University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

School of Information and Library Science

 

INLS 818

Human Computer Interaction Seminar

Fall 2007

Syllabus

 

Time and Place                                                     Instructor: Gary Marchionini            

5:30-8:00 Wedndays.                                           Email: march@ils.unc.edu                   www.ils.unc.edu/~march

Office 203 Manning Hall

Phone (919) 966-3611

 

Brief Course Description

 

This seminar will address research and development issues related to the design and evaluation of user interfaces that support information seeking and information use.  The seminar will investigate the nature of interactivity, user needs assessment, universal access and alternative interfaces, query and browse interactions, iterative design and maintenance, and usability testing.  Participants will read/view and discuss documents (text and video), compare and critique user interfaces for information retrieval, and work in a team to develop and evaluate an interface prototype or conduct a usability study of an existing interface.

The Fall 2007 seminar is problem-based, rooted in ongoing work and specific research interests.  Ongoing work relates to the nature of interactivity, browsing and interactive search, personal identity in cyberspace, and digital libraries.  Case studies of past and current projects related to these themes will be used to illustrate principles and skills. Some themes and problem areas this semester will include: personal health record usability, video retrieval and annotation with emphasis on audio surrogates, structured data annotation, and biometric data collection and measures.  Research projects underway for 2006-07 include overviews and previews and faceted interfaces for digital libraries and large web sites, especially video retrieval and browsing; and capture and preservation of ephemeral video context.  Ongoing development of systems (e.g., Relation Browser, Open Video will be linked to the information resources in the research projects above. This year, the seminar will focus on the status of input/output devices and styles with implications for design of new information services.

 

Course Materials

No textbook is required.  Required readings/viewings are online ( see reading list).  Laptops are required for some class sessions (with wireless card and/or CD or DVD drive).

 

Assignments and Evaluation

Term Project: small group design and implementation or formal usability study (40%)

Critique (10%), user study outline (10%), group literature synthesis on I/O  (15%)

Readings/viewings, Interface “Tours”, and Class Participation (25%)

 

Tentative Schedule

 

Session                  Topic                                                                     

 

Week 1 Aug. 22    Introduction: Information Interaction Perspective

Day 1 Notes

Introduction to course

HCI as augmentation of the intellect

Interface as manifestation of the embodied mind

Information retrieval and information experience as HCI applications: Toward HCIR

 

Review of Software Design Processes

                (waterfalls and spirals)

                people in the process (programmers, managers, end-users)

The SILS perspective

                problem context, user needs assessment, prototypes, usability tests, iteration

 

Optional readings/viewings (only if you need to brush up or want to focus on design process):

                Curtis, B., Krasner, H., & Iscoe, N. (1988).  A field study of the software design process for large systems.  CACM, 31(11), 1268-1287.  (online in ACM DL).  Case study for many different large projects and importance of cognitive, social, and organizational processes.

                Brooks, F. (1982). (reprinted from original 1975 edition).  The mythical man-month: Essays on software engineering.  Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.  The classic work on how people matter in large scale projects

                Mayhew, D. (1999). The usability engineering lifecycle: A practitioner’s handbook for user interface design. San Francisco, Morgan-Kaufmann.  Practical examples of iterative design.

                Shneiderman, B & Plaisant. C. (2004 4rd Ed.).  Designing the user interface.  Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.  The three pillars of interface development: guidelines documents and process; user interface software tools; expert reviews and usability testing.

                Koyani, S., Bailey, R., & Nall, J. (2003). Research-based web design & usability guidelines.  Washington, DC: National Cancer Institute, NIH Publication  No. 03-5424

                Kreitzberg’s LUCID framework: http://www.cognetics.com/lucid/index.html  (see e.g., 10 Steps to Creating the Perfect Web Site paper)

                Nielsen’s Alertbox: www.useit.com/alertbox

 

Resources Tour : HCI Bibliography : http://www.hcibib.org/

Resources Tour: UMD HCIL http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/

Resources Tour: Designing Interactions http://designinginteractions.com

 

Assignment:  Term Projects: Small group project, large group project

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

1. A vision of augmentation of the intellect: Read Engelbart http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html

View Engelbart interview http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews/DougEngelbart

 

2. Interfaces for IR: Hearst (book chapter) http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Ehearst/irbook/10/chap10.html

 

3. Experience: Jain (ACM DL) Experiential computing.  CACM, 46(7), 48-55

 

