COMP106: Human-Centric Computing

Admin | Module Description | Lecture Notes

Admin

Lecturer:

Dr. Katie Atkinson.
Department of Computer Science,
Room 222,
Ashton Building,
Ashton St.

Email: katie [at] liverpool [dot] ac [dot] uk

Lecture times and locations:

(PLEASE CONFIRM THESE BY CHECKING YOUR PERSONAL TIMETABLE ON SPIDER)

Monday 13.00, Engineering Walker Lecture Theatre (In week 1 only this lecture will take place in the Thomson Yeates Building Lecture Theatre)
Tuesday 11.00, Chadwick Building Rotblat Lecture Theatre
Thursday 12.00, Maths Lecture Theatre 027

Practical Classes:

Times and demonstrators to be confirmed. Check your online timetable for your individual allocation to a practical class.

Reading Material:

B. Shneiderman and C. Plaisant
Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction.
Addison-Wesley, 2005.
ISBN 0-321-26978-0.
H. Sharp, Y. Rogers and J. Preece.
Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction.
John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2011.
ISBN 0-471-49278-7.
R. Morelli and R. Wade
Java, Java, Java: Object-Oriented Problem Solving.
Prentice Hall, 2005.
ISBN 0-13-751975-3.

Additional references may be given as the module proceeds.

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Module Description

Aims:

To provide guidelines,concepts and models for designing and evaluating interactive systems.
To provide an introduction to designing and implementing graphical user interfaces.

Learning Outcomes:

At the conclusion of the module students should be able to:

describe the tasks and issues involved in the process of developing interactive products for people, and the techniques used to perform these tasks;
describe and compare different styles of interaction for graphical user interfaces;
evaluate and critique existing interactive systems in accordance with human-centric guidelines;
illustrate how event-driven software can be designed using standard, formal techniques;
construct Web pages that conform to current Web standards;
write Java programs that demonstrate simple examples of graphical user interfaces.

Assessment:

There is a continual assessment component for the module that counts for 20% of the final mark. This will consist of a number of assignments based on evaluation and construction of interfaces.
There is also an exam in May which is worth 80% of the final mark for the module.

Approximate Syllabus

Introduction:

What is human-centric computing? Principles of Human Computer Interaction, the human in the loop, user models, cognitive issues.
The process of developing interactive products:

Lifecycle models; requirements; data gathering involving users; task analysis; design; purpose of evaluation and methods for conducting it.

Principles, standards and guidelines for interface design.

Case studies of development tasks in practice.
Interactions:

Interaction styles: key based, menu based, form fill-in, command languages, natural language, direct manipulation, iconic languages.

Cultural considerations and constraints.

Affective computing; virtual characters; groupware and cooperative activity.
Interface Software Design:

Event-driven software, state transition diagrams, statecharts.
Implementing interfaces :

Overview of HTML and CSS; markup validation for Web standards.

Graphical user interfaces in Java: the Java AWT and Swing packages, components of GUIs; events and event-handlers; the Model-View-Controller architecture; Java applets.

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The lecture notes will be printed on a weekly basis as the module proceeds; they can be collected from the Computer Science Helpdesk in the George Holt Building. Subsequent to each lecture, electronic versions of the notes will also be posted on VITAL.

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