INSC 540: User-Centered Information System Design · PDF fileINSC 540: User-Centered Information System Design ... Seminar in theories and methods for user-centered and ... Automating

INSC 540: Course Syllabus, Autumn 2005 (revised 12/22/05), David Hendry 1 | 18

INSC 540: User-Centered Information System Design Autumn 2005 Information School University of Washington Seminar in theories and methods for user-centered and system-centered approaches to information system design. Research and issues in design process, development, and evaluation of information systems. Technical context typically includes on or more of the following: information retrieval, human-computer interaction, or computer-supported cooperative work. Prerequisite: Permission of instructor. Course website & Listserv

http://courses.washington.edu/is540/ For readings, assignments, notes, etc. [email protected] Registered students are subscribed automatically using their UW mail account.

Credit Hours 4

Meeting times Seminar Tuesday/Thursday, 1:30 – 3:20, MGH 085

Instructor David Hendry, Assistant Professor 330J Mary Gates Hall Office hours: Thursdays, 3:30 – 5:00 or by appointment. [email protected] | http://faculty.washington.edu/dhendry Tel: 206-616-2316 (Please use for urgent matters only)

Recommended Texts Carroll, J. M. (Ed.). (2003). HCI models, theories, and frameworks: Toward a

multidisciplinary science. New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Löwgren, J. & Stolterman, E. (2004). Thoughtful interaction design: A design perspective on information technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Norman, D. A. (1988). The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday Press.

Please note: All class readings will be available electronically.


Overview Human-computer interaction is a diffuse, interdisciplinary field. It draws upon a body of diverse approaches from the traditions of science, engineering, and design. The field seeks to develop rigorous methods and theoretical approaches that support the development of interactive systems. However, applying theory to the design of interactive systems has been found to be very difficult. Often, the mappings between user behaviors, user needs and an implemented system are tenuous, with developers relying on intuition and evidently ad hoc practices. The twin aims of this course are to develop an understanding for the conceptual foundations of HCI and to develop skills for applying theoretical perspectives in the design and study of interactive systems. To engage these aims, we shall study a selection of influential theoretical approaches in HCI, discuss studies that have applied these approaches, and apply HCI models and theories to design problems, pausing to reflect on the process and outcome. To help with coherence, we shall pursue these aims within the context of systems for information seeking, especially digital libraries—broadly construed—where people explore and search.

The learning objectives are to develop your abilities in:

1. Reading technical papers in HCI carefully and drawing upon ideas critically; 2. Fostering an atmosphere of lively, critical discussion and friendship; 3. Describing and critically discussing the merits of major theoretical approaches in HCI; 4. Applying theoretical and empirical approaches in interactive system design.

Assessment The class will consist of the following activities and assignments:

• Participation (15%) • Seminar discussion (15%) • Writing assignments and class activities (30%) • Project (40%)

Participation Please come to class ready to engage the readings, to ask hard questions, and to actively listen and interact. Discussing and reflecting upon the readings and class activities is a very important component of this class.

Writing assignments Periodically, you will be asked to submit a short position paper or reflective statement. These writing assignments will prompt you to summarize, react to, or take a position on the weekly readings. Unless announced otherwise, please e-mail these assignments to [email protected] with INSC-540 in the subject line. In general, assignments are due by 1pm on Mondays. These assignments will help direct our weekly discussions—late assignments will not be graded. Your writing should be concise, clear, and free of spelling or grammatical errors. In general, for these writing assignments you should identify and summarize some central ideas of the readings.


Then take a position, either agreeing, disagreeing, or questioning the ideas that you have selected. Finally, explain why you took your position or answer the questions you raise, carefully referring the source text and concepts encountered in the course readings or similar readings.

Seminar discussions Once in the quarter you will be responsible for selecting a reading and leading a discussion or activity. The reading should generally meet these criteria:

1. It should apply a theory in the development of an information system; 2. The theory should be closely related to the topic for the week; 3. The work should be related to your own research interests; 4. The information system should concern—at least to some degree—information

seeking activities.

