CMPUT%20301:%20Lecture%2001%20Introduction

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CMPUT 301 Lecture 01Introduction

• Lecturer Martin Jagersand
• Department of Computing Science
• University of Alberta
• Notes based on previous courses by
• Ken Wong, Eleni Stroulia
• Zach Dodds, Martin Jagersand

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HCI and program design

• Why worry about the user?
• People more expensive than machines
• Errors may be unacceptable
• Cant sell unattractive and hard to learn SW
• Design
• For the user Useful, correct, complete,
  efficient
• For the programmer Portable, changeable,
  extensible, reusable

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Course contentHow to do User Interfaces

• Object Oriented SW eng
• Learn the programming skills
• The human
• What perceptual skills support what interaction?
• Design and evaluation
• Task analysis, usability, evaluation

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ExampleInteraction and interfaces

• The past?
• Text based interaction

If A then end
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The present Direct manipulation

• xfig drawing program Icons afford use
• Results visible
• Direct spatial action-result mapping

matlab drawing
line(10, 20,30, 85) patch(35, 22,15, 35,
C) C complex structure text(70,30,'Kalle')
Potentially add font, size, etc
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The future?Vision and Touch UI

• Observe and Interpret Physical Interactions
• Make Machines work with Humans
• Soon most appliances will have embedded computers

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Motivation

• Clint Eastwood classification
• the good
• the bad
• the ugly

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Motivation

• The good

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Motivation

• The bad

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Motivation

• The ugly

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Question

• What are some other examples?
• In the real world?

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Why Design?

• Despite the enormous outward success of personal
  computers, the daily experience of using
  computers far too often is still fraught with
  difficulty, pain, and barriers for most people.

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Why Design?

• The lack of usability of software and the poor
  design of programs are the secret shame of the
  industry. Mitch Kapor

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Why Design?

• Theres more to developing software than just
  making it work correctly.

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Why Design?
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Software Design

• User perspective
• meets needs
• increase user satisfaction
• reduce frustration
• increase productivity
• reduce errors
• easy to learn
• easy to use

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Software Design

• Developer perspective
• manage complexity
• reduce maintenance and support costs
• increase quality
• reduce defects
• increase reuse
• reduce time-to-market

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Software Design

• Selected goals
• bridging users and technology effectively
• marry art and science
• evolutionary development(design, implement,
  evaluate)
• integrate expertise across disciplines

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Multiple Disciplines

• industrial design
• graphic design
• architecture
• ergonomics
• cognitive psychology
• sociology
• anthropology
• ethics

• software engineering
• computer science
• visualization
• experimentation
• intellectual property
• arts
• business

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Software Design

• Think about the user.
• Focus on goals and tasks.
• Try it out on the users.
• Involve the users.
• Iterate.

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Book

• Human-Computer Interaction
• by Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory Abowd, and
  Russell Beale,
• Prentice-Hall, 1998
• http//www.hcibook.com/hcibook/

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Instructor Martin Jagersand

• Office
• Athabasca Hall 401
• Office Hours
• By appointment
• E-mail
• jag_at_ugrad.cs.ualberta.ca
• Phone
• 780 492 5496

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Staying in Touch

• WWW page
• http//ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/c301/
• Newsgroup
• ualberta.courses.cmput.301
• Emails
• Your section TA, e.g. ayman, trysi etc
• jag_at_ugrad.cs.ualberta.ca

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Project

• Complex
• Components
• Integration (early!)
• Vague
• Talk to users
• Evolution
• Team effort
• Hold regular meetings
• Assign tasks
• Peer reviews

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Grading

• Assignments 15
• Midterm Exam 15
• Project Parts 40
• Final Exam 30
• Note All assignments and project parts are
  due on a Monday at 12 noon. The TAs will explain
  the submission process in the labs. Late
  submissions will not be accepted.

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End

• What did I learn today?
• What questions do I still have?