the student’s previous programming experience.

Note that students must simultaneously enroll in 05-433 / 05-633, User Interface Lab

Cognitive Modeling and Intelligent Tutoring Systems

Last updated: Nov 11, 2011

This course is offered as a 9-credit version and a 12-credit version. The 9-credit version of the course does not involve programming, the 12-credit version involves rule-based programming, as detailed below.

This course addresses the use of cognitive psychology and cognitive task analysis to create computer-based intelligent tutoring systems. Students will learn data-driven and theoretical methods for creating cognitive models of human problem solving. Such models have been used to create educational software that has been demonstrated to dramatically enhance student learning in domains like mathematics and computer programming. This type of software, which originated at CMU and is now widely used in US high schools and middle schools, is probably the premier application of cognitive science in education.

In addition to discussion and readings on methods and models of problem solving, learning, and tutor design, the course will have a substantial “learning by doing” component. Students will be analyzing data, designing cognitive models and interfaces, and implementing an intelligent tutoring system. Students will use CTAT (the Cognitive Tutor Authoring Tools, see http://ctat.pact.cs.cmu.edu) to construct tutors. Tutors built with CTAT for middle-school mathematics can be found on the Mathtutor web site (https://mathtutor.web.cmu.edu/).

The hands-on portion of the course differs between the 9-credit version or the 12-credit version. In the 9-credit version of the course, students will use the CTAT tools for non-programmers to create tutors. In this version of the course, no programming is required and no programming background is needed. In the 12-credit version of the course, students will learn to create rule-based cognitive models for more sophisticated tutors, a form of Artificial Intelligence programming. They will learn to program such models in the Jess production rule language, which is integrated in CTAT.

The course targets students in Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Computer Science, Design, or related fields, who are interested in educational applications. Students should either have programming skills, or experience in the cognitive psychology of human problem solving, or experience with instructional design.

Prerequisites:

Either

• an introductory computer programming course (e.g., 15-112 Fundamentals of Programming), or
• a course in cognitive psychology (e.g., 85-211 Cognitive Psychology, 85-213 Human Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence, 85-412 Cognitive Modeling) or
• a course in instructional design (e.g., 85-438 Educational Goals, Instruction, and Assessment), or
• permission from the instructor.

User Interface Lab

05-433 / 05-633 is a lab complement to 05-430 / 05-630, Programming Usable Interfaces, or 05-431 / 05-631, Software Structures for User Interfaces. There are four labs section, which cover different domains and are geared to students with different backgrounds in computer science. Sections A (PUI Prototype Lab) and B (PUI GUI Lab) focuses on practice in the skills needed for prototyping and development of simple graphical user interfaces. Students will be introduced to rapid development tools such as graphical user interface layout editors will be combined with simple code to create functioning interfaces for a range of practical applications. This course is for HCII Masters, BHCI dual majors, and others with basic programming skills, rather than necessarily a strong programming or Computer Science background.

Section C (SSUI Mobile Lab) and Section D (SSUI Web Lab) are intended for HCII Masters, BHCI dual majors, and others with strong programming skills (e.g., for Computer Science majors). Section C focuses on tools for building applications on mobile systems, like the Android platform, and Section D focuses on practice in the skills needed for development of user interfaces to be deployed on the World Wide Web. In this lab, tools for both the “front end” (browser-side interfaces) and the “back-end” (supporting server-side code) will be considered. In both sections, the emphasis will be placed on user interface concepts and components.

Applied Machine Learning

Machine Learning is concerned with computer programs that enable the behavior of a computer to be learned from examples or experience rather than dictated through rules written by hand. It has practical value in many application areas of computer science such as on-line communities and digital libraries. This class is meant to teach the practical side of machine learning for applications, such as mining newsgroup data or building adaptive user interfaces. The emphasis will be on learning the process of applying machine learning effectively to a variety of problems rather than emphasizing an understanding of the theory behind what makes machine learning work. This course does not assume any prior exposure to machine learning theory or practice. In the first 2/3 of the course, we will cover a wide range of learning algorithms that can be applied to a variety of problems. In particular, we will cover topics such as decision trees, rule based classification, support vector machines, Bayesian networks, and clustering. In the final third of the class, we will go into more depth on one application area, namely the application of machine learning to problems involving text processing, such as information retrieval or text categorization.

