CSE 510 -- Course Project

An essential part of the course will be a class project. This will involve designing and prototyping an interface for a software system, using some of the available software tools. The system might be a part of an ongoing research project they are involved in, or might be new. You should also evaluate your prototype and perform some small scale usability studies. Students should work in groups of 2 or 4. We will also periodically ask the groups to present their current work to the class, for general discussion and suggestions.

We expect the projects will be done on a variety of platforms, using a variety of systems. Some will involve constructing working interfaces to an existing system, while others may involve constructing prototypes only in a system such as Macromind or Hypercard.

We do not want to over-constrain these projects. Almost anything is acceptable as long as it shows a reasonable application of techniques and skills learned during the quarter. The project should include and show evidence of extensive brainstorming, storyboarding, domain analysis, experimentation, paper mockup development before beginning any coding. After an initial prototype has been developed, we expect to see extensive user testing and analysis of these tests. The purpose of this project is not to develop a working product, but rather to experience and practice the HCI design cycle. In a sense, we would prefer that you not to invest too much of yourselves into the finished product, because we want you to be able to be critical and realistic about what you have accomplished and how it could be improved. A prototype with limited functionality which shows evidence of solid design and evaluation practices is far preferrable to a snazzy, but poorly designed project.

Deliverables:

Mid-Quarter Presentations

There will be two sessions in class devoted to discussing the projects, on Jan 28 and Feb 4. The first session will consist of informal presentations and discussions of the projects; by the second session we would like the project plans to be better developed. We'd like to hear about any/all of the following:

Design Directions. You can't do a project like this without having some vision of what it is going to look like and how it is going to work (even though this will certainly change). Show us the vision(s). We'd like to see sketches/drawings/descriptions of the current design.

Metaphors What metaphors are you using (purposely or not)? Think about the consistency/coherence issues we discussed in class.
Users Tell us about any user studies you've done or intend to do. Who are your intended users? How is your project going to change the way they work/play/etc?
Anything else you think is appropriate.

Final Presentations

At the end of the quarter, we'd like to see a demo of your project, as well as hear a short spiel (the length will depend upon the time available and the number of groups we have) about the history of your project. Specifically, we'd like to hear answers to questions like:

how did you evaluate it?
what other ideas did you have?
how did your tools limit/help you?
what compromises did you make?
what would you do differently next time?

Also turn in a short paper describing the project and its development history. The paper is due on Monday, March 15, at the class final exam time.

For examples of projects from prior quarters, please see the CSE 590H and CSE 595 webs. (The projects for this class are likely to be closer to those in 590H -- the 595 projects also included usability studies of existing systems, as opposed to designing a new system.)