IS 667: Interaction Design (3 credits)

The course starts by discussing fundamental psychological concepts needed to understand how humans interact with computer systems and how those systems can be better designed to support that interaction. Design and evaluation methods are presented to achieving this goal. This module builds on earlier courses, particularly Systems Analysis and Design (IS634), but adds much more material about how to design for human interaction. These concepts are important for any information system in which human interaction is required.

Students must successfully complete IS 634 prior to enrolling for this course.

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Example Syllabus - IS 667: Interaction Design

Each syllabus is an example of a course structure and assignments and is subject to change at any time by the course instructor or Program Director.

Interaction design is the practice of designing interactive computer systems and devices. It involves designing for the Web, mobile devices, wearables and other ubiquitous systems as well as laptops, desktops, server and client systems.

Interaction design draws knowledge and skills most strongly from the fields of human-computer interaction and computer supported co-operative work (and their foundational fields, such as computer science, information systems, psychology, anthropology and sociology). It is also informed by aesthetic design disciplines such as graphic design, typography, architecture and computer art.

Interaction design makes use of a wide variety of tools and techniques developed and practiced during the last thirty years. However, many aspects of interaction design and human-computer interaction do not conform to the expectations of an 'exact science'. To a large extent interaction design involves putting into practice a body of tried and tested knowledge, skills and techniques and then iteratively improving designs through series of user tests. Consequently, unlike some fields there is rarely a right or a wrong design, but as you will discover there are certainly good designs and very poor designs, and designs that are better than other designs. In this course you will develop knowledge, skills and learn a set of techniques, which if used appropriately, will enable you to produce much better human-computer interfaces and user-computer interactions than you could possibly achieve using just your own best judgment. In order to benefit from this course you must therefore be prepared to iteratively refine your best efforts through systematic user testing.

Aims

The course aims to:

1. Introduce you to the concept of interaction design and teach you the main psychological, sociological, and anthropological knowledge and skills to evaluate and design the interaction components of interactive systems or parts of systems.
2. Teach you a range of interaction design techniques so that you can design small interactive systems.
3. Teach you a range of evaluation techniques so that you can confidently and thoroughly evaluate interactive systems and give you experience through project work.
4. Make you aware of a wide range of interactive systems.
5. Provide experience and practice in designing and evaluating the interaction component of a system or part of a system.
6. Provide experience and practice in collaboratively working in a team to design and evaluate a web-based information resource.
7. Teach you how to use synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies effectively to collaborate and exchange ideas with other students and your instructor.

These seven aims can also be described as behavioral learning objectives as follows. After completing the Interaction Design course you will be able to:

1. Describe interaction design and discuss the role that psychological, sociological, anthropological knowledge and skills in interaction design.
2. Perform a range of interaction design techniques.
3. Confidently perform and report the findings of evaluations using a variety of techniques appropriate for the circumstances.
4. Describe a wide variety of different kinds of interactive systems.
5. Design and evaluate the interaction design of a small interactive system or part of a system.
6. Work collaboratively with others to develop a web-based class resource.
7. Use synchronous and asynchronous communication technologies to collaborate with others effectively.

This course does not teach you:

1. How to program but if you have these skills you will have the opportunity to use them, if you wish, to develop web-based applications.
2. Statistics but you will receive a brief introduction to experimental design.

In this course you will build on knowledge and skills gained in other courses; particularly Systems Analysis and Design (IS 6??), and to a lesser extent, Database (IS 6??) and E-commerce (IS 6??). However, please be aware that specialists in different fields often discuss similar concepts using different terms and may use different techniques. The interaction design course takes a strongly user-centered approach. In studying this course our mantra is "check with users; users are always right".

The seven learning objectives
The following description examines each of the seven learning objectives in more detail and describes the assessment, and activities that are needed to complete it (i.e., rational, interactivity, plan of work, schedule, percentage of final course grade).

Objective 1: Describe and discuss what interaction design is
Objective: After completing this part of the module you will be able to describe interaction design and discuss knowledge and skills derived from psychology, physiology, sociology, anthropology and a number of other disciplines in interaction design.

