CSE 440: Introduction to Human Computer Interaction

WINTER 2015

Basic Information

Course Staff:

Maya Cakmak	Matt Kay	Brad Jacobson	King Xia
Course Instructor	Head TA	Teaching Assistant	Teaching Assistant

Contact: Email all instructors at cse440-instr [at] cs.washington.edu

Class times & locations: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 10:30-11:50am at EEB 045

Section times & locations: Fridays, two separate sections:

• Section A: 10:30-11:20am at MGH 287
• Section B: 1:30-2:20pm at MGH 254

Office Hours: Scheduled hours are held most weeks, but check the calendar. Other meetings by appointment.

• Maya - Mondays 1:30-2:30pm at CSE 542

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to human-computer interaction and the design process. It 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 improve a design
• Communicate their problem and resulting design

Project Theme

Projects are exploring challenges and opportunities in Personal Informatics. Personal informatics systems are systems that help people collect personally relevant information for the purpose of self-reflection and gaining self-knowledge. Li et al., 2010. People have long sought to better understand themselves, but recently technology advances are enabling fundamentally new approaches. Students will explore the problems people encounter in this space and how new technology can help people reach their goals.

Example projects on the same theme from the Autumn offering include:

• Band-It
• Ka-ching
• IEP Connect
• SoundScape

Project Structure and Grading

Projects are organized around four main assignments, each consistent of several milestones and deliverables. The overall course grade will be computed as follows:

• Group Project (65%)
  • Assignment 1, Project Proposal (5%)
  • Assignment 2, Getting the Right Design (20%)
    • Milestones (5%)
    • Report (10%)
    • Presentation (5%)
  • Assignment 3, Getting the Design Right (20%)
    • Milestones (5%)
    • Report (10%)
    • Presentation (5%)
  • Assignment 4, Communicating the Design (20%)
    • Milestones (5%)
    • Website (5%)
    • Video Prototype (5%)
    • Poster (5%)
• Readings (5%)
• Exam (20%)
• Participation and teamwork (10%)

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 best approach for getting a good grade in this course is to seek feedback from the teaching staff as frequently as possible and take the critiques very seriously.

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.

Anonymous Feedback

Please let us know what is working and what can be improved. CSE 440 is a continually evolving course and your feedback could help us make some adjustments for the rest of the quarter and/or in future offerings. Canvas survey for anonymous feedback can be found here.