Designing Interactive Systems 1 (Winter 2023/24) 

This class introduces you to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and user interface design. Specifically, it 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 design thinking and 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, you will know how user interfaces have evolved 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. You will be able to apply design thinking methods for iterative design, prototyping, and evaluation 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 and sign a Declaration of Compliance to obtain a seat in this course.

You will need to create and edit videos for assignments and the project during this class. We don't teach video editing or provide video editing software; you will find these resources readily online.

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.
• Robin Williams, The Non-Designer's Design Book, 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