The Undergraduate Major and Minor in HCI Human Computer Interaction Institute School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University

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The Undergraduate Major and Minor in HCIHuman
Computer Interaction InstituteSchool of Computer
ScienceCarnegie Mellon University

• Vincent Aleven
• Newell Simon Hall 3135
• aleven_at_cs.cmu.edu

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What is the HCII?

• Our Mission
• Engineering Design To create effective,
  usable, enjoyable experiences with technology
  through interdisciplinary research and teaching
  in design, computer science, the behavioral and
  social sciences, and engineering
• Science To understand the impact of technology
  on individuals, groups, and organizations.

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The Philosophy of the HCI undergraduate programs

• Take excellent students with depth in one
  discipline relevant to HCI and give them the
  educational opportunity to walk in the shoes of
  the other disciplines.

Make the students more effective members of
interdisciplinary teams in industry Prepare
students for leadership in HCI-related industries
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Educational programs for undergraduates

• Second major
• Formal admissions with 50 admissions rate
• 11 courses, including a final project
• Guaranteed admission to core courses
• Minor
• No formal admission, just sign up
• 7 courses
• No guarantees in getting into courses
• After one core course, access to other core
  course guaranteed

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On the Philosophy

• Undergrad education HCI will provide students
• Basic skills for designing and implementing
  user-centered software
• Appreciation of the varied skills necessary to
  make useful, usable satisfying interactive
  products
• Ability to communication with specialists in
  other areas
• It will not make software developers into
  designers or psychologists into programmers.
• It is not a second degree.

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Human-Centered DesignThe User is Not Like Me
Human FactorsCognitive PsychologyMotivationGrou
p behavior
ColorLayoutGraphic Design Interaction Design
Interviews Surveys Experiments Think alouds
Heuristic evaluation Focus groups Cognitive
walk-throughs Statistical analysis
Flash, Director, Visual Basic, HTML, Databases,
Java, C, GUI toolkits, UI architectures
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What makes the HCII dynamic?

• CMU has the best Human-Computer Interaction
  program in the country
• One of the few (only?) with an undergraduate
  major
• Tight integration of
• Technology
• Behavioral Science
• Design
• Breadth and Depth
• Students from SCS, CFA and HSS
• Interdisciplinary faculty

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What students like about the program

• Interdisciplinary
• Project focused
• Flexible

• Working with people from other disciplines
• The interdisciplinary nature. I learned a lot
  from having courses outside my major and from
  working with people that have different focii
• Courses were project oriented
• Applying the skills I learned in classes to
  research projects

• Without this major, I would have never
  discovered my enjoyment for creatively solving
  problems with constraints and business needs.
• The professors. I was lucky because all of the
  core classes were taught by professors who were
  well-respected in the field and clearly knew
  their stuff

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HCI Second Major Curriculum
4 Pre-requisites
3 Core courses 4 Electives
Senior project
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HCI Second Major Core Courses

• Introduction to User Centered Research and
  Evaluation
• Use empirical and analytical methods to figure
  out what users of systems want and will find easy
  and fun to use and learn
• Test whether you delivered the right experience
• Basic Interface Design/Interaction Design
  Fundamentals
• Translate between problem definitions and
  innovative designs
• Technology core differs by technical skill
• Programming Usable Interfaces (non-CS majors)
• Software Structures for User Interfaces (CS
  majors)
• UI lab (sections on GUI, mobile applications, web
  applications)
• Capstone Project

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HCI Second MajorSenior Capstone Project Course
Goals

• Apply HCI skills on a semester-long project
• Work in interdisciplinary teams (3-5 people)
• Work with clients
• Integrate skills gathered over the curriculum
• Learn to write reports give presentations

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Mattress Factory Interactive Archive of Past
Installations
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Controls for a Semi-Autonomous Orchard Tractor
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Classroom Controls
Now in use in CMU classrooms!
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3D Dentistry
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2013 Projects
PlayPower Create a teacher dashboard that presents information about students learning with educational games.
Doctor in a Box Data visualization to help clinicians make decisions based on a patients DNA
Bossa Nova provide guidance to home users interacting with robot assistants
Platypus Data visualization for environmental monitoring with small autonomous airboats
Schell Games community website where aspiring game designers develop their game ideas with a professional Schell Games team.
PayTango Create a prototype system (hardware and software) for fingerprint-based payment system
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Quote by a student about the capstone project

• I had the chance to use HCI methods and
  understand the basis for them. We had to
  constantly test and change things based on the
  very specific needs of our users. Things that
  seemed so simple to us were like a foreign
  language to them. It really helped drive the
  entire point of HCI home to me.

