CS377C: Patterns in Human-Computer Interaction Design

A course within the HCI Program at Stanford University

Time, Location, Instructor, Units

During Spring Quarter 2001, this course is held on Tuesdays 2:15-4:05 in Gates 260. It is offered for 2 units. The instructor is Jan Borchers.

First day of class was on Tuesday, April 10. (I had a panel at the CHI conference the week before.)

Schedule

The schedule outlines the topics that will be covered during the entire quarter, and lists any dates when the class will not take place. It is extended weekly to show in detail what each class is about.

Students

Here is a current list of students who are taking the course and already ordered the textbook.

Topic overview

This course introduces the concept of Design Patterns for HCI. Instead of following the established notion of design patterns as it has recently evolved in software engineering, however, it will go back to the original sources of the pattern idea in architecture.

Students will gain insight into how patterns were invented to promote participatory design and empower users in the design process in urban architecture. This richer notion of design patterns will then be adapted to HCI, using it to express successful solutions for designing interactive systems.

The course will be a mixture of short lecture segments to introduce the basic concepts, exercises in which students start writing their own patterns, and in-class discussions of those and other patterns in the special format of writers' workshops.

Patterns are a topic in HCI that has evolved only recently, and the instructor has played a key role in this process. Students will get a view of a new and active research field whose application could significantly improve the way user interface designers, software developers, and user representatives can work together in today's interdisciplinary design teams.

Assignments

Assignment 2: Architecture design patterns

Assignment 3: Software design patterns

Assignment 4: Interaction design patterns

Assignment 5: Interaction design languages

Recommended text book

Jan Borchers, "A Pattern Approach to Interaction Design", John Wiley & Sons, 2001. (Amazon link; publication date was March 26, 2001.)

More information about HCI patterns

See www.hcipatterns.org for general information about design patterns in Human-Computer Interaction.

Jenifer Tidwell's Common Ground: A Pattern Language for Human-Computer Interface Design

Contact

Please contact the instructor <borchers(at)stanford.edu http://www.stanford.edu/~borchers/> if you have any questions about this course.


Last modified Monday, April 16, 2001 10:10:16 AM