Usuable Privacy and Security

The Role of Technology in Learning in the 21st Century

Computing is increasingly harnessed to address pressing educational challenges of the 21st century: under-performing inner-city schools, integrating immigrants into the school system, irregular school attendance in rural developing regions, and women empowerment in the developing world. This course is open to all undergrads and grad students, with technical or non-technical backgrounds. We will cover theory and practical applications of the Learning Sciences, Educational Technology and Human-Computer Interaction, framed around authentic problems such as the above. Students will apply concepts from the course to examine existing solutions such as Sesame Street’s The Electric Company, Leapfrog’s literacy gadgets and the $100 laptop. Students will work in teams on semester-length design projects to tackle educational problems of their choice, on platforms such as cellphones, interactive videos or gaming (Nintendo’s Wii/DS/$10 TV-Computer). Confirmed guest speakers include the World Bank’s Education Sector and Microsoft’s Global Learning Group.

Special Topics in HCI

• 05-499A / 05-899A Environmental Hackfest
• 05-499B / 05-899B Designing Mobile Services
• 05-899C Sensemaking
• 05-899D Human Aspects of Software Development

Designing Mobile Services

Attention all inventors! This course teaches you to invent mobile information services. You will learn a unique human-centered design process (improv brainstorming, story-boarding, interviewing). Students work in small, interdisciplinary teams to discover unmet needs of users. They create multiple concepts of a mobile service and assess their technical feasibility, financial viability, and desirability. Then they choose a single service idea and  produce a plan with a video that illustrates the user experience it is intended to produce. Grades will be determined primarily by the quality of the team’s products.

Special topics: Environmental hackfest

We’re looking for people from across campus to examine/question/deconstruct everyday practices and propose ideas for new environmentalist strategies.

What will you do in this course? Explore the intersection between art, computer science, engineering, and the environment. Imagine a greener future. Plan interventions; ask questions, big and small. Hack ideas, people, code, hardware, and everything you bring to the classroom. Students of all levels from disciplines ranging from Art to Computer Science to Environmental Engineering will work together to foster sustainable behavior using creative insight. You will bring to our discussion your unique interest in sustainability and the environment. You may be a builder, a philosopher, a painter, an engineer, or something totally different. No technical prowess necessary—this course is open to all majors from all levels.

Brainstorm. Critique. Build. Break. Intervene. Interpret. Provoke.

What are you waiting for?

This 9 credit course will is a 3-hour lab course taught Fridays from 10am–1pm in GHC 4301 and ART 310. Contact Jennifer Mankoff (jmankoff [at] Cs [dot] cmu [dot] edu) or Jill Miller (jill [at] jillmiller [dot] net) with questions.

Special topics: Designing mobile services

Attention all inventors! This course teaches the emerging art and science of inventing effective mobile services. In this class, students will work in small, interdisciplinary teams to conceive of a mobile service. Students will learn a human-centered service design process (interviewing, competitive analysis, service blueprinting, personas, bodystorming/brainstorming, and story-boarding) to discover unmet needs within a targeted set of users. They will then work to iteratively refine their concept of a mobile service by proving the technical feasibility, the financial viability, and the user desirability. Teams will produce a plan for a mobile service as well as a video that illustrates their service concept and the user experience it is intended to produce. Grades will be determined primarily by the quality of a team’s products.

About the Instructors:
Jim Morris is professor of Computer Science and HCI. He was a co-discoverer of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt string searching algorithm. For ten years he worked the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center where he was part of the team that developed the Alto System, a precursor to today’s personal computers. He directed the project that developed Andrew. He served as department head, then dean in the School of Computer Science. He held the Herbert A. Simon Professorship of Human Computer Interaction. He was the dean of the Silicon Valley campus from 2004 to 2009. He is a founder of the MAYA Design Group, a consulting firm specializing in interactive product design. He also founded Carnegie Mellon’s Human Computer Interaction Institute, Robot Hall of Fame, and Silicon Valley Campus.

John Zimmerman is interaction designer and researcher with a joint appointment at the HCI Institute and at the School of Design. His research focuses include: (i) social computing and the design of public services; (ii) the application of product attachment theory in the design of intelligent products and services; and (iii) mixed-initiative computing that combines human and machine intelligence. John is one of the principle researchers on the Tiramisu project: a mobile service that allows transit riders to crowd-source real-time arrival information by sharing GPS traces with their mobile phones.

