Time and Place    Instructor: Gary Marchionini
2:00-4:45 Wednesdays.   Email: march@ils.unc.edu   www.ils.unc.edu/~march
Room 304 Manning Hall    Office 203 Manning Hall
Phone (919) 966-3611

Brief Course Description

This seminar will address research and development issues related to the design and evaluation of user interfaces that support information seeking and information use.  The seminar will investigate the nature of interactivity, user needs assessment, universal access and alternative interfaces, query and browse interactions, iterative design and maintenance, and usability testing.  Participants will read and discuss documents (paper and electronic), compare and critique interfaces for information retrieval, and work in a team to develop and evaluate an interface prototype or conduct a usability study of an existing interface.

The Fall 2001 seminar is problem-based, rooted in ongoing work and specific research interests.  Ongoing work relates to the nature of interactivity, browsing and interactive search, learning and explanation, and digital libraries.  Case studies of past projects related to these themes will be used to illustrate principles and skills. Research projects underway for 2001-02 include overviews and previews for DLs and large web sites, especially video retrieval and browsing; physiological and affective indicators of human interaction; and statistical table understanding and usage. Opportunities for course projects related to these areas will be provided.

Course Materials
No textbook is required.  Readings will be on reserve in the SILS Library or online. Readings

Assignments and Evaluation
Term Project: student defined design and implementation or formal usability study (40%)
Generalized Relation Browser implementation (25%)
Design sketches (15%)
Readings, Interface “Tours”, and Class Participation (20%)
 

Week 1 Aug. 22   Introduction: Information Interaction Perspective: Theory #1
Introduction to course
HCI as augmentation of the intellect
Review of Software Design Processes
 (waterfalls and spirals)
 people in the process (programmers, managers, end-users)
The SILS perspective
 problem context, user needs assessment, prototypes, usability tests, iteration

Optional readings (only if you need to brush up or want to focus on design process):
 Curtis, B., Krasner, H., & Iscoe, N. (1988).  A field study of the software design process for large systems.  CACM, 31(11), 1268-1287.  (online in ACM DL).  Case study for many different large projects and importance of cognitive, social, and organizational processes.
 Brooks, F. (1982). (reprinted from original 1975 edition).  The mythical man-month: Essays on software engineering.  Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.  The classic work on how people matter
 Mayhew, D. (1999). The usability engineering lifecycle: A practitioner’s handbook for user interface design. San Francisco, Morgan-Kaufmann.  Practical examples of iterative design.
 Shneiderman, B. (1998 3rd Ed.).  Designing the user interface.  Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.  The three pillars of interface development: guidelines documents and process; user interface software tools; expert reviews and usability testing.
 Kreitzberg’s LUCID framework: http://www.cognetics.com/lucid/lucid.html
 Nielsen’s Alertbox: www.useit.com/alertbox

Resources Tour: Interaction Design Lab www.ils.unc.edu/idl
Resources Tour : HCI Bibliography : http://www.hcibib.org/

Assignment:  Term Project
Assignment GRB toolkit application

Readings for next meeting:
A vision of augmentation of the intellect: Read Engelbart (on reserve)
HCI evolution: read Marchionini & Komlodi http://ils.unc.edu/~march/arist.pdf
Interfaces for IR: Hearst (book chapter) http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Ehearst/irbook/10/chap10.html

Optional: an important side effect: Read Meister
Optional: users and tasks: Carroll & Rosson
Optional: the roots of HCI: Shackel
Day 1 Notes

Week 2 August 29 The Problem of Information Seeking
Discuss readings
Engelbart
Marchionini & Komlodi
Hearst
Information seeing framework
Resources Tour: UMD HCIL http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/

Readings for next meeting:
SILS perspective: Read Marchionini, Geisler, & Brunk http://ils.unc.edu/~march/agileviews/Agileviews.pdf
Framework for interfaces to support information seeking: read Marchionini (1992)  (ASIST online)
Overviews and previews: read Greene et al. http://ils.unc.edu/~march/jasis_ovpv.pdf  (also ASIST online w/o color)
Requirements for search; read Shneiderman et al. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january97/retrieval/01shneiderman.html (DLIB)
Day 2 Notes

Week 3 Sept. 5 The Agile views Framework
Oral presentation of project ideas
Discuss readings:
Marchionini (1992)
Greene et al
Shneiderman et al
Marchionini et al
Resources Tour: Dassler’s info viz course http://ruby.ils.unc.edu/~rolf/homepage_rolf/sils/sils_frame.htm

