CS2013-final-report

Human Computer Interaction, University of Cambridge
Alan Blackwell
Alan.Blackwell@cl.cam.ac.uk
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Teaching/current/HCI/
Knowledge Areas that contain topics and learning outcomes covered in the course
Knowledge Area
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) 8
Total Hours of Coverage
Brief description of the course’s format and place in the undergraduate curriculum
This course is offered to CS majors only, taught in the first four weeks of their third year (a half term). Formal
teaching is 8 lecture hours, supplemented by 2 optional informal tutorial involving student exercises as proposed by
individual tutors. At least one guest lecture is given by a user experience practitioner, young researcher or start-up
founder.
Course description and goals
The goal is to present HCI as a discipline that is concerned with technical advance, and that must integrate different
disciplinary perspectives. Fundamental theoretical issues deal with principles of human perception, visual
representation and purposeful action, discussed in the context of novel interactive technologies. Building on a first
year course in professional software design, the course ends with an overview of systematic approaches to the
design and analysis of user interfaces.
On completing the course, students should be able to
• propose design approaches that are suitable to different classes of user and application;
• identify appropriate techniques for analysis and critique of user interfaces;
• be able to design and undertake quantitative and qualitative studies in order to improve the design of
interactive systems;
• understand the history and purpose of the features of contemporary user interfaces.
Course topics
• The scope and challenges of HCI and Interaction Design.
• Visual representation
• Text and gesture interaction
• Inference-based approaches
• Augmented reality and tangible user interfaces
• Usability of programming languages
• User-centered design research
• Usability evaluation methods
Course textbooks, materials, and assignments
• Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction by Helen Sharp, Yvonne Rogers & Jenny Preece
(multiple editions)
• HCI Models, Theories and Frameworks: Toward a multidisciplinary science edited by John Carroll (2003)
• Research methods for human-computer interaction edited by Paul Cairns and Anna Cox (2008)
• Interaction-Design.org entry on Visual Representation by Alan Blackwell (2011) http://www.interactiondesign.org/encyclopedia/visual_representation.html
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