Rational: The underlying premise in interaction design is that we must understand users as individuals, small groups, communities, organizations and societies in order to design effective, satisfying interactions with computer systems. Consequently interaction design requires an understanding of concepts and techniques from many disciplines - it is a truly multi-disciplinary study.

Reading: Chapters 1-5 of Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction by Preece, Rogers, Sharp.

Interactivity: You will complete the assignments at the end of each chapter 1-5, which will involve you in analyzing various interactive systems in order to put into practice the concepts taught in the book.

Assessment: You will submit your write-up of the first two assignments in week 4 for feedback from your professor. You will then submit the complete set of assignments for chapters 1-5 for grading at the end of week 5 or at the latest on the first day of week 6.

Proposed plan of work: The topics covered are:
What is interaction design?
Understanding and conceptualizing interaction
Understanding users
Designing for collaboration and communication
Understanding how interfaces affect users

Suggested study time: Weeks 1-5

Percentage of final grade: 10% of the final grade

Objective 2: Perform a range of design techniques
Objective: After completing this objective you will be able to perform a range of interaction design.

Rational: Being aware of key techniques used in interaction design is essential for understanding how this user-centered design perspective differs from the requirements-oriented approach of other information systems domains.

Reading: Chapter 6-9 of Preece et al. (2002)

Interactivity: Each chapter in the text ends with an assignment that requires you to apply the techniques that are taught in the chapters.

Assessment: You will submit your work assignments for chapters 6-9 for grading at the end of week 9 or on the first day of week 10.

Proposed plan of work: The topics that you will cover during this part of the course are:
The process of interaction design
Identifying needs and establishing requirements
Design, prototyping and construction
User-centered approaches to interaction design

Suggested study time: Weeks 6-9

Percentage of final grade: 10 % of the final grade

Objective 3: Evaluate interaction design using a range of techniques
Objective: After completing this objective you will be able to confidently perform and report the findings of evaluations using a variety of techniques appropriate for the circumstances.

Rational: This part of the course builds on the previous nine chapters and the experience gained in completing the assignments at the end of the chapters. The techniques taught here together with those that you have just learned for objectives 1 and 2 will equip you to be a competent novice interaction designer. From now on your skills and knowledge will increase mainly through practice and experience. In other words, when you have completed the remaining six chapters you will have met the key concepts and techniques of the discipline. This part of the book is the main 'how to …' component. Getting user feed back through evaluation is essential throughout the development cycle. You start to apply these techniques in requirements gathering and continue until your product is ready to launch. Even then it does not stop. These techniques will be important through maintenance and planning upgrades. What is most essential to understand is that by doing a good job in the early stages of interaction design you save your team time later. This is what many developers fail to realize. They believe that evaluation is done at the end of the development process to tweak the interface when everything else is complete. This is why there are so many poor systems and so much user frustration.

Reading: Chapters 10-15 of Preece et al. (2002)

Interactivity: As for previous chapters you will find assignments at the end of each chapter except chapter 15. These assignments will require you to apply the techniques taught to a variety of interactive systems.

Assessment: You will be assessed on your work on the assignments at the end of chapters 10-14, which must be submitted for grading at the end of week 10 or on the first day of week 11.

Proposed plan of work: During this part of the course you will study:
Introducing evaluation
An evaluation framework
Observing users
Asking users and experts
Testing and modeling users
Design and evaluation in the real world

Suggested study time: Weeks 6-10

Percentage of final grade: 20% of the final grade

Objective 4: Describe and discuss the interaction design of different systems
Objective: After completing this objective you will be able to describe and discuss the interaction component of a wide variety of different kinds of interactive systems.

Rational: With such a wide range of systems coming onto the market, it is important that students experience samples from this range: wireless, handheld devices, wearables, kiosks, programmable phones, large-scale displays, groupware, web-applications, etc.

Reading: The text (Preece et al.2002) and its website www.id-book.com, provides a broad introduction to a wide range of applications, systems and devices, and students will experience more through the judicious selection of systems when completing the assignments for objectives 1-3.

Interactivity: The assignments for objectives 1-3 and the class bulletin board and website will introduce students to a variety of systems.

Assessment: A small percentage of the final grade (2%) will be awarded for the variety of systems about which you demonstrate some knowledge in your assignments, when doing your project and in class discussions.

