University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

School of Information and Library Science

 

INLS 357

Human Computer Interaction Seminar

Fall 2002

Syllabus

 

Time and Place                                                     Instructor: Gary Marchionini            

2:00-4:30 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 2002 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. A theme this semester will be WWW-based help.  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 data understanding and usage.  Ongoing development of a system (RAVE) related to the concept of interface servers will be linked to the information resources in the research projects above.

 

Course Materials

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

 

Assignments and Evaluation

Term Project: class defined design and implementation or formal usability study (40%)

RAVE information architecture implementation (25%)

Design sketches (15%)

Readings, Interface “Tours”, and Class Participation (20%)

 

Tentative Schedule

[note we will make meeting adjustments as this semester we will work as a collaborative research team]

 

Session                  Topic                                                                     

 

Week 1 Aug. 21   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.

                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: the roots of HCI: Shackel

 

Week 2 August 28 The Problem of Information Seeking

Introduction to RAVE (Ben Brunk)

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)

Users and help: Carroll & Rosson

Requirements for search; read Shneiderman et al. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january97/retrieval/01shneiderman.html (DLIB)

 

Day 2 Notes

Week 3 Sept. 4    The Agile views Framework            

Introduction to Agile views (Gary Geisler)

 

Brainstorming of term project

 

Online Help

 

Discuss readings:

Marchionini (1992)

Greene et al

Shneiderman et al

Marchionini et al

Carroll & Rosson

 

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. 11 (Note 12:00-4:30)

Term Project work session.

 

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 4 Notes

 

Week 5. Sept 18 No Class (ECDL)

 

Week 6 Sept. 26  Representations and Mechanisms #1: Overviews and Previews

Report from ECDL

Discuss readings:

Lin

Ahlberg & Shneiderman

Eick

                Lamping & Rao

                Nation et al

                Furnas

               

PARC videos

Readings for next meeting:

 

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. 2     Usability and Universal Access

Discuss readings

Koenemann & Belkin

Christel et al.

Marchionini & Mu

Chisholm et al

 

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. 9     Physiological data collection: Eye Tracking & Biometrics

Review search facility designs

Eye tracking in IDL (Anthony Hughes)

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)

Tilebars: Read Hearst (ACM DL)

Optional reading: Raman (ACM DL)

 

Day 8 Notes

Week 9 Oct. 16 (Note: 12:00-4:30) Representations and Mechanisms #2: Results

Discuss study sketches

Discuss readings:

                Yanlelovich et al

                Karat et al

Hearst

 

Project work session

 

Readings for next meeting :

See through tools: read Bier et al (ACM DL)

Table Lens: read Rao & Card (ACM DL

Optional reading: Hendry & Harper

 

Week 10 Oct. 24 no class if alt block            

 

 

Day 11 Notes

Week 11 Oct. 33 Representations and Mechanisms #3: Manipulation

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.

 

Week 12: Nov 6 Representations and Mechanisms #4: Techniques

Case Study #4: Baltimore Learning Community

Case Study #5 Open Video…current status

 

Discuss readings:

                Bederson & Hollan

                Robertson et al

 

Readings for next meeting:

Ubiquitous (calm) computing: read Weiser (on reserve)

Interaction design: read Winograd (on reserve)

Location aware devices: Want & Schilit (on reserve, online for IEEE members)

Aesthetics: Norman (ACM DL)

optional reading: Jacob et al. (1993) (ACM DL)

 

Day 12 Notes

Week 13  Nov 13 (Note: 12:00-4:30).  Interaction Trends

Project team final meeting

Discuss readings:

                Weiser

                Winograd

                Want & Schilit

                Norman

Discuss Alternative and Multiple I/O

PDAs and location awareness

 

Week 14 Nov 20  No class (ASIST)

 

Week 15 Nov 27  No class (Thanksgiving)

 

Week 16 Dec 4  Project Presentations and Discussion (final meeting)