Rapid Prototyping of Computer Systems

This is a project-oriented course, which will deal with all four aspects of project development: the application, the artifact, the computer-aided design environment, and the physical prototyping facilities. The class consists of students from different disciplines who must synthesize and implement a system in a short period of time. Upon completion of this course the student will be able to: generate systems specifications from a perceived need; partition functionality between hardware and software; produce interface specifications for a system composed of numerous subsystems; use computer-aided development tools; fabricate, integrate, and debug a hardware/software system; and evaluate the system in the context of an end user application. The class consists of students from different disciplines who must synthesize and implement a system in a short period of time.

Undergraduate Project in HCI

Experiential learning is a key component of the MHCI program. Through a substantial team project, students apply classroom knowledge in analysis and evaluation, implementation and design, and develop skills working in multidisciplinary teams. Student teams work with Carnegie Mellon University-based clients or external clients to iteratively design, build and test a software application which people directly use.

Independent Study in HCI-UG

In collaboration with and with the permission of the professor, undergraduate students may engage in independent project work on any number of research projects sponsored by faculty. Students must complete an Independent Study Proposal, negotiate the number of units to be earned, complete a contract, and present a tangible deliverable. The Undergraduate Program Advisor’s signature is required for HCI undergraduate-level Independent Study courses.

Independent Study Form

HCI Pro Seminar

Students will attend the one-hour weekly HCII Seminar Series of talks given by national leaders in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Graduate students will then meet to discuss these topics in a small-group symposium.

Introduction to HCI Lab

Interaction Design Studio

(formerly Basic Interaction Design) In this course, we will explore issues that pertain to interaction and interface design. The class will focus on elements of the larger interaction design process including basic design principles, information architecture and navigation, planning and brainstorming methods, and techniques for developing rapid sketches and prototypes. Course Requirements: Fundamentals of Interaction Design or equivalent course work are a required pre-requisite for this course. This class will not focus on learning specific software tools. Students are expected to have prior experience using a variety of design and programming tools. Please speak with the instructor if you have questions regarding these pre-requisites.

Interaction Design Fundamentals

No matter what your expertise within the field of HCI, your ability to conceptualize and communicate concepts and the rationale that led to those concepts is critical. In this course, the fundamentals of communication and interaction design, including layout, typography, color, sketching, storyboarding, and the use of images are presented. Students will become proficient with these skills, and will become comfortable engaging in studio critique, a critical discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of a given design. Course assignments will take the form of several short exercises, leading to a comprehensive screen design project that will comprise the second half of the course.

HCI Project

The MHCI Project course is an 8-month long capstone project for the Master’s of HCI program and integrates everything the students have learned in their coursework into one “end-to-end” experience. Students work in interdisciplinary teams with an industry sponsor to produce a working prototype that serves as a proof of concept of a novel service or product idea. The students come from a variety of backgrounds including Computer Science, Psychology, Design, and other related programs. This year students from the Tepper School of Business will participate on teams during the Spring semester, to help develop business plans for the projects. The industrial client defines the project area and guides its direction. In the first few months of the project (January to April), students conduct user research and brainstorm product ideas. The user research phase begins with students conducting contextual inquiries and background research to understand the nature and needs of the customer/user and tasks relevant to their problem. Based on that understanding, students go through an innovation phase producing product ideas situated to meet the identified needs. With strong sponsor input, they narrow down their ideas and select one or more to pursue further. Then, over the summer, students engage in a prototyping and user-testing phase where they produce prototypes with increasing fidelity and iteratively test them with users to improve the design. They do weekly iteration cycles, so by the end of the summer, product prototypes are well refined and adapted to user needs. The end goal is a working prototype that serves as a proof of concept of the product idea.

HCI Project II

This is the second consecutive course of the two-semester HCI Project course. Experiential learning is a key component of the MHCI program. Through a substantial team project, students apply classroom knowledge in analysis and evaluation, implementation and design, and develop skills working in multidisciplinary teams on client-based industry-related projects. The project begins in the spring semester before graduation and continues full-time through the final summer semester; it must be taken in consecutive spring and summer semesters.

Small Group Study in HCI

With the permission of the professor, small graduate student teams of two or three may engage in independent project work on any number of research projects sponsored by faculty. Students must complete a Small Group Independent Study Proposal, negotiate the number of units to be earned, complete contracts, and present a tangible deliverable. The Program Advisor’s signature is required for HCI graduate-level Small Group Independent Study courses.

Independent Study in HCI - Grad

With the permission of the professor, students may engage in independent project work on any number of innovative research projects sponsored by faculty. Students must complete an Independent Study Proposal, negotiate the number of units to be earned, submit a contract, and present a tangible deliverable. The Program Advisor’s signature is required for HCI graduate-level Independent Study courses.

