COMP 303: Human Factors and User Interfaces

Dr. Grace Ngai, PQ 826, 2766-7279, csgngai _at_ polyu.edu.hk
Lecture: Y305, Thursday 08:30-11:00
Lab/Tutorials:

PQ604B Thursday 14:30-15:30
PQ604B Thursday 16:30-17:30
PQ604C Friday 12:30-13:30
PQ604B Friday 17:30-18:30

Instructor Office Hours: Friday 15:30-16:30 or by appointment.

Welcome to COMP 303! The topic of this course is Human Factors and User Interfaces, or, as I like to call it, Human-Computer Interaction. In this course, you will be learning about why certain interfaces (such as the iPod) get popular, and why others don't. You will find out that there's a lot more to creating a successful, usable application than just the programming.

Please refer to this page often for updates. Lecture notes will also be posted here. Make sure that you print out your own copy before the lecture. I will not distribute copies in class.

Updates

Updates and announcements will be posted here. Keep an eye out and check this page frequently for the latest information.

Nov 18 2009: The slides for direct manipulation have been released.
Nov 11 2009: The slides for conceptual models have been released.
Nov 7 2009: The grading scheme and appeals procedure for the midterm has been release. Please read this first before you come to us with any questions.
Nov 4 2009: There will be no tutorials this week. Instead, we will be doing the presentations for the paper prototype. The venue for the presentations will be in QT402.
Nov 4 2009: The lecture notes for quantitative evaluation are out.
Oct 30 2009: We are getting too many questions about the paper prototyping assignment, so I added some clarifications for it.
Oct 29 2009: The guidelines for the minimal manual have been released.
Oct 28 2009: I have a lot of old folders available from previous years' assignments and projects. Please come by and pick up some for your own use! Let's try to recycle and help the planet some!
Oct 25 2009: An additional note: The midterm will be closed book, closed notes.
Oct 25 2009: The lecture notes for documentation are out.
Oct 25 2009: The Midterm will be held on Thursday, October 29. THe logistics are:

There're too many of you to fit into one room, so we have booked another room for the midterm:

If your last name is between AU and KWAN, please go to Y306.
Otherwise, you will take the midterm in Y305.

The TAs will check your IDs at the door and then tell you where to sit. So please help out and line up outside the room before the midterm.
The midterm will start at 8:45am and last for one hour.
After the midterm, we will give you a break, and then we will have lecture. We'll talk about manual writing, which will be your third writing assignment.

Oct 23 2009: I have added some more clarifications to the qualitative evaluation assignment. Hope they can help to clear up some confusions.
Oct 21 2009: The slides for Languages are out.
Oct 14 2009: Sorry for the lateness -- today has been a crazy day. The slides for Dialogs is out. Not sure if we'll get there tomorrow, but we can try.
Oct 14 2009: For students who are not taking COMP 311: Our instructor, Roy, has very kindly offered to add an additional lab section to show you guys how to use MS Access and connect to that via Visual Basic. The session will be on Oct 20 (Tuesday), from 18:30-21:00, in PQ604C. Be there!
Oct 13 2009: The Qualitative Evaluation Grouplist has been released. Since some of you did not sign up for groups, we have randomly grouped you guys up; some of you also turned in textfiles with invalid group lists and those groups also may have been reformed. Please check out your group number and contact your group partners.
Oct 12 2009: The signup sheets for the Paper Prototype (Final Project Checkpoint) and Qualitative Evaluation presentations have been posted outside my office door. The venue is still to be determined but hopefully we will get that finalized in the next couple of days. The Final Project Grouplist is available, the Qualitative Evaluation grouplist will be released tomorrow afternoon.

Note: For the paper prototype presentation, only students who are taking COMP303 need to be present for the presentation.

