Introduction to the Course and to Human-Computer Interaction

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.

Overheads

• Course Introduction: [Acrobat] [PowerPoint] 

Topics Covered

• Administrative
  • Interface design and usability engineering
  • Course structure, objectives and evaluation
  • An overview of what HCI is
  • What this course is all about
  • Course resources: web page, texts and readings

• Optional: Overview and Taxonomy of Human Computer Interaction

Required Readings

• None

Optional Readings

• None

Videos

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.

• 2020, by Apple Inc. (~1992, distributed with the video set from the Apple Developer's Conference)
• Seamless Media Design, by NTT - Ishii (1994, SGVR Issue 106)

Major sources used to prepare the lecture material

• Map of Human Computer Interaction from The ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction.
• Shneiderman, B. and Plaisant, C. (2005) Usability of Interactive Systems in Chapter 1, Designing the User Interface, Pearson.
• Benyon, D., Turner, P. and Turner, S. (2005) Designing Interactive Systems: A Fusion of Skills in Chapter 1, Designing Interactive Systems, Pearson.