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2 Restricted Electives 2 Others

• http//www.hcii.cmu.edu/undergraduate-electives
• Many electives offered by the HCII

• Visualization i-Pad programming
• Computer Supported Cooperative Work
• Speech Recognition and Understanding
• Applied Machine Learning
• Introduction to Product Design
• Assistive Technology
• Smart Homes
• Personalized Online Learning

• Human Factors
• Social Web
• Gadgets
• Educational Games
• Applied Cognitive Psych
• Rapid Prototyping of Computer Systems
• Advanced Topics UI Software
• Usable Security Privacy

• gt100 others in other part of the university
• Business, CFA, HSS, CS, Robotics, Entertainment
  Technologies

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• Skills How to build interactive devices (AKA
  !)
• Add to your toolbox of techniques Prototyping
  simple µcontroller-based electronic devices
• Concepts What can be done with them from an HCI
  perspective

• Join the strugglebuild somethingfor the user!
• taught by Scott Hudson

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Design of Educational Games05-418/05-818 HCII
Vincent Aleven

• The potential of digital games to improve
  education is enormous. However, it is a
  significant challenge to create a game that is
  both fun and educational. In this course,
  students learn to meet this challenge by
  combining principles and processes from game
  design and instructional design.

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Steven Dow ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
social media
micro-task crowds
crowdfunding
A-B testing
storyboarding
needfinding
making a pitch
brainstorming
prototyping
EMAIL spdow_at_cs.cmu.edu WEB
www.cs.cmu.edu/spdow
Crowd-Driven Innovation
COURSE NAME
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Developing iPad Applications for Visualization
Insight
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Applied Cognitive Science 05-395 (R. Klatzky)
Virtual Reality Perceptually Based
Decisions Eyewitness Testimony Cognitive
Tutoring Learning To Read Spatial Thinking Speech
recognition and synthesis Rational vs. Emotional
Marketing Automated Language Understanding Neural
Plasticity and Remediation Expertise
Sport Sleep Learning
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Personalized Online LearningVincent Aleven

• Learners are different and personalized learning
  is far more effective than one-size-fits-all
  approaches. This course covers a number of proven
  personalization techniques used in advanced
  learning technologies.
• One of the techniques is the use of cognitive
  modeling to personalize practice of complex
  cognitive skills in intelligent tutoring systems.
  This approach, developed at CMU, may well be the
  most significant application of cognitive science
  in education and is commercially successful.

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Independent Study

• Many students do an independent study to explore
  a particular area in depth
• Personalized, a negotiation between the student
  and a professor
• Can be in any department, just like any other
  elective
• Often grows out of personal contacts after taking
  class with an instructor
• I send out announcements at beginning of semester

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Comparison of Requirements

• Minor
• Just sign up complete courses
• No guarantees
• 1 Prerequisites
• Freshman-level programming
• 2 Core courses
• Designing Human-Centered Systems (DHCS)
• Combines User Centered Research
• Programming Usable Interfaces
• Design for HCI (DHCI)
• Combines Interaction Design Fundamentals
  Interaction Design Studio
• 4 Electives
• No Project

• HCI Second Major
• Formal admissions process
• Guaranteed slots for core courses
• 4 Prerequisites
• Freshman-level programming
• Interaction Design Fundamentals
• Statistics (introductory)
• Cognitive psychology
• 3 Core courses
• User Centered Research
• Interaction Design Studio
• HCI Programming (PUI/SSUI)
• 4 Electives
• Capstone Project

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Designing Human-Centered Systems (core course for
the Minor)

• How to design human-centered systems that people
  find useful and usable
• Into to designing, prototyping, evaluating user
  interfaces
• Cover theory and practical applications of HCI
  concepts
• Lecture-style, discussion, homework, class
  presentations
• Big group project

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BHCI vs MHCI Requirements
Similar goals, quite a bit overlap!