Oct 12 2009: The Thursday 4:30pm tutorial for this week (October 15) has been moved to PQ606. Just for this week because another class needs to use the combined lab.
Oct 9 2009: Some clarifications for Written Assignment 2:

Background: You run a usability company, and you have been hired by one of the banks to perform a usability test for their cheque deposit machine. You job is to look for usability problems with their machine, and write a report back to the manager of the bank.
Two things that you need to prove: (1) that you know what you're talking about, and (2) that you did do the work and you're worth the money that they're paying you (they may have other jobs for you in the future if they're pleased with your work.
To show that you know what you're talking about, you may wish to put in some theoretical information. For example, if you can back up what you're talking about with some theory stuff that you have learned in class, go ahead and quote it. However, do not go overboard. Remember that you're writing this for a non-academic audience, you are not writing a research paper. You need to be able to "sell" yourself, and boring your reader with lots of theory isn't the way to do it.
To show that you did do your job, you need to show them that you tested several scenarios, and also compared their system with that of a competitor's for reference. Remember to name the competitor and give details -- just saying "a competitor" does not sound very convincing.
Format of your report: Some of you asked me whether you can use tables, figures, etc, in your report. The answer is: whatever you feel is appropriate and can help you communicate the best, go ahead and use it. Just keep within the page limit.
Title of your report: The title of your report should be: "A Usability Study for the Cheque Deposit Machine for XXX Bank, XXX Branch".

Oct 7 2009: The slides for Prototyping and Formal Models are out.
Oct 5 2009: Some changes in the tutorial times and venues:

The Monday section has been moved to Friday, 17:30-18:30, in PQ604B, as of next week (October 16).
The Thursday afternoon sections are now both in PQ604B.

Sept 28 2009: A lot of things have been released: Check the Assignments section of this page. I have decided to go ahead and give you as many of the assignments as I have ready; you make up your own schedule and do your own time planning. Plan ahead and start working now as it looks like November is going to be a hellish month!
Sept 25 2009: Since next Thursday is a public holiday and two of the tutorial groups will be cancelled that day, I'm going to cancel all the COMP 303 tutorials for next week, so as to be fair to all students. Our tutorials will resume on October 5th. Have a good holiday.
Sept 23 2009: I was looking at the course calendar and I don't think that we will have time for 4 written assignments. Therefore, I have decided to cut down the number of written assignments to 3. To be fair, I will not change the weight for the assignments that you have already handed in: The first written assignment will still take up 4% of the total grade, the final project 50%. The changes in weight are in the other written assignments (now taking up 5% and 6% of the grade respectively), and the qualitative assignment (now taking up 15% of the grade).
Sept 23 2009: Not sure if I will get to it in tomorrow's lecture, but just in case: the lecture notes for Task Analysis have been released.
Sept 23 2009: The second written assignment has been released.
Sept 22 2009: Visual Basic Material for this week's tutorial has been released. Please print out your own copy and bring it to class.
Sept 19 2009: Dr. Ho has kindly made available some sample programs for your visual basic exercises. They are in the tutorial notes section.
Sept 18 2009: A clarification has been added to the written assignment: the review report for each paper should be no longer than 2 pages. That means that you should hand in four pages total (2 reviews) per group.
Sept 17 2009: The Second Life assignment is out. I know that some of you will have already completed this in tutorial, the rest of you, please check and make sure you complete it before the deadline.
Sept 17 2009: I apologize as the lecture notes weren't ready this morning for lecture. I thought that I had posted them, but apparently not. Here they are.
Sept 16 2009: Visual Basic Material for this week's tutorial has been released. Please print out your own copy and bring it to class.
Sept 12 2009: I apologize as it seems that the inconsistent terminology that I have been using has confused some of you. In the future, I will state both the number and the type of the assignment when I refer to them. So the assignment that is due now should be called the Written Assignment 1. The old assignment 1 (which is not ready yet) will be called the Qualitative Evaluation Assignment, and you don't need to worry about that yet.
Sept 11 2009: Since the qualitative evaluation assignment isn't ready yet, I'm going to push back the due date for signing up for that. So don't worry about it and get on with your written assignment!
Sept 9 2009: The first written assignment has been released. We're also pushing back the date for the Usability Test.
Sept 9 2009: Visual Basic Material for this week's tutorial has been released. Please print out your own copy and bring it to class.
Sept 9 2009: The slides for the next two topics have been released.
A clarification about the group projects: When making up your groups, please do try and form homogeneous groups (i.e. everybody taking the same courses) if possible. If you must form a heterogeneous group, then the groups cannot span more than 2 courses. In other words, when you do your presentations at the end of the semester, you shouldn't require more than 2 professors to be present.