Two student seminar discussions will be held on Thursdays, beginning on Week #4. You will have approximately 50min to lead a discussion or activity. The paper you select must be posted for the class at least 1 week prior to your session. You are encouraged to talk with the instructor about topics and papers before making a final selection. On the second week of class, a sign-up sheet will be distributed so that you can select a time for your seminar. You may lead these seminars alone or in groups of two. (If you work in a group, please work with someone other than your project partner.)

Project: Applying a theory, model or framework For the course project, you should describe a significant interactive design problem. The problem you select should be related to information seeking. It should, of course, be narrowly defined so that it can be fully addressed in a quarter. Informed by a theory or model from HCI, you should propose a solution to the problem. Your solution will be some kind of interactive artifact, perhaps a paper prototype. You should clearly explicate how the theory drove your general approach, how you used the theory to make detailed design decisions, or how the use of the theory changed your original understanding for the problem. Finally, you should involve people in your design and/or evaluation process. You should discuss how their participation in your work furthered your understanding for theory, influenced the design, or changed your assumptions about the original problem. In the end, the goal of this project is for you to develop your skills for using analytical and empirical methods and to reflect upon their respective merits. During a class session, we will discuss some strategies for engaging the project. Projects should be completed in groups of 2 or 3. The deliverables: 1) A goal statement, some background, and a plan (due, Oct 27); 2) A class presentation to occur during the last two weeks of class; and 2) A final report (due, Dec 9).


Class Schedule The readings are listed by class meeting and then by suggested reading order. All of the papers are available either at a digital library (you may need to authenticate through the UW Libraries) or in a UWID password-protected area of the course website. From time to time, additional background readings are included. Do not read them, unless you really want to! The instructor may draw upon them occasionally and perhaps they will be useful in your own studies. Week 1: Introduction (Sep 29 – 30) For the first class, we will engage a hands-on activity. To prepare for class, please read Rettig (1994). This paper introduces paper prototyping, an extremely effective technique for envisioning and studying interactive systems.

Thr Rettig, M. (1994). Prototyping for tiny fingers. Communications of ACM, 37(4), 21-27. Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/175276.175288

Other Snyder, C. (2003). Paper Prototyping. New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. [See:

http://www.paperprototyping.com] Week 2: Theory and HCI (Oct 3 – 7) This week we will survey the terrain of theoretical approaches to HCI and begin to examine the notion of theory in HCI. On Tuesday, we shall review the syllabus and then turn to a discussion of the papers by Carroll (1997) and Rogers (2004), which together give a kind of history of HCI and outline its main themes and approaches. On Thursday, we shall continue the discussion and draw upon the views of Fallman (2003). We shall end with a discussion of the paper-prototyping activity and our reflections of that process.

Tue Carroll, J. M. (1997). Human-computer interaction: psychology as a science of design. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 46, 501-522. [Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1006/ijhc.1996.0101]

Rogers, Y. (2004). New theoretical approaches for HCI. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 38. [Available from http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/rogers1.pdf]

Thr Fallman, D. (2003). Design-oriented human-computer interaction. In Proceedings of the

SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 225-232). ACM Press.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/642611.642652]

Other Carroll, J. M. (2003). Introduction: Toward a multidisciplinary science of Human-Computer

Interaction. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.), HCI models, theories, and frameworks: Toward a multidisciplinary science (pp. 1- 9). New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Löwgren, J. & Stolterman, E. (2004). Thoughtful interaction design: A design perspective on information technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


Week 3: Cognitive Artifacts (Oct 10 – 14) External representations normally enhance our intellectual gifts. The proper representation can make a difficult task straightforward. On the other hand, an inappropriate representation can make an otherwise easy task difficult. This week we shall examine Norman’s vocabulary for describing and critiquing external representations and cognitive artifacts.

Tue Norman, D. A (1991). Cognitive artifacts. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.), Designing Interaction (pp. 17- 38). New York: Cambridge University Press. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/norman1.pdf]

Mackinlay, J. (1986). Automating the design of graphical presentations of relational information. ACM Trans. Graph., 5(2), 110-141.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/22949.22950]

Payne, S. J. (1993).Understanding Calendar Use. Human-Computer Interaction, 8(2), 83-100. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/payne.pdf]

Thr Discussion of artifacts – activity posted on website

Other Norman, D. A. (1988). The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday Press.