Proposed plan of work: This objective covers all the work that you do for the other five objectives

Suggested study time: Weeks 1-15

Percentage of final grade: 2% of the final grade

Objective 5: Individual project
Objective: After completing this objective and the one that follows you will be able to confidently design and evaluate the interaction component of a small interactive system or part of a system.

Rational: This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills to work on the interaction design component of a product as part of the development team. Should you chose to practice what you learn in this course to gain experience, it would be reasonable for you to market yourself as an interaction designer, or specialist in human-computer interaction (HCI). You will not, however, learn programming and implementation skills from this course; our focus is design and evaluation.

Reading: A web page will be developed entitled "Doing your interaction design project"

Interactivity: This project is a core activity in this course. It is the opportunity for students to put into practice the knowledge and skills that they have developed from completing the other objectives.

Assessment: You will be assessed on your project plan and on your final project.

Proposed plan of work:
Students will find their own topics for projects from a list of suggested possibilities. They will gain approval from their tutor and develop a project plan using a prepared template (link to template and page of instructions)
They will work intensively on the project.

Suggested study time: Weeks 5-7 prepare to do project
Weeks 8-14 intensive work on project

Percentage of final grade: 40% of the final grade

Objective 6: Class resource project
Objective: After completing this objective you should understand how to work effectively with others to contribute to a team-effort to develop an information system. You will also be able to evaluate websites more effectively.

Rational: Working in information systems requires that you collaborate and learn to work effectively with others.

Reading: A set of references will be provided on the class website for developing effective websites and web-based resources

Interactivity: You will contribute to development of the class web-resource project by taking on one of the roles in the team (e.g., project manager, content provider, editor, designer, implementer, evaluator).

Assessment: Your contribution will be assessed by your peers (anonymously) and the course tutor.

Proposed plan of work:
During the first two weeks of course students will complete a sign-up form (link to form and role definitions) in which you will specify how you wish to contribute to developing the class resource project (i.e., a website with resources from which the class can draw).
You will work with the class team in that role during the course.

Suggested study time: Weeks 1-15

Percentage of final grade: 15% of the final grade

Objective 7: Collaborate with others effectively using computer-mediated communication
Objective: After completing this objective you will be able to use synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication media for effective collaborative work. and to present your work.

Rational: Collaborating with others is an essential part of learning and researching. This collaboration takes two forms: receiving information, ideas and support, and giving information, ideas and support to others. While there are important steps that you have to do on your own, the quality of your work will benefit from peer review and commenting. This is why most professional conferences and journals engage in a peer review process.

Reading: Getting the most from online communication: A guide for students and professionals (Preece, 2002 - in preparation)

Interactivity: You are expected to participate in online discussion and to contribute to the design and content of the class website.

Assessment A small portion of your final grade will be allocated for your contribution to class discussion and participation online.

Proposed plan of work:

• You will introduce yourself at the beginning of the course
  
• You will be expected to participate in class discussion by telling the class about useful resources that you find, asking questions when you need assistance or thing of interesting issues, and responding to requests from others.

Suggested study time: Weeks 1- 15 in parallel with work for the other objectives.

Percentage of final grade: 3%

Important note about assessment
In order to successfully complete this module you must obtain minimum grades of:
30% out of a possible total grade of 40% for objective 5
10% out of a possible total grade of 15% for objective 6
2% out of a possible total grade of 3% for objective 7

Objectives 5, 6, and 7 are key components of the course so you must achieve acceptable mastery of all three.

Required text
In order to study this course you must obtain a copy of the book:
Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H. (2002) Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction. USA: John Wiley & Sons. (ISBN 0-471-49278-7)

There is also a useful website to support the text: www.id-book.com

References to other suggested reading material are supplied at the end of each chapter of this text and additional ones will be supplied on the class website.

***Note to those who will evaluate this deliverable
The above text is required for this course. It covers all the main topics needed to learn about interaction design and the techniques needed to be an interaction designer.

New materials to be developed for this module include:

• Detailed plans and templates will be produced to support students in submitting their assignments
  
• Guidance and resources for doing the individual and group projects
  
• Guide to online participation
  
• A set of instructor notes

Please note - students are expected to develop a website as their class project. They therefore need access secure access to a server and everything else on that server needs to be secure too.