Optional: HCI evolution: read Marchionini & Komlodi http://ils.unc.edu/~march/arist.pdf

Optional: an important side effect: Read Meister

Optional: the roots of HCI: Shackel

Optional: Requirements for search: Shneiderman et al. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january97/retrieval/01shneiderman.html  (DLIB)

 

Week 2 August 29. The Problem of Information Seeking

Day 2 Notes

 

View The Knowledge Navigator as a visionary personal assistant interface http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=8129

 

Discuss readings/viewings

Engelbart              

Hearst

Jain

 

Information seeking framework (slides)

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting: RJK Jacob, JJ Leggett, BA Myers, R Pausch. (1993). Interaction styles and input/output devices. Behaviour & Information Technology, VOL. 12, No.2, 69-79. http://www.informaworld.com/index/777715622.pdf

 

 

Week 3 September 5. Input/Output Semster Theme

Day 3 Notes

Gaming and learning: Guest discussion on roles of gaming in teaching and learning: Ideas for projects

Input and Output: How have things changed since the 1993 BIT paper? How to organize a status report on I/O?

Assignment: use open-video.org to find three videos (try the ACM SIGCHI or HCIL videos) that present novel input devices or techniques. Submit the titles for the videos; a one paragraph description of how you found them (your search strategy); and a one paragraph suggestion for improving the system. Due Next Wednesday (Sept 12).

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

.Marchionini, Geisler, & Brunk http://ils.unc.edu/~march/agileviews/Agileviews.pdf

Overviews and previews: read Greene et al. http://ils.unc.edu/~march/jasis_ovpv.pdf  (also ASIST online w/o color)

Dynamic queries: Read Ahlberg, C. and Shneiderman, B. (1994) (ACM DL)

 

View Filmfinder (HCIL 2000 video)http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=708

 

Zyda: creating a science of games (CACM special issue, July 2007)

 

Week 4 Sept. 12.   Information Seeking (continued) and the Agile Views Design Framework           

Day 4 Notes

Discuss readings/viewings

Greene et al

Marchionini et al

Alberg & Shneiderman

 

The Agileviews framework

 

Case #1 BLS and Fedstats designs: the genesis of RB+

 

Assignment:Choose one of the Wii sports games and play for 15 minutes alone using the remote input device. Use the NASA TLX scale (see handout) to give a rating on a 1-7 scale and write one or two sentences to explain your rating for each of the 10 items. Part 2. Play one of the games with someone else in the class for 15 minutes. Together, use the NASA TLX scale to give a rating on a 1-7 scale and write one or two sentences to explain your rating for each of the 10 items. Together write a short critique of the remote that includes comments about the device the interaction style, and a paragraph on how the device and style promote or inhibit shared experience. Due in two weeks (Sept 28).

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Schiphorst (2007)...movement and experience

Hyperbolic browser: Read Lamping & Rao  (ACM DL)

WebBook and Forager (CHI 96 video) http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=4572

Large Trees and the Hyperbolic Browser (CHI 96) http://open-video.org/details.php?videoid=4567

 

Optional

Semantic maps: read Lin (ASIST online)

Eick, S. (2001). Visualizing online activity (ACM DL)

Week 5 Sept. 19. Representations and Mechanisms #1: Overviews and Previews

Day 5 Notes

The embodied and mobile mind. Discuss Schiphorst. How might people interact with information while moving? with motion?

In class discussion of Hyperbolic Browser. Compare reading the paper vs the video.

The concept of surrogates

 

Case#2: Library of Congress NDL designs

Design Challenge: Beyond access to contribution: The Sharium concept

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Fisheye views: Furnas (ACM DL)

View Pad++ (HCIL 2000 video)

View PhotoMesa (HCIL 2000 video)

View a Taxonomy of See Through Tools (CHI 95 video)

 

Optional

WebToc: Read Nation et al. ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/hcil/Demos/WebTOC/Paper/WebTOC.html

The promise and problems of SUIs: read Yanlelovich et al.  (ACM DL)

Evaluating text tasks: read Karat et al. (ACM DL)

 

Week 6. Sept. 26.  Representations and Mechanisms #2: Manipulation

Day 6 Notes

Keystokes, mouseactions, gestures, & speech inputs

 

Brainstorm term project(s)

 

Discuss readings/viewings:

                Furnas

                Zuis

                Magic lenses

 

 Discuss Pros and cons of Zuis

                               

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Efron et al. (ils.unc.edu/govstat)

Marchionini, G. & Brunk, B. (2003).  Toward a General Relation Browser: A GUI for Information Architects.  Journal of Digital Information, 4(1), http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i01/Marchionini/

View Browsing anatomical image databases—the visible human (CHI 96 video)

 

 

Week 7 October 3. Usability; Information Architecture Behind the Interface

Day 7 Notes

Usability testing.