Kirsh, D. (2001). The context of work. Human-Computer Interaction, 6(2), 306-322.

Week 4: Mental Models, Conceptual Models, User Models, and Data Models (Oct 17 – 21) People can’t help but develop understandings for the systems they use. These understandings are often called mental models. This week we shall examine the meanings of mental model, conceptual model, user model and data model and discuss how these constructs can be used in research and design.

Tue Norman, D. A. (1983). Some observations on mental models. In D. Gentner & A. Stevens (Eds.), Mental Models (pp. 7-14). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/norman2.pdf]

Allen, R. B. (1997). Mental models and user models. In M. Helander, T. K. Landauer & P. Prabhu (Eds.), Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (2nd ed., pp. 49-63). Elsevier. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/allen.pdf]

Green T. R. G. & Benyon D. R. (1996). The skull beneath the skin: entity-relationship models of information artifacts. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 44(6), 801-828. [Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ijhc.1996.0034]

Koenemann, J. & N. J. Belkin (1996). A case for interaction: a study of interactive information retrieval behavior and effectiveness. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: common ground (pp. 205-212). ACM Press. [Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/238386.238487]

Thr Student seminar discussions --

Kurze, M. 1996. TDraw: a computer-based tactile drawing tool for blind people. In Proceedings of the Second Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, April 11- 12, 1996). Assets '96. ACM Press, New York, NY, 131-138. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/228347.228368

Kamel, H. M. and Landay, J. A. 2002. Sketching images eyes-free: a grid-based dynamic drawing tool for the blind. In Proceedings of the Fifth international ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Edinburgh, Scotland, July 08 - 10, 2002). Assets '02. ACM Press, New York, NY, 33-40. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/638249.638258


Other Payne, S. (2003). Users’ mental models: The very ideas. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.) HCI models, theories, and frameworks: Toward a multidisciplinary science (pp. 135 – 156). New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Week 5: Information Processing Models (GOMS) (Oct 24 – 28) GOMS models have been extremely influential in the development of the field of HCI. This week we shall learn how tasks can be decomposed and represented with GOMS and we shall discuss some applications.

Tue John, B. E. (2003). Information Processing and Skill Behavior. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.) HCI models, theories, and frameworks: Toward a multidisciplinary science (pp. 55 – 101). New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/john.pdf]

Card, S. K., P. Pirolli & J. D. Mackinlay (1994). The cost-of-knowledge characteristic function: display evaluation for direct-walk dynamic information visualizations. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: celebrating interdependence (pp. 238-244). ACM Press.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/191666.191753]

Thr Student seminar discussions –

Pirolli, P. (2003). Exploring and finding information. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.), HCI models, theories, and frameworks: Toward a multidisciplinary science (pp. 157-191). New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Other Card, S. K., T. P. Moran & A. Newell (1980).The keystroke-level model for user

performance time with interactive systems. Communications of the. ACM, 23(7), 396-410.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/358886.358895]

Week 6: Activity Theory and Context (Oct 31 – Nov 4) In contrast to GOMS, activity theory takes a very broad view of human performance. This week we shall discuss the claims made by activity theory and discuss the application of this theory in design and development projects.

Tue Kuutti, K. (1996). Activity Theory as a Potential Framework for Human-Computer Interaction Research. In B. Nardi (Ed.), Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 17-44). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/kuutti.pdf]

Spasser, M. A. (2002). Realist Activity Theory for Digital Library Evaluation: Conceptual Framework and Case Study. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 11(1-2), 81-110. [Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1015288305397]

Thr Student seminar discussions

Pea, Roy D. (1993) “Practices of Distributed Intelligence and Designs for Education.” In Salomon, G, editor. Distributed Cognitions. New York: Cambridge Univeristy Press (p. 47–87).

Pea, Roy, Michael Mills, Joseph Rosen, Kenneth Dauber, Wolfgang Effelsberg, and Eric

Hoffert. (2004) “The Diver Project: Interactive Digital Video Repurposing.” IEEE Multimedia, 11 (1): 54–61.


