I took this class my Senior year in College. It is one of my favorite research areas and I continue my studies in it to this day.
Broadly stated, there are four goals for this class:
1) Understand the principles of user-centered design and how to apply them to a software-based project
2) Understand the history of human-computer interaction and how it’s changed over time
3) Explore why “good” interface design is not necessarily “common sense”
4) Utilize skills and knowledge from other disciplines in developing a software-based project
During the semester we primarily focused on one project as described in the syllabus:
You will undertake a group project to:
+ evaluate some computing-related task/problem
+ develop interface design alternatives for the task/problem
+ implement a prototype of your design
+ evaluate your design
The theme for this semester’s projects is:
Connecting to (*) You.
You should think of this domain as exploring how technological innovation can help an individual become the person they want to be. Thus, the * in the domain above can be “a better”, “a wealthier”, a “healthier”, etc. By design, this is a large and rich domain to explore and we will help you investigate ideas for different problems to explore in this solution. The critical aspect of selecting a problem is that it must matter to some “real-life” people. These people can be a small group of individuals, or a large one, or any group in-between, but they will serve as your “clients” whom you must communicate with and learn from.