• MHCI
• 3 Prerequisites
• Freshman-level programming
• Interaction Design Fundamentals
• Statistics (thru multivariate regression)
• 4 Core courses
• User Centered Research
• Interaction Design Studio
• HCI Programming (PUI/SUUI)
• HCI Pro-seminar
• MHCI Project (2 semesters 60 units)
• 5 Electives

• BHCI
• 4 Prerequisites
• Freshman-level programming
• Interaction Design Fundamentals
• Statistics (introductory)
• Cognitive psychology
• 3 Core courses
• User Centered Research
• Interaction Design Studio
• HCI Programming (PUI/SSUI)
• BHCI Project
• 4 Electives

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Accelerated Masters Option

• Complete a masters degree in 2 semesters past
  undergrad degree
• More in-depth project course
• 5 electives (most at Masters level)
• Pro-seminar (outside lectures meetings with
  visiting HCI researchers and professionals)

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Careers In HCI

• Undergraduates get good jobs job offers (AY
  2011/2012 data)

Degree Median salary offer
Bachelors, HCI 79,500
Computer science 95,000
Psychology 45,000
Information Systems 67,000
Communication Design 60,000
Masters, HCI 85,000
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Other reasons for getting an HCI 2nd major / minor

• More interesting problems to work on
• More interaction with stakeholders
• Creative expression
• Working on the parts of computers that everyone
  sees
• Fame
• Personal interest
• Career security, etc.

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Companies Where B/MHCI Alumni Work

• Riberbed
• Rosetta Stone
• Round Arch
• RoundArch
• Roundarch
• Salesforce.com
• Schematic
• Schoolnet
• Shiny Entertainment
• Speaker Text
• Tagged
• Teach for America
• Team Detroit
• Thermo Fisher Scientific
• Thomson Reuters
• TripAdvisor
• UBS Investment Bank
• Union pacific railroad
• University of Michigan

• APT
• Accenture
• Adobe
• Amazon
• Amazon.com
• Apple Inc
• Applied Predictive Technologies
• Athena Health
• Bank of America Global Markets Technology
• Boeing
• Brulant/Rosetta
• CGI
• Cengage Aplia
• Deloitte
• Democratic National Committee
• Deutsche Bank
• Digg
• Discovery Engine
• Dobly

• Google
• Green Hills Software
• HPTi
• IBM
• Intuit
• JPMorgan Chase
• Jonnson Johnson
• Kaiser Permanente
• LearningBop
• Lockheed Martin
• LotterShelly
• Manhattan Associates, Atlanta
• McKinsey
• Merrill Lynch
• Microsoft
• Moment Design
• NASA
• New York Times
• NextJump

Plus 15 have started their own companies
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Admission to the Major

• 25-30 Students / Graduating Year
• Applications due by March 8, 2013 (Friday before
  Spring Break)
• Follow instructions on the website
• Statement of purpose (Why is HCI for you?)
• Proposed course schedule (Can you fit everything
  in?)
• Letter of reference (optional)
• www.hcii.cmu.edu/Academics/Undergrad/applying/appl
  ying.html
• Decisions announced April 1, 2013 (well before
  Fall Registration Week)
• Criteria
• QPA (threshold ? 3.0)
• Relevance and clarity in statement of purpose
• Viable plan for completing major
• Diversity relevance of courses taken
• Available Slots

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Chances of Admission (2011)

• Freshman
• 8/16
• 50
• Mean GPA3.6
• Sophomores Juniors
• 26/38
• 68
• Mean GPA3.5
• If you dont get in at first attempt, apply again
  next year!

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More Information

• Vincent Aleven
• Director of Undergraduate Program
• 3531 NSH
• aleven_at_cs.cmu.edu
• 412 268-5475
• Robert Kraut
• Director of Undergraduate Program
• 3515 NSH
• robert.kraut_at_cmu.edu
• 412 268-7694
• Indra Szegedy
• Program Coordinator
• 3526 NSH
• indras_at_cs.cmu.edu
• 412 268-4431

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Questions?
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More Popular Electives

• Computer Science
• Technology Consulting in the Community
• Web Application Development
• Engineering Software Intensive Systems
• Human Aspects of Software Engineering
• Architectures for Software Systems
• Computers and Security
• Artificial Intelligence

• Design
• Designing Identities
• Understanding Perception Through Design
• Design Management and Organizational Behavior
• Designing for Service
• Mapping and Diagramming
• Color and Communication
• How Things Are Made
• Product Planning
• Sketching and Modeling
• Industrial Design Fundamentals
• Conceptual Models
• Methodology of Visualization
• Typographic Play

• Behavioral Sciences
• Perception
• Human Information Processing and Artificial
  Intelligence
• Interpersonal Relationships
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Research Methods for
• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Learning Sciences
• Organizational Behavior
• Human Expertise
• Applications of Cognitive Science
• Cognitive Modeling