PSY 430/530 Human-Computer Interaction

Instructor: Peter W. Foltz

Office: Science Hall 328

Phone: 646-1980

email: pfoltz@crl.nmsu.edu

Office hours: Tuesday, Thursday 9:30-10:30, or by appointment

Course Description

This course is designed to provide a survey of research and issues in human computer interaction. The primary focus of the course will be on the interactions between humans (users) and computer systems, rather than just on the design of computers. Particular emphasis will be placed on the theoretical, empirical and methodological aspects of HCI. The course will cover issues of: the difficulties of using computers, techniques and tools used in the design of effective interfaces, methods for evaluating interfaces, cognitive models of users, social aspects of computer, and views of the future of computer interfaces. The course will be run more as a seminar than a lecture course. Some of the time I will lecture, some of the time we will discuss papers or students will present papers, and some of the time we will work on projects and demonstrations.

Course Syllabus, policies

[button] Course schedule and readings

[button] Course policies

[button]Readings
Most of the readings for the course will be photocopies available from the Psychology main office. However, you will need to purchase a copy of Norman's book for the course.

You can order the book from Amazon.com Norman, D. A. (1998) The Invisible Computer: Why good products can fail, the personal coputer is so complex, and information appliances are the solution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Other readings will come from:

Landauer,T. K (1996) The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability, and Productivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (available in paperback for $14.80

The Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (available in hardcover for the low low price of $396.50!)

Reading in Human Computer Interaction: Toward the year 2000

Late Breaking Announcements

Announcements such as when the schedule and list of readings have been updated will be posted here.

Assignments

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[button] Assignment 2

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[button] Assignment 4

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Careers in HCI

There are a lot of opportunities for jobs and internships in the HCI field. Here are posts of recent job announcements and internship possiblities.

Undergraduates: The Human-Technology Center at the University of Oklahoma has a "Research Experience for Undergraduates" summer program. Interns at the 8-week program will receive room, board, and a $1000 stipend. For more information see the URL below. If you have questions after seeing the URL feel free to e-mail fdurso@ou.edu The URL is http://www.ou.edu/HTIC/reu

Resources

Search the HCI Bibliography. This is a web-based search engine using Latent Semantic Indexing for searching the HCIBIB. HCIBIB contains references and abstracts for all major HCI conferences and Journals from 1982 up to the present. Click here to go to the search page

Clayton Lewis & John Rieman's "Task-Centered User Interface Design" is the first online shareware book on HCI-material. It is available via anonymous ftp at:ftp.cs.colorado.edu in:/pub/cs/distribs/clewis/HCI-Design-Book. There is a script to generate a WWW page to access the chapters (http://www.acm.org/~perlman/uidesign.html).

Gary Perlman's Resources in HCI

Jakob Nielsen's papers on Heuristic evaluation

Keith Instone's "HCI Launching Pad" at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio

Hans de Graaff's "Index of HCI-Related Material" at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Illustrated and annotated examples of Bad Human Factors Designs by Mike Darnell.

Ameritech's user interface guidelines

Smith and Mosier's User interface guidelines report (not working currently)

A listing of styles and guidelines available online

Usability Engineering site with lots of useful links

HCI related Newsgroups

Other stuff...

The Tao of computers

Human-Factors problem may have contributed to John Denver's death

Click here for Dr. Foltz's web page.