Graduate Design Seminar

HCI Process and Theory

This course serves as a general introduction to Ph.D. level research in Human Computer Interaction. It will provide some background material in key HCI related areas, discuss the nature of research typically performed in an HCI context, and explore the processes and methodologies typical of interdisciplinary work in HCI. The course will be project-oriented, giving students practical experience with a small interdisciplinary research project related to the project theme for the year. Assigned readings will be posted on the course blackboard site. Method of evaluation: Grading will be based on class participation, a set of assignments, and the project.

Social Perspectives in HCI

One of a series of four, seminar style mini-courses, to expose our PhD students to the breadth of classic and cutting edge research in four distinct traditions in HCII--computer science, cognitive science, social science, and design. Although no project is required for this course, there will be significant reading and writing. The four courses are:

• 05-772 Social Perspectives in HCI
• 05-773 Computer Science Perspectives in HCI
• 05-774 Cognitive Science Perspectives in HCI
• 05-775 Design Perspectives in HCI

Computer Science Perspectives in HCI

One of a series of four, seminar style mini-courses, to expose researchers to the breadth of classic and cutting edge research in four distinct traditions in Human-Computer Interaction—computer science, cognitive science, social science, and design. Although no project is required for this course, there wil be significant reading and writing. The four courses are:

• 05-772 Social Perspectives in HCI
• 05-773 Computer Science Perspectives in HCI
• 05-774 Cognitive Science Perspectives in HCI
• 05-775 Design Perspectives in HCI.

We will explore the innovations and challenges that have been tackled by the pioneers of our field over the past 60 years. The intersection of humans and computation has reflected dramatic changes in technology over time, from the vision of Vannevar Bush to the ability to predict human interruptibility with sensors.

The material in this class would be of value to anyone interested in classic and cutting edge work representing the history and future of computational innovation in the service of humans.

Each week, we will discuss one or two important areas. In the class itself, there will be reviews of readings, discussions and exercises in proposing new topics. You'll read six to eight articles to prepare for the class session. Papers will be selected either because they frame a sub area, are the first best paper in the area, represent different approaches to the a subarea and so on. While we cannot possibly cover every important paper that has been published in the last four decades, we will try to focus on pioneering work, and we will try to cover enough areas to give a sense of the breadth of HCI.

Designing online communities

Home Overview Online groups and communities are increasingly important in the ways we work, play, learn, conduct commerce, organize politically, and receive social support. To be successful online communities must overcome challenges common to off-line groups: e.g., recruiting and socializing new members, developing members’ commitment, eliciting contributions, regulating behavior and coordinating work. Online communities are socio-technical systems. As such, their success depends on social engineering – how the technology and rules that constrain participants’ behavior match “human nature,” i.e., the principles that describe the way people normally behave. This research-oriented seminar is intended to help students analyze communities, to understand what makes them succeed or fail, with an eye toward designing and improving them. For computer scientists and designers the course will introduce relevant theory and empirical research on small groups and organizations, which should underlie design decision. For behavioral and social science students, it will introduce online communities as platforms to test and extend theory in groups and organizations. The course will cover such types of communities as open-source software development projects, Wikipedia, health support groups, and massively multi-player games. It will deal with such conceptual issues as the basis of commitment to groups, free riding and other motivational problems, communication, coordination, control and recruitment, socialization and retention. Students will read recent research papers focusing on online communities and relevant empirical studies and theory describing behavior in groups and organizations more generally. Students will plan and execute a relevant research project, either individually or in small groups.

Cognitive Modeling for HCI

Perception

Perception, broadly defined, is the construction of a representation of the external world, for purposes of thinking about it and acting in it. Although we often think of perception as the processing of inputs to the sense organs, the world conveyed by the senses is ambiguous, and cognitive and sensory systems interact to interpret it. In this course, we will examine the sensory-level mechanisms involved in perception by various sensory modalities, including vision, audition, and touch. We will learn how sensory coding interacts with top-down processing based on context and prior knowledge and how perception changes with learning and development. The goals include not only imparting basic knowledge about perception, but fostering an appreciation for the beauty of perceptual systems and providing some new insights into everyday experiences.

