Designing Interactive Systems (Winter 2020)
Class Information: Aachen
Lab | Mon, 14:30 - 16:00 (starting 11/02/2020) |
Zoom | |
Studio | Wed, 10:00 - 12:30 (starting 10/28/2020) |
Zoom | |
Language | English |
Credits | 6 |
Class Information: Bonn
Lab | Tue, 12:30 - 14:00 (starting 11/03/2020) |
Zoom | |
Studio | Wed, 10:00 - 12:30 (starting 10/28/2020) |
Language | English |
Credits | 6 |
Preliminary Exam Dates
1st Final Exam | 13.02.21 |
2nd Final Exam | 15.03.21 |
This class introduces students to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and user interface design. Specifically, the course covers the following topics:
- Fundamental concepts of human cognition, such as perception and memory performance.
- Models of interaction between people and their environment, such as affordances, mappings, constraints, slips, and mistakes.
- Milestones in the history of Human-Computer Interaction.
- Principles of iterative design.
- Techniques for prototyping user interfaces.
- User studies and evaluation methods.
- Golden rules of user interface design.
- User interface design notations.
After this class, students will know how user interfaces have been developed over the past decades, and what constants of human performance need to be considered when designing them. This class forms the basis for the classes “Designing Interactive Systems II” (which looks at more technical aspects of user interface development) and “Current Topics in HCI and Media Computing,” as well as the “Post-Desktop User Interfaces” seminar and other courses from our research group. Students will be able to apply iterative design, prototyping, and evaluation methods to design usable, appropriate user interfaces in a user-centered fashion. All assignments are group-based to foster collaboration skills, and project-centered to strengthen organizational skills, conflict management, and presentation skills. Learning to think in designers' terms is a crucial competence for computer scientists working on user interfaces, a job that requires collaboration in interdisciplinary teams.
This class is limited to 120 seats. You need to register to obtain a seat in this course.
You will have to create and edit videos for assignments and the project during the whole course. We will neither offer an introduction to video editing nor provide video editing software.
Contact
Syllabus
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Introduction, Fitts' Law, The CMN Model
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Gestalt Laws, Information Content, Visibility, Affordances
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Mappings, Constraints, Seven Stages of Actions
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Knowledge in the World and Head, Mistakes, Slips
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Visual Design
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History of HCI 1: From Abacus to Macintosh
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History of HCI 2: Visions, UbiComp, Phase of Technology
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DIA Cycle, Observing Users, Brainstorming, Storyboards
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Prototyping
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Evaluation
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Controlled Experiments, GOMS Model, Interface Efficiency
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Ten Golden Rules of Interface Design, Responsiveness
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Performance Hits, Notations
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Project Presentations
Grading
Your final grade will be calculated from your grades of the assignments, project, and final exam as follows:
Assignments | 30% |
Project | 20% |
Final Exam | 50% |
Fields of Study
- Computer Science (B.Sc.), (M.Sc.)
- Media Informatics (M.Sc.)/Multimedia-Benutzung und -Wirkung/in Aachen (mandatory course)
- Software Systems Engineering (M.Sc.)/Areas of Specialization/Media Computing and Interactive Systems
- Technical Communication (B.Sc.) (mandatory course)
- Computational Social Science (M.SC)
Course Allocation and Registration Guide
Number of SWS: V3+Ü2
ECTS Credits: 6
Course language: English for all lectures, assignments, and exams
We only have 120 seats are available for this course. To have a chance for a seat in this course, you have to complete the following steps:
- Register for the course in RWTHonline by Thursday, October 29.
- Sign the Declaration of Compliance and hand it in before 11:59 on Thursday, October 29. For this, send the course supervisors an email with the subject "[DIS20] DoC <your full name>.
We will announce who has been selected for the course by email at the end of the week.
Reading Material
- (Required) Donald Norman, The Design Of Everyday Things ISBN-13 : 978-0465050659.
- Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale, Human-Computer Interaction, ISBN 0130461091
- Ben Shneiderman, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, ISBN 0321197860
- Carolyn Snyder, Paper Prototyping, ISBN 978-1558608702, also see the accompanying site.
- ISBN-10 : 0133966151, ISBN-13 : 978-0133966152
We highly recommend that you buy Norman's book since you have to read it for the class during the first few weeks. From the Dix et. al., and Schneiderman books, you just have to read some chapters. You can find these books in the library.
FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
Projects
Aachen
Bonn
Group # | Project Topic |
1 | LunchBuddy |
2 | The Bar Experience |
3 | Exercising forest: Asynchronous Game |
4 | Studymate: When there is no one, there is Studymate |
Lecture Zoom Recordings Declaration of Consent
The lecture will be recorded. We will only record the presenter and not the students. However, if you ask a question your voice will be in the recording. Therefore, have a look at the declaration of consent regarding lecture video recordings
Previous Offerings
WS 19/20 - WS 18/19 - WS 17/18 - WS 16/17 - WS 15/16 - WS 14/15 - WS 13/14 - WS 12/13 - WS 11/12 - WS 10/11 - WS 09/10 - WS 08/09 - WS 07/08 - WS 06/07 - WS 05/06 - WS 04/05 - WS 03/04