Course Overview

Course Description

This class is about the design and use of computing technology. You will learn about fundamental methods and principles for designing, prototyping, and evaluating user interfaces, including graphical, natural-language, voice-based, and tangible user interfaces. You will apply these methods and principles in a quarter-long design project. To help you find a good solution to your design problem, you will learn about cognitive principles, how we can design for human diversity, and practice methods for anticipating differential and societal impacts of technology.

The course structure is a mix of lectures, hands-on activities, and design critiques by peers and course staff. The course is overwhelmingly organized around a group project, in which students:

• Ideate and Propose Design Problems
• Study Existing Practices and Challenges
• Explore Potential Design Opportunities and Tradeoffs
• Evaluate and Iterate Upon a Design
• Communicate a Problem and Resulting Design

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, you will have gained:

• a process-focused perspective on human-centered design
• design research methods and skills
• an understanding of task-focused scenario development, sketching, and prototyping
• a critical perspective on design solutions
• knowledge and tools for understanding cognitive principles and for anticipating societal impacts of technology

Course Staff

Course Coordination

Contact: Email course staff at "csep510-staff [at] cs.washington.edu." Please do not email individual course staff. Using the course staff alias promotes both staff coordination and a more prompt response.

Class Time & Location: Mondays, 6:30pm-9:20pm in CSE2 Room G10.

Office Hours: We are happy to meet before class or by appointment via Zoom. Please email us with potential times.

Canvas: Course information and material will primarily be provided on this website. Canvas will be used for submissions and when appropriate for limiting access to course materials.

Grading

Strive to do good work because you care about your own opportunities to learn, including the opportunities this course provides working with a group in an intensive project. We do not provide guarantees about particular percentages and what grade they translate to. The approximate grading flow you can expect is: (1) We compute the total-course percentage for each student. (2) We assign cutoffs for 4.0, 2.0, and 0.0 based on looking at the distribution of scores this quarter vs last few quarters. There are not a set number of 4.0s we give out; if everyone did great, everyone can get a 4.0. (3) Grades between the cutoffs are usually a linear interpolation. (4) We then compute final grades (counting extra credit) against those thresholds.

Total points: 80

• Group Assignment (GA) [30 Points]
  • Assignment 1: Project Brainstorming and Proposal [4 Points]
  • Assignment 2: Sketches [4 Points]
  • Assignment 3: Personas and Updated Project Proposal [4 Points]
  • Assignment 4: Bad Design Hunt [3 Points]
  • Assignment 5: Paper Prototype and Evaluation [4 Points]
  • Assignment 6: Unintended Consequences [4 Points]
  • Assignment 7: Initial High Fidelity Prototype [3 Points]
  • Assignment 8: Final High Fidelity Prototype [4 Points]
• Individual Assignment (IA) [20 Points]
  • Assignment 1: Introduction and Motivation [5 Points]
  • Assignment 2: Design Process [5 Points]
  • Assignment 3: Design Critique [5 Points]
  • Assignment 4: Testing [5 Points]
• Participation [30 Points]
  • Engagement in Class Discussions and Q&As [10 Points]
  • Feedback on classmates' projects on Figma: We encourage you to leave at least one meaningful piece of feedback each for four different projects, excluding your own group’s project. [10 Points]
  • Participation to Group Project [10 Points]

Each assignment will also provide a point breakdown intended to convey how it will be graded. Design is an inherently subjective practice, and so grading in this course is necessarily subjective. The stated project requirements are the minimum, intended to leave room for groups to earn strong grades through strong work.

Because the course is designed around feedback on project milestones, grades given to those milestones indicate that you have invested sufficient effort and insight at the time of the milestone. You will get feedback and are expected to continue acting upon that feedback in your design process. The bulk of project grades is therefore attached to the final deliverables, which are evaluated on their quality.

Participation, Remote Participation and Recording

This is an in-person class with regular hands-on activities that are difficult to do remotely or in a hybrid way. In-person attendance is generally expected and is part of participation grade. Because sickness, family or work emergencies can come up, we allow missing up to two weeks, no questions asked -- but please send an email with the dates you won't be able to attend to the course staff before class. If you have to miss a third class in-person but can attend on zoom, we will count that as a full attendance if you have received permission from us prior to the class and if it only happens once.

We will take attendance 10 minutes after the class starts, so if you are more than 10 minutes late, this will count as an absence. If you miss class more than twice (or more than three times with permission) we will take off 10% for each day you are missing. These penalties may not be assessed until the end of the quarter, so please keep track of your absences.

In addition, missing a class means that you won't be able to contribute to the group project during class time. Please check in with your group what you can do to make up for that (e.g., you could offer to review and polish what everyone has done in class afterwards and then submit the group assignment). You may also want to check with your group whether they could have you join the group project activities remotely (however, because this hybrid version can be disruptive to everyone involved, we do count this towards the two weeks that we allow students to be absent or remote). Please also catch up with the lecture content, via a recording of the lecture that we will upload to Canvas.

Accomodations and Additional UW Policies

You can reference additional university policies that further apply to this course (e.g., regarding Academic Integrity, Conduct, Disability Resources, Face Covering, Religious Accommodations).

Please do not hesitate to contact the course staff regarding these or any other accommodations. We are happy that you are here and want to support your engagement in this learning environment.