Case #1 BLS and Fedstats designs

Readings for next meeting:
Semantic maps: read Lin (ASIST online)
Spotfire: read Ahlberg & Shneiderman  (ACM DL)
Eick, S. (2001). Visualizing online activity (ACM DL)
Day 3 Notes

Week 4 Sept. 12 (no class, SIGIR conference)

Week 5. Sept 19  Representations and Mechanisms #1: Overviews and Previews
Report from SIGIR
Discuss readings:
Lin
Ahlberg & Shneiderman
Eick

Interface tour. VR walkthrough http://www.stoa.org/metis/
PARC videos
Readings for next meeting:
Hyperbolic browser: Read Lamping & Rao  (ACM DL)
WebToc: Read Nation et al. ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Demos/WebTOC/Paper/WebTOC.html
Fisheye views: Furnas (ACM DL)
Day 5 Notes

Week 6 Sept. 26 Representations and Mechanisms  #2: Overviews and Previews cont'
Discuss readings:
 Lamping & Rao
 Nation et al
 Furnas
Design Challenge: Beyond access to contribution: The Sharium concept
Case#2: Library of Congress NDL designs

Readings for next meeting:
Evaluating interaction: Read Koenemann & Belkin (ACM DL)
Evaluating video skims: Read Christel et al. (ACM DL)
Integrating user studies: Read Marchionini & Mu (draft submission)
Universal access: Read Chisholm, Vanderheiden, & Jacobs (ACM DL)
Day 6 Notes

Week 7  Oct. 3 Usability and Universal Access
GRB assignment due
Discuss readings
Koenemann & Belkin
Christel et al.
Marchionini & Mu
Chisholm et al

Interface tour 3: Group 1

Assignment: Specify and sketch search facility on paper (due next week)

Readings for next meeting:
Learning from eye movements: read Jacob (ACM DL)
Biometrics: read Pankanti, Bolle, & Jain  (on reserve, online for IEEE members)
Day 7 Notes

Week 8  Oct. 10 Physiological data collection: Eye Tracking & Biometrics
Review search facility designs
Project updates
Discuss readings:
 Jacob
 Pankanti et al

Assignment: Outline a study design that incorporates physiological data (due next week)

Readings for next meeting:
The promise and problems of SUIs: read Yanlelovich et al.  (ACM DL)
Evaluating text tasks: read Karat et al. (ACM DL)
Optional reading: Raman (ACM DL)
Day 8 Notes

Week 9  Oct. 17 What about Speech?
Discuss study sketches
Discuss readings:
 Yanlelovich et al
 Karat et al

Interface tour: Group 2

Readings for next meeting:
Tilebars: Read Hearst (ACM DL)
Day 9 Notes

Week 10 Oct. 24 Representations and Mechanisms #3: Results

Interface tour: Groups 3 and 4
Discuss readings:
Hearst

Design session: Search facility  (based on our specifications, we will jointly specify a search function for Google results.)

Readings for next meeting :
See through tools: read Bier et al (ACM DL)
Table Lens: read Rao & Card (ACM DL
Optional reading: Hendry & Harper
Day 10 Notes

Week 11 Oct. 31 Representations and Mechanisms #4: Manipulation

Interface tour: Groups 5 and 6
Discuss Readings:
 Bier et al
 Rao & Card

Case 3: Table Browser

Readings for next meeting :
Pad++: read Bederson & Hollan
Data Mountain: read Robertson et al.
Ubiquitous (calm) computing: read Weiser (on reserve)
Interaction design: read Winograd (on reserve)
Location aware devices: Want & Schilit (on reserve, online for IEEE members)
optional reading: Jacob et al. (1993) (ACM DL)
Day 11 Notes

Week 12: Nov 7 No class ASIST

Week 13  Nov 14 Representations and Mechanisms #5: Techniques and Interaction Trends
Report on ASIST
Discuss readings:
 Bederson & Hollan
 Robertson et al
Discuss trends readings:
Ubiquitous (calm) computing: read Weiser
Interaction design: read Winograd
Location aware devices: Want & Schilit
Updates on Projects
Day 13 Notes

Week 14 Nov 21 Thanksgiving break

Week 15 Nov 28 Return to the Design Process

Case Study #5 Open Video

Interface Tour (groups 7 and 8)
Day 14 Notes

Week 16 Dec 5  Project Presentations and Discussion (final meeting)