Course Schedule and Calendar

Text

Getting a textbook for HCI is somewhat difficult as there is no "definitive" textbook. Instead, I will put as much material into the lecture notes as I can. I will also be using a collection of references throughout the semester. Everything that I have asked you to read is potential material for the midterm or the exam.

Lecture notes will be available latest by Wednesday noon for Thursday's classes. Please make sure to print out your own copy and bring it to class!

Introduction: What is HCI?
Qualitative Evaluation: How do we know that an interface is good?

Human Information Processing: What can we expect from a human?
Task/User/Needs Analysis and Prototyping: How do we start making an interface?
Formal Models (GOMS & KLM): How do we formally specify an interface?
Conceptual Models: How do users learn how to use an interface?
Languages and Communication: Can we talk with the computer?
Formal Models (STN): How do we specify a dialog?
Direct Manipulation: How do we make the user "forget" the computer?
Documentation: How do we teach the user how to use our system?

Example: Minimal Manual for MS Access

Heuristics and Graphical Design: Are there easy guidelines for design?
Quantitative Evaluation: Can we measure the "goodness" of an interface?
Usability Inspection: What guidelines and heuristics can we use to evaluate an interface?
Looking to the future: How will computers change?

Tutorial materials will also be posted here.

Lab 1 sample programs

In addition, I will also be giving out reading material as well. These may come from research papers, or from newspapers and magazines, or from design books.

TAs

Your TA is Winnie Lau. She will be giving you tutorials on visual basic and helping you with the conceptual problems in the lecture material, should you need it. You can feel free to ask her questions about the course material and for hints on Visual Basic, but please do remember:

She is here to help you with your work, not do it for you,
Please be considerate. The TA is a student like you and on top of coursework, she has research as well (so she's actually carrying a heavier load than you are). She is not obliged to help you outside of lab/tutorial/office hours. Don't go imposing on her time.

The grading in COMP 303 is split 65/35. The final exam therefore takes up 35% of the overall grade, while the continuous assessment takes up 65%. The continuous assessment will comprise of a number of assignments, one mid-term and a final project.

The tentative continous assessment grade distribution for COMP 303 is the following:

Mid-term Examination: 20%
Qualitative Analysis: 15%

Report: 65%
Presentation: 35% (15 minutes. Everybody in the group needs to be present.)

3 Written Reports: 15%

1. Paper Review (4%)
2. Case Study: Bank Cheque Deposit Machines (5%)
3. Writing a Minimal Manual (6%)

Final Project: 50%

Paper Prototype: 30% (Evaluated via deliverables and presentation. Presentation to last 15 minutes. Everybody from the group needs to be present.)
Final Project Deliverable: 65%

Presentation: 20% (Details to be posted later.)
Report: 10%
Manual: 15%
Usability Testing: 15%
Functionality and Design: 40%
Second Life Tasks (in tutorial): 5%

You will notice that quite a lot of the COMP 303 continuous assessment grades are based upon presentations and reports. The reason for this is that COMP 303 is primarily about the human side of computing, of which linguistic communication plays a big part. Therefore, I see language -- written and oral -- as being a very crucial part of what COMP 303 is about.

Please also do note that these grade distributions are tentative only. I reserve the right to change them if needs be -- for example, if we find that we don't have enough time to do all the presentations, I may substitute written reports for presentations.