              User needs assessment

              Participatory design and discount testing

              Study design: audio surrogation study as example

              Instrumentation. QUIS, Adoption, Flow, sense of presence, cognitive load

 

IA

The problem of metadata and surrogation

Faceted web design (discuss the facet study JCDL 07)

approaches to metadata discovery

machine learning, clustering: Discuss Efron et al. [slides on text mining tool kit]

knowledge based heuristics

human indexing

social tagging

 

The Interface Server concept

Discuss Marchionini & Brunk

 

Assignment: Outline a study design that incorporates physiological data (due Oct. 31)

 

Readings/viewings for next week

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Learning from eye movements: read Jacob (ACM DL)

Biometrics: read Pankanti, Bolle, & Jain   http://www.research.ibm.com/ecvg/pubs/sharat-future.pdf

Anttonen & Surakka (ACM DL)

 

Optional

Marchionini & Mu . http://ils.unc.edu/~march/IPM_tablebrowser_studies_submission.pdf

Bolle, R., Connell, J., Pankanti, S., Ratha, N., & Senior, A. (2002). Biometrics 101.  IBM Research Report, Computer Science, RC22481, June 2002. http://www.research.ibm.com/ecvg/pubs/ruud-bio101.html

                            

Week 8 October 10. Physiological data collection: Eye Tracking & Biometrics; VR

Day 8 Notes

 Discuss readings/viewings:

                Jacob

                Pankanti et al

 

VR guest lecture and demo (to be arranged)

Term Project updates

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Universal access: Read Chisholm, Vanderheiden, & Jacobs (ACM DL)

Becker (ACM DL)

View Talking to the Ceiling (CHI 99 video)

 

Optional reading: Raman (ACM DL)

Review study outlines

Week 9 October 17. (no class:  Fall Break)

 

Week 10 October 24 (no class: ASIST conference)

 

  Week 10  Oct. 31. Universal Access; IDL User Studies

Day 10 Notes

  

Discuss Chisholm et al

Discuss talking to the ceiling

Update on audio maps (Ancient World Mapping Center)

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

IRB packages for studies (URLs to be provided)

Case #3: Open Video redesign

Fast Forward study

TREC study

Integration of surrogates study

RB+ study

               

Readings/viewings for next meeting :

White, Ruthven & Rose (ACM DL)

Dominick et al.  Portal Help: http://ils.unc.edu/ils/research/reports/TR-2003-01.pdf

View Ambient rooms (CHI 98 video)

View Digital jewelry (CHI 01 video)

 

Optional: Carroll & Rosson

 

Week 11.  Nov. 7.  No Class (NLM BLIRC)

 

Week 12 Nov. 14

 

I/O group paper updates and discussion

 

mobile search: IPhone as web appliance

(readings TBD)

 

Readings: Plaisant, C., Shneiderman, B., Show Me! Guidelines for Producing Recorded Demonstrations,
Proc. of Proc. of 2005 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing
(VL/HCC'05) 171-178 (2005). fhttp://hcil.cs.umd.edu/trs/2005-02/2005-02.pdf

 

Week 13. Nov. 21. No Class (Thanksgiving)

 

Week 14  Nov 28. Help

Day 13 Notes

 

Animated help (see Haas et al animated glossary)

Games for help

 

Readings/viewings for next meeting:

Ubiquitous (calm) computing: read Weiser & Brown http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/calmtech/calmtech.htm

Location aware devices: Want & Schilit http://seattleweb.intel-research.net/people/schilit/Want-Computer-2001.pdf

Aesthetics: Norman (ACM DL)

 

 

Week 15 Dec 5.     Interaction Trends

 

Discuss readings/viewings:

                Weiser

                Want & Schilit

                Norman

               

Discuss Alternative and Multiple I/O

PDAs, sensors, and location awareness

VR, AR

 

Week 16 Dec 12. Project Presentations