Computers in Organizations

Computers have been used in organizations since World War II. Their use has both intensified and changed in character in recent decades. For a typical firm, fully fifty percent of its capital investment goes into computers and telecommunications equipment. While early computers were primarily used for mathematical functions and accounting, they are now used for a much wider array of functions, including process control, development of new products, various forms of organizational communication and electronic commerce. This course examines the introduction, diffusion, and use of computers and telecommunications in organizations from a social perspective. Information technology is assessed in terms of its interaction with human behavior, organizational characteristics and organizational procedures. Both historical and contemporary examples will be used. By the end of the course, students should have a better understanding of the range of uses to which information technologies are put in organizations, the controversies surrounding their use, and the complexities involved in predicting their effects. The course is appropriate for three types of students: 1)those who expect to work in fields in which they create or manage computing systems; b) those with a research interest in organizational processes; and c) those who want to be able to participate knowledgeably in current debates on computing and information systems. Undergrads with permission of instructor only

Applied Research Methods

This course is for graduate students who will carry out research in domains such as social effects of the Internet, evaluation of interactive robots and agents, and the use of sensors for predicting user behavior in information systems. The course will be run as a lab and seminar involving hands-on practice of skills such as experimentation, web survey design, ethnographic observation, and content analysis. Students will complete a research project in the course. (Formerly 05-899A)

HCI Methods

Advanced Topics UI Software

This course will cover the research and implementation of user interface software. The students will get a comprehensive understanding of all the approaches that have been investigated by researchers and commercial systems for user interface software. After a quick overview of the design of user interfaces, students will concentrate on how to implement the chosen design. Particular emphasis will be placed on user interface software tools, such as windowing systems, toolkits, interface builders, prototypers, and advanced user interface development environments. In particular, the course will cover MS Windows, OLE, MFC, Macintosh Toolbox, MacApp, OpenDoc, X/11, Motif, Visual Basic, Director, HyperCard, Java Swing, Java Beans, and various research systems like Amulet, InterViews, and subArctic. Lectures will discuss the fundamental principles behind all of these systems, while showing the historical progression of the ideas from research prototypes to commercial systems. Today’s research topics and open issues in user interface software will be emphasized throughout. Students will all use an interactive prototyping tool first, like HyperCard, Director, Visual Basic or Delphi. Then each student will implement the same interface in three other “high-level” tools, which will be chosen so that the full range of tools is covered by members of the class. Students will compare and evaluate the various tools for ease of learning and effectiveness.

Applied Gadgets, Sensors and Activity Recognition in HCI

This course will cover new techniques and technologies for creating high quality user interfaces. It will consider current work in this area, emphasizing readings from the research literature as well as practical projects involving the implementation of new concepts in user interface software or other technology. Typical topics to be covered might include: advanced interaction techniques, ubiquitous computing, tangible interfaces, mobile and wearable computing, web-based interaction, information visualization, virtual and augmented reality, new input devices, audio, speech, and other new interaction modalities. Specific topics for each year will be chosen from the current research literature.

Speech Recognition and Understanding

The technology to allow humans to communicate with machines by speech and the technology to enable machines to understand when humans communicate with each other is rapidly maturing. This course provides an introduction to the theoretical background as well as the experimental practice that has made the field what it is today. We will cover theoretical foundations, essential algorithms, major approaches, experimental strategies and current state-of-the-art systems and will introduce the participants to ongoing work in representation, algorithms and interface design. The course will be completed by a brief overview of multilingual speech recognition dealing with various languages. This course is primarily for graduate students in LTI, CS, Robotics, ECE, HCI, Psychology, or Computational Linguistics. Others by prior permission of instructor. No prior experience with speech recognition is necessary. The course is suitable for graduate students with some background in computer science and electrical engineering, as well as for advanced undergraduates. The course involves written and programming assignments. Some reading of papers may also be required.

Introduction to Product Design

Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction for Technology Executives

Human computer interaction (HCI) is an interdisciplinary field in which computer scientists, engineers, psychologists, social scientists, and design professionals play important roles. The goal of HCI is to solve real problems in the design and use of technology, making computer-based systems easier to use and more effective for people and organizations. Ease of use and effectiveness are critical to the success of any systems that interact with people, including software systems, home, office and factory appliances, and web and phone applications.

This course provides an overview and introduction to the field of human-computer interaction, with a focus on how it applies to managers, technology executives, and others who will work with HCI professionals. Particular emphasis will be placed on what HCI methods and HCI-trained specialists can bring to design and development teams. The course will introduce students to proven tools and techniques for creating and improving user interfaces, such as Contextual Inquiry, Rapid Prototyping, Heuristic Analysis, and Think-Aloud User Testing. Students at the end of the course will have learned some useful techniques and an understanding of systematic procedures for creating usable and useful designs and systems.

