Informatics 231 (Fall 2008)

Research in Human-Computer Interaction

With the emergence of the "personal computing" paradigm in the 1970s, computers moved out of the machine room and became devices with which end-users would interact directly. The field of HCI grew up in response to the engineering and cognitive challenges of building systems that fit with user needs. The field of HCI has broadened considerably since then, reflecting the influence of new disciplines (e.g. sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, communication, design) and the emergence of new areas of interest (e.g. physical and tangible computing, mobile and ubiquitous systems).

In previous years, we have taught a single graduate HCI class. We found, though, that there are two broad constituencies for this class -- those who wish to understand design fundamentals and methods that they can apply in their own work (at UCI or beyond), and those who intend to conduct doctoral research in HCI. Accordingly, this year, we have split the class into 231A, for people with a practical interest, and 231B, for people with a theoretical interest.

In this class, we will examine current research issues in Human-Computer Interaction, largely through reading current research papers. A familiarity with the basic topics and techniques of HCI will be assumed. You will also undertake a research project connected to a topic of the class, which will be the primary basis for evaluation. The class is organized with two primary goals. The first is to make students familiar with the current range of problems and questions being addressed in HCI research. The second is to look at how HCI research proceeds -- how HCI approaches its topic and how HCI research is conducted.

Grades will be based on participation in online and in-class discussion, and on a quarter-long project to be conducted in groups of two or three.

Weekly Discussions

Most of the quarter is structured around in-class discussions of readings (see schedule below). For each class, two students will be selected to lead the discussion. Everyone else should post a response to the readings online, due 24 hours before the class starts (in order to give the discussion leaders time to use them to prepare for the discussion.) Your participation in discussions, online and in class, will be one component of your grade for the class.

Discussion responses should be posted on the class wiki. You can login using your UCINet ID.

Project

The second component of your evaluation is a project, to be conducted in groups of two or three. We'll make time in the first few classes for you to discuss ideas and form groups.

You should plan to undertake a piece of research in an area of HCI. The important focus here is that it is a research project, rather than a development effort. That is, you should (1) have a specific research question that you are asking, (2) be grounded in research literature, and (3) substantiate an answer with data.

Obviously, in a ten week quarter, it's impossible to formulate, conduct, and write up a substantial research project; but nonetheless, although the projects will be necessarily modest in scope, they can still maintain a research focus.

Schedule

The readings are stored on UCI's webfiles service. To gain access, you will first need an activated UCINet ID, and then to register for a Webfiles account.

9/29	Introduction and course overview
10/1	Seminal ideas and starting points.	Bush, V. 1945. As We May Think, The Atlantic Monthly; Hutchins, E. Hollan, J. and Norman, D. 1985. Direct Manipulation Interfaces, Human-Computer Interaction; Card, S. and Moran, T. 1986. User Technology: From Pointing to Pondering, ACM Conf. History of Personal Workstations.
10/6	Theoretical Foundations (Discussion: Justin, Kyle)	Hollan, J., Hutchins, E., and Kirsh, D. 2000. Distributed Cognition, ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction; Bertelsen, O. and Bodker, S. 2003. Activity Theory, HCI Models, Theories, and Frameworks: Toward a Multidisciplinary Science. See also: the CHI94 toolglass video; Beaudouin-Lafon's paper on instrumental interaction; excerpt from Pyschology of Everyday Things; Kirsch's Intelligent Use of Space; and Hutchins' How a Cockpit Remembers its Speed.
10/8	Methods and Evaluation (Discussion: Josef, Patrick)	McGrath, J. 1994. Methodology Matters: Doing Research in the Behavioral Social Sciences, Readings in Human-Computer Interaction; Carter, S., Mankoff, J., Klemmer, S., and Matthews, T. 2008. Exiting the Cleanroom, Human-Computer Interaction; Neale, D., Carroll, J., and Rosson, M. 2004. Evaluating Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Proc ACