Course description, from the catalogue:

IS U570 Human Computer Interaction (4 SH)
Studies the principles of human-computer interaction and the practice of user interface design. Discusses the major human information processing sub-systems (perception, memory, attention, and problem-solving), and how the properties of these systems influence the design of interactive systems. Reviews guidelines and specification languages for designing user interfaces, with an emphasis on toolkits of standard graphical-user-interface objects. Introduces usability metrics and evaluation methods. Additional topics may include: World Wide Web design principles and tools; wireless/mobile device interfaces; computer-supported cooperative-work; information visualization; virtual reality. Coursework includes designing user interfaces, creating working prototypes using a GUI toolkit, and evaluating existing interfaces using the methods studied. Note the prerequisite: CSU370 (Object-Oriented Design).

Course Key Number:

50503

Institution:

Northeastern University, and the College of Computer and Information Science, Boston, MA.

Instructor:

Professor Robert P. Futrelle   Email me at: futrelle@ccs.neu.edu.
You can also use a web form to contact me without needing email access at all.

Futrelle's Office:

450 WVH, Lab 460 WVH

Hardcopy mailbox:

202 WVH

Telephone:

Futrelle's office: 617-373-4239, Lab: 617-373-4607

Teaching Assistant:

Jason Blind
Email: djb@ccs.neu.edu
Office hours: Tuesdays 3:30pm-4:30pm, Thursdays 3pm - 4pm
Room 460WVH

Textbook:

Designing the User Interface by Shneiderman and Plaisant, 4th edition (Addison-Wesley, 2005).

Book on constructing GUIs with Java/Swing:

This book was developed by Sun and is free online at this location, as well as available as a hardcopy from any bookdealer. It is The JFC Swing Tutorial: A Guide to Constructing GUIs, 2nd Edition by Kathy Walrath, et al. Both this book and the textbook are on reserve in Snell Library. Also see Futrelle's Swing page.

Personal Help:

Futrelle has regularly scheduled office hours, If you need help at any time, find Futrelle or the TA, or call or send email, or ask in class to set up an appointment.

Classes:

Tuesdays and Fridays, 1:35-3:15 (Seq F), Room 325 SH

Projects:

All students will participate in a project team with one or two other students. See the Projects page for details. Every student in the course will be programming in Java and Swing as well as writing substantial reports for project design and results.

Honors Adjunct:

There is an Honors Adjunct for this course. The topics will be an interface for a diagram system ( see this earlier work in Lisp or as a more specific example, this page.) and/or developing an Eclipse plug-in. These are not "academic" exercises, but an integral part of an ongoing basic research program in Professor Futrelle's lab.

Grading:

The items below add to 100 points. No score will be dropped except for valid medical or similar reasons with proper documentation.

• 2 points. Joining the course mailing list by 11:59pm, Thursday, September 16th, via this page.
• 5 points. Project #1, initial description.
• 8 points. Quiz #1.
• 8 points. Project #1, completed (total of 13 points for Project #1)
• 18 points. Midterm Exam.
• 8 points. Project #2, initial description.
• 8 points. Quiz #2.
• 17 points. Project #2, completed (total of 25 points for Project #2).
• 26 points. Final Exam.

The pop quizzes are worth 3 points each and can increase your total points for the course beyond 100, in principle.

The course email archives:

All students must sign up for the mailing list (see above) so you can all get important notices and exchange questions, answers and information. All mail to the list is archived https://lists.ccs.neu.edu/pipermail/Isu570-f04-rpf/. Post away -- your questions and information may well be of interest to other students in the class. Post mail to the list from your registered email address to: Isu570-f04-rpf@lists.ccs.neu.edu
Three other points about the list:

• You must join the list before you can send mail to it.
• You must post to the list from the email address(es) you're registered with. Else it will be rejected and not posted. If you want to do duplicate registration with two email addresses, you can, and you can adjust your options for either or both, e.g., no mail from one, but you can post from it, etc.
• If you reply to list mail, your reply will be sent to the list, by default. Before you send off your mail you should change the To: field to someone else, if you don't want it to go to the list.
• If you reply to a list mail item, it will join a thread for that item. Merely sending to the list with the same subject line as another threaded item will not cause it to be included in that thread. In fact, you can amend or change the subject line in your reply and your reply will be added to the thread.

Go to ISU570 home page. or RPF's Teaching Gateway or homepage