Some anonymous evaluation comments from last year:

“Great course and relevant for a wide variety of people.” “This course has what it states - A proper introduction to HCI.” “This is a great course. Professor Myers was extremely helpful and provided the necessary feedback and support to make this course both informative and enjoyable.” “Homeworks were so helpful and interesting.” “I really enjoyed the course and thought it had more current real world pertinence than other classes I’ve taken in my program.” “It covers very important material that many Tepper students should know cold.” “A fantastic experience. I would recommend this course highly to students from MISM who are interested in product development and management.” “I am from ECE & whatever I expected from the course you have helped me achieve that. Now I know what goes into user interface design. After doing the assignments I have become a better designer as well as a better user of things & interfaces as well. Now whenever I look at any website or interface I intuitively start judging it and understand how much effort would have been made or not made for making that interface. Thanks for giving me the new perspective of looking at things.”

*Note: This is a required course in the Tepper School of Business, MBA Track on Technology Leadership, which is why the “for Technology Executives” is in the title, but this course is appropriate for anyone who wants a quick introduction to HCI. We want a mix of TSB, INI, MSE, HNZ, IS, MSIT, and other Masters students. Tepper students should register for course number 46-863; all others should register for either ISR course number 08-763 or HCII course number 05-863. This course is not appropriate for HCII degree students.

Dramatic Structure of Interactive Games

HCI Project Workshop

Advanced Lab in Speech Recognition

Rapid Prototyping Summer Project

Interactive Media and Role of Sound

Sound is a critical component toward the success of interactive media, yet it is quite often an underutilized element in the development of the end-user's experience. New audio technologies, interfaces and controllers are developing at an unprecedented rate and increase the designer's options for leveraging novel methods of interaction in the virtual and physical world. This course will investigate protocols for integrating audio into a variety of interactive experiences with a series of sonic project assignments.

Practicum in HCI

Restricted to HCII graduate students on internship.

Directed Research

Special topics: Sensemaking

This graduate seminar will focus on integrating knowledge from cognitive psychology, social psychology, social computing, machine learning and computer science that can help people make sense of information. Students will be exposed to theory about the social and cognitive processes involved in turning information into knowledge and how theory can be translated into practice through social computing, machine learning and visualization systems.

Special topics: Human Aspects of Software Development

This course will investigate the research on the human aspects of software development. The focus will primarily be on individual software development, such as what is known about people programming, debugging, testing, and understanding code. We will cover studies of programmers, and tools that have been shown to be effective for programmers. This will include what is sometimes called “Empirical Studies of Programmers” and the “Psychology of Programmers”. Topics that are associated with Human Aspects of Software Engineering, such as the study of processes for management, studies of large groups of programmers, and software specifications, will only be covered lightly.

This will be a seminar course, primarily intended for PhD students and other students interested in research on this topic. The course readings will mostly be important research articles on the various topics. We will also draw from the books: “Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It”, edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson (2011), and “Human Aspects of Software Engineering”, by James Tomayko and Orit Hazzan (2004). Most of the classes will be led by the students. Each student will choose one or more topics, and will read the relevant literature and present the material to the rest of the class. Grading will be based on students’ presentations, short paragraphs about assigned readings to demonstrate mastery, participation in class, and a final project. The final project will be performed in small groups, and will entail either a new user study of some aspect of software development, or the creation of a new tool for developers (such as a new plugin for Eclipse). These projects may result in publishable papers.

The specific topics covered will be developed in collaboration with the students in the class, based on mutual interest. A preliminary list of topics includes:

• HCI techniques relevant to studying software development (contextual inquiries, field studies, surveys, lab studies, etc.)
• Studies of novice programmers (barriers, performance, etc.)
• Studies of professional programmers (programmer variability, cultural differences, actual practices, questions asked)
• Studies of the usability of APIs
• Studies of processes for programming (Agile, Peer, collaboration, test-driven development, etc.)
• Tools for novice programmers
• Tools for making it easier to understand code (Visualization, analyses, etc.)
• Tools for making it easier to write programs (IDEs, etc.)
• Programming Languages and Environments that have good usability properties
• Tools for making it easier to debug programs
• Tools focused on “end-user” development of code (for people who are not professional programmers)
• End-User Software Engineering (EUSE)
• Tools for making it easier to capture and use Design Rationale
• Documentation tools for making it easier to understand APIs

Although intended primarily for PhD students, Masters and even advanced undergraduates are welcome, if you are interested in a research seminar.

Reading and Research in HCI