• Offered for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Professor Dave Kirk
• Lecturer: Dr Caroline Claisse

• Owning School: Computing
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has been developing, and increasing in importance for more than 40 years. HCI knowledge comes from a large academic and industrial research community and underpins an area of professional practice in the tech sector (often referred to as ‘UX’ for User eXperience in industry), which explores how interactive digital systems (across all digital platforms) can be designed to be useful, usable and provide users with an engaging user experience. HCI is a fundamentally cross- and multi-disciplinary field, and over the course of its history various academic disciplines and practices have influenced its approaches to studying people and evaluating how they interact with, understand and use of technology. Equally, it has fundamentally influenced the ways in which we design interactive digital technologies, from command line interfaces, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), through mobile interactions, apps, embedded systems, physical/tangible computing, and on to robotics and AI systems. This module is focused on providing students with a thorough grounding in the development of HCI as a field of study, and its basic principles of human-centred design. Students will learn about the user-centred development lifecycle for digital technologies, and will practice and become familiar with the basic skills of requirements elicitation and usability evaluation.

The aims of this module are:

1.       To introduce students to the field of Human-Computer Interaction, its key concepts, technologies and professional practices.
2.       To provide a survey of the history of HCI and the shifts in how the field has conceptualised and studied Human-Computer Interactions over time.
3.       To provide students with knowledge of different HCI methods for understanding users, stakeholders, contexts and requirements.
4.       To give students practical experience of basic methods for requirements elicitation, interface design and usability evaluation.

Outline Of Syllabus

Intro to module and HCI
UCD Basics, Framing Concepts and the Context for HCI
History of interactive technologies
Understanding Users
Fieldwork for Design
Usability Evaluation
Interface design and prototyping
Contemporary topics in HCI
Practical skills for HCI
UX industry

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

As the students will originate from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds, the teaching of this module is intended to combine opportunities for introductory reading and learning around the history of human-computer interaction and critical analysis and reflection on how approaches and concepts of human interaction with technology have changed over time.

Students will receive a series of lectures on relevant topics covering the history and development of the field of HCI. They will also be directed to read specific text book chapters and research papers prior to weekly group teaching sessions (held present in person) and will be expected to take an active role in discussing this work. Practical sessions will introduce practical skills for both requirements elicitation and interface testing/usability evaluation. Students will try out these different methods, collecting user data.

Following the end of sessions, students will be expected to write short reflective commentaries on their learning experiences in class and to support reflexive practice. Notes from practical activities will be shared in class viewable blogs and discussion forums on the module’s online learning environment.

At the end of the module, students will be assessed on a critically reflective log of their learning experiences that requires them to reflect on what and how they have learnt. Students will engage in class presentations and creative design activities in response to a brief that will develop their team-work skills. They will also engage in producing a usability report which further encourages the development of professional skills.

Students are expected to spend time studying independently outside of the small group teaching sessions. Independent study will be focused around the students identifying further background literature in HCI of relevance to their specific areas of interest and critical reflection on how methods of studying human behaviour relate to technological contexts and issues of import at specific times in HCI history.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessment has one formative component, and two summative components (equally weighted). The formative component includes group work responding to a design brief and demonstrating practical skills developed in class. The first summative assessment includes an essay – which critically reflects on contemporary issues in HCI. It provides an opportunity to critically reflect on the development of HCI. The second piece of assessment is a formal usability evaluation report, using standard formats for both. This written report gives practical experience of industry standard reporting formats for these kinds of activities and demonstrates competence in the skills evaluated alongside transferable communication skills.

Reading Lists

• CSC8606's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• CSC8606's Timetable