Other Gay, G. & Hembrooke, H. (2004). Activity-centered design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Nardi, B. (1996). Some reflections on the application of activity theory. In B. Nardi (Ed.),

Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Week 7: Usability Engineering (Nov 7 – 11) This week we shall examine the essential role of empirical techniques in HCI. We begin with Laudauer’s claim that useful theory in HCI is impossible. The SuperBook paper is a classic.

Tue Landauer, T. K. (1991). Let’s get real: A position paper on the role of cognitive psychology in the design of humanly useful and usable systems. In J. M. Carroll (Ed.) Designing Interaction (pp. 60-73). New York: Cambridge University Press. [Available at http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/landauer.pdf]

Egan, D. E., J. R. Remde, L. M. Gomez, T. K. Landauer, J. Eberhardt & C. C. Lochbaum (1989). Formative design evaluation of SuperBook. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst., 7(1), 30-57.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/64789.64790]

Yee, K., K. Swearingen, K. Li & M. Hearst (2003). Faceted metadata for image search and browsing. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 401-408). ACM Press.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/642611.642681]


Nielsen, Jakob. "Heuristic Evaluation." from the book Usability Engineering, 1994. Read the first ten pages only.

Mankoff, Jennifer, et al. "Heuristic Evaluation of Ambient Displays." Proceedings of CHI 2003.

Student seminar discussions Calongne, C. M. 2001. Designing for web site usability. In Proceedings of the Seventh

Annual Consortium For Computing in Small Colleges Central Plains Conference on the Journal of Computing in Small Colleges (Branson, Missouri, United States). J. G. Meinke, Ed. Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges. Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges, 39-45.

Card, S. K., Pirolli, P., Van Der Wege, M., Morrison, J. B., Reeder, R. W., Schraedley, P. K., and Boshart, J. 2001. Information scent as a driver of Web behavior graphs: results of a protocol analysis method for Web usability. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, Washington, United States). CHI '01. ACM Press, New York, NY, 498-505.

Other Nielsen, J. (1994). Usability Engineering. New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Preece, J., Y. Rogers & H. Sharp (2002). Interaction Design. New York: Wiley. Shneiderman, B. (2002). Leonardo’s laptop: Human needs and the new computing

technologies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.


Week 8: Personas and Scenarios (Nov 14 – 18) This week will shall examine the theoretical motivation and practical merits of these two popular design methods.

Tue Carroll, J. M. (1999). Five Reasons for Scenario-Based Design. In HICSS '99: Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 3, 3051. Retrieved December 20, 2004, from http://csdl.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/1999/0001/03/00013051.PDF

Pruitt, J., & Grudin, J. ( 2003). Personas: practice and theory. In DUX '03: Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Designing for user experiences (pp. 1-15). ACM Press. Retrieved December 20, 2004, from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/997078.997089

Carroll, J. M. & M. B. Rosson (1992).Getting around the task-artifact cycle: how to make claims and design by scenario. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst., 10(2), 181-212.[Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/146802.146834]

Poltrock, S. E., & Grudin, J. (1994). Organizational obstacles to interface design and development: two participant-observer studies. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 1(1), 52-80. Retrieved 1 Dec 2004 from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/174630.174633


Rönkkö, K., Hellman, M., Kilander, B., and Dittrich, Y. 2004. Personas is not applicable: local remedies interpreted in a wider context. In Proceedings of the Eighth Conference on Participatory Design: Artful integration: interweaving Media, Materials and Practices - Volume 1 (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 27 - 31, 2004). PDC 04. ACM Press, New York, NY, 112-120. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1011870.1011884

Sinha, R. 2003. Persona development for information-rich domains. In CHI '03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, April 05 - 10, 2003). CHI '03. ACM Press, New York, NY, 830-831. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/765891.766017

Student seminar discussions Sutcliffe, A. (2000). On the effective use and reuse of HCI knowledge. ACM Transactions on

Computer-Human Interaction, 7(2), ACM Press, pp. 197-221.

Other Beyer, H. & K. Holtzblatt (1998). Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. New York: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Carroll, J. M. (2000). Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Johnson, J. (2000). GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Do's for Software Developers and Web Designers. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Holtzblatt, K., & Beyer, H. (1993). Making customer-centered design work for teams. Communications of the ACM, 36(10), 92-103. Retrieved 1 Dec 2004 from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/163430.164050


Week 9: Odd & Ends (Nov 21 – 25) Tue Student seminar discussions – topics to be announced

Thr Class cancelled for Thanksgiving ☺

Week 10: Project Presentations (Nov 28 – Dec 2)

Tue 2 Project Presentations

Thr 2 Project Presentations Week 11: Project Presentations (Dec 5 – Dec 9)

Tue 2 Project Presentations

Thr ABC News (1999, July 13). NIGHTLINE: THE DEEP DIVE. DVD. How does the process of designing a better product work? To show you we

go Palo Alto, CA and the designers at IDEO, and give them the toughest problem we could think of. Take something old and familiar like the shopping cart and completely redesign it in just five days.

Rogers, Y. (2004). New theoretical approaches for HCI. Annual Review of Information

Science and Technology, 38. [Available from http://courses.washington.edu/is540/papers/rogers1.pdf]

Wrap up and good-byes ☺


A1: Paper Prototyping Activity Introduction Paper prototyping has been found to be an extremely effective way for envisioning systems and for identifying usability problems early in a development process. Anyone who can wield scissors, paper, tape, and markers can create a paper prototype. Everyone should have experience with paper prototyping! Rettig (1994) outlines the process. See www.paperprototyping.com for a good bibliography.

Design problem The goal of this activity is to create a prototype for querying a relational database. Query languages, including SQL, are notoriously difficult to learn and use (e.g., Greene, Devlin, Cannata & Gomez, 1990). One approach for addressing the problem, called query-by-example, is to follow this general four step pattern:

1. The user creates an example of what they want; 2. The example is submitted to the system; 3. The system returns with results that are similar to the system; 4. The user refines the example and re-submits it.

In groups of two, your task is to design a paper prototype that allows people to query the database given below. Please follow this three-step process:

Iteration #1 Create a prototype (~30 min) Review it Review your work with another team (~15min/team) Iteration #2 Make revisions to the prototype (~20min)

(Of course, take short breaks between these phases.)

Writing assignment Write a ONE PAGE reflective statement on the process that you followed, addressing such questions as how did you begin, how did your thoughts about the problem change, how did you structure the review step, how did the review step influence your thinking, and so. Please submit your reflection to the OCT 6th class. We will discuss your reflections then.

(Please turn page over.)


Database To simply the problem, your prototype need only work on this table of data:

Employee Name Department Manager City Jones Toy Grant London Allan Toy Grant Athens Doe Toy Buford London Smith Toy Buford Athens Price Cosmetics Grant London Hall Cosmetics Grant Athens Kelso Cosmetics Buford London Lee Cosmetics Buford Athens … … … …

The prototype should allow people to express queries (by example of course) like this:

Find all employees who either work in the Toy department or are managed by Grant, and also come from the city of London.

References Greene, S. L., Devlin, S. J., Cannata, P. E., & Gomez, L. M. (1990). No IFs, ANDs, ORs: A study of database

querying. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 32, 303-326. Rettig, M. (1994). Prototyping for tiny fingers. Communications of ACM, 37(4), 21-27. Retrieved from

http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/175276.175288


A2: Representations that Enhance Intellect Introduction Norman (1991, p. 33) claims: The form of representation most appropriate for an artifact depends upon the task to be

performed. We can show this idea visually, with the results of an idealized experiment. (An experiment, in fact, that shows an interaction between two independent variables.) Suppose we have two representations (#1 and #2) and two tasks (A and B) and we carry out an experiment where we measure that time it takes to complete the tasks for each of the representations. If we collect data and graph the results we might obtain a situation where each task is equally hard or easy, depending on which representation is used.

The goal of this activity is to explore this idea, seeking to describe tasks, representations, and the mappings between task and representation in a rigorous manner.

The problem For this activity, identify a representation that appears to be very effective for a task A (point 1 in figure). Then, propose a task B for which the representation is ill-suited (point 2). Finally, propose a new representation that is effective for task B (point 3). Please focus on a setting that touches upon information seeking at least to some degree. The deliverable will be a 15min poster presentation (no PowerPoint please and poster paper will be available), with handouts if they are helpful. In your analysis, please carefully draw upon Norman’s theoretical claims, such as representational naturalness, carefully describe the tasks, and carefully back your claims about the representations. The aim is fidelity to Norman’s theoretical notions and clarity of description and analysis. You may do this activity alone or in groups of two. (To allow for sufficient time for the presentations and disucsion we will need a couple of groups—if you can, please work in groups.) The presentations will take place Thursday, Oct 13.

A B Task

Time (sec)

Representation # 1

Representation # 2 1

2

3

INSC 540, Autumn 2005, David Hendry 13 | 18

A3: Scenarios

Background Social connections can be very revealing. An interesting example is the relationship structure between people who are members of company boards of directors. A board of directors, consisting of perhaps 5 to 10 people, oversees the operation of a company. The CEO of a company reports to the board of directors. Officers from one company often participate on the board of another company (and sometimes participate on their own boards). Suppose the goal is to create a system that allows you to examine the connections between people who are on different boards. Such a system would allow you to answer questions such is these:

1. Who is on the board of company X? 2. What boards is person P on? 3. How many connections exist between person P and person Q?

A system that allowed you to answer questions such as these might be used to identify conflicts of interest.

Problem statement Given this loosely defined problem, develop a scenario for such a system. Your scenario should represent a setting of use, the people who use the system, the activities that these people will perform, and the artifact that would be used to enable the work.


Weekly Writing Assignments Week #2: Theory and HCI Writing seven years apart, Rogers (2004) and Carroll (1997) review the state of theory of HCI. How do their views compare? Where are they in full agreement? Where to they disagree? Where do they meet someplace in the middle? Write a position paper on where you think their views either most fully agree or most full diverge and explain why you think this is important. To do this, you might follow this structure: a) State where see the most (least) overlap and why think this is important; b) Summarize Roger’s views and Carroll’s views on this area; and c) Then, explain why see a high (low) degree of overlap and reiterate why you think it matters. Please submit your position paper in an e-mail message (no more than one page, please) by 1 PM on Oct 3. Please include INSC-540 in the subject line.


Weekly Writing Assignments Week #3: Cognitive Artifacts Take a theoretical concept from one of this week’s papers. Summarize the key features of that concept. Then, describe how you might apply the theory to a situation that is meaningful to you. You might, for example, select a representation that is related to your own research. What benefits and limitations do you see with the concept? Please submit your position paper in an e-mail message (no more than one page, please) by 1 PM on Oct 10. Please include INSC-540 in the subject line.


Weekly Writing Assignments Week #5: GOMS If you could ask the author one question about GOMS, what would it be? Ask the question. Then, answer your own question as best you can. Of course, if possible, connect your question and answer to your own research interests. Please submit your paper as a one page e-mail message by 1 PM on Oct 24. Please include INSC-540 in the subject line. We will discuss your answers on Oct 25.


Weekly Writing Assignments Week #6: Activity Theory One aim of activity theory is to support the process of invention and design. Drawing on Kuutti (1996), write a position paper that explores how activity theory could be used in design. Please use a specific information, technological or organization problem to ground your analysis. Please submit your paper as a one page e-mail message by 1 PM on Tuesday Nov 1. Please include INSC-540 in the subject line. We will discuss your position papers on Nov 3. Please Note: Class will not be held on Nov 1. (You may wish to use this time to work on your projects.)


Weekly Writing Assignments Week #7: Usability Engineering This week, we leave theory and move to a primarily empirical orientation. For any of the readings this week, please ask the author a question about the connection between ‘theoretical’ and ‘empirical’ approaches and then answer your question. Please submit your paper as a one page e-mail message by 1 PM on Monday Nov 7. Please include INSC-540 in the subject line. We will discuss your position papers on Nov 8.

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INSC 540: User-Centered Information System Design · PDF fileINSC 540: User-Centered Information System Design ... Seminar in theories and methods for user-centered and ... Automating