| CPSC 481: Foundations of HCI |
James Tam (instructor) |
The course starts with a brief administrative overview, indicating its purpose, structure, objectives, and so on. A taxonomy of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is then used to present an overview of the field, and to indicate what this course will cover and what it will leave out.
Videos are sometimes used in the first few classes to show futuristic and visionary interfaces. They not only inspire and motivate, but also illustrate how many major problems in Computer Science (outside of HCI) must be solved before these visions can be realized. For example, I ask students to write down all the innovations displayed in the Apple video. We then list them on the board, and relate them to computer science problems (here is an example list). I then use Ishii's delightful video because it goes beyond business users, showing kids and artists as well.