Assignments

Second Life Assignment. Due date: September 27, 2009
Written Assignment 1: Paper review. Due date: September 21, 2009
Written Assignment 2: Evaluation of a Cheque Deposit Machine. Due date: October 12, 2009
Qualitative Evaluation Sign Up. Please sign up for your qualitative evaluation assignment. We need to know the number of groups to plan for the presentation. No more than 3 per group, please. Deadline: October 10, 2009, 7am
Qualitative Evaluation Assignment. Due date: November 16, 2009, 7am
Final Project Checkpoint: Paper Prototype. Due date: November 2, 2009, 7am
Written Assignment 3: A Minimal Manual for the i*CATch Graphical Programming System. Due date: November 30, 2009

Note: You will have three presentations this semester: one for the qualitative evaluation, one for the prototyping, and one for the final project. Your presentation will count for grade. Here are some slides demonstrating a bad presentation, and a good presentation. You might also want to read this article on how to present well. (Note that this article, and the slides, are for a conference talk and therefore, not everything applies to your presentations. However, the main points of what makes a good presentation are the same, regardless of who you're presenting to.

There will be one qualitative evaluation assignment, four written assignments and a final project for COMP 303. All of the assignments are group assignments. The rules on forming groups are:

The qualitative evaluation assignment should be done in groups of no more than 3 students each. No exceptions.
The written assignments should be done in groups of no more than 2 students each. No exceptions.
The final project should be done in groups of no more than 4 students each. No exceptions, please read below for clarifications.

The final project will be a joint project between COMP 311 (Databases) and this course. Now I know that the COMP 311 course is split into two sections, one taught by Dr. Vincent Ng and the other by Dr. Stephen Chan. To make matters easier for us, we're going to ask you to form groups only with students who're taking the same set of courses as you are. In other words, if you are taking Dr. Ng's course and my course, all your groupmates should be only taking Dr. Ng's course and my course. If you're only taking my course, all your groupmates should only be taking my course. Please help us with this constraint as it really makes life a lot easier for us in the end.

For those students who're only taking COMP 303 and may be concerned at the load of the project, since it involves COMP 311 as well: Don't worry. The COMP 311 deadlines and specifications don't concern you. I will only be grading on COMP 303 stuff. In fact, you could argue that you might have an advantage since you don't need to worry about making a nice, perfect database and can concentrate on the UI part.

Course Info and No-Cheating Policy

I have taught most of you in COMP 201 before, and one thing that I would like you to do, coming into COMP 303, is to expect something completely different. In other words, what was important in 201 may not be important in 303. What got you a good grade in 201 will probably not be what's crucial in 303.

What do I mean by that? If you remember 201, it was a very technical course -- there, you learned how to think like a computer, how to command it to do stuff. In 201, the more "robotic" you were, the better it was. The focus was on being methodical, detail-oriented and logical.

COMP 303 is a completely different beast altogether. As the name implies, COMP 303 is a very human oriented course. We will be looking at what would be needed to make computers "natural". Therefore, we're asking you to be a human again: to look at a computer just like a human being would. But of course, you still need to be able to code in your application, so don't forget the programming part yet!

HCI encompasses a whole lot of topics -- ranging from statistics, psychology, design, etc. You may feel that these topics may have very little to do with each other, but they all have one thing in common: they are all concerned with human usage of a computer interface.

In short, COMP 303 is a very different course all around. To me, it is one of the most exciting fields in computer science today. So let's get started and start exploring it!

No-Cheating Policy

Most of the assignments in COMP 303 will be group assignments, therefore, we don't have as stringent a no-cheating policy as in COMP 201. However, please be aware that we do expect everybody in the group to pull his/her own weight and do a fair share of the work. Believe me, with a little questioning, it's not too hard to find out who's done what. I also do not believe in automatically giving everybody in the group the same grade, so you have been warned.

Obviously, the work that you present as yours in the assignments or the final project needs to be your own. Do not be tempted to pass off some other code as yours. Doing so will constitute cheating and will result in failing the course.

For all written assignments (that includes reports and written manuals), I will require that all submissions be done through Turnitin. Turnitin is a system that will check how much of the language

For mid-terms and final examinations, I assume that you know what it means to cheat during those. If you do not know that already, come and ask me and I will be happy to explain. If a student is found cheating during the midterm or final exam, the case will be reported to the academic department that the student belongs to, and the student will fail the course automatically, regardless of his/her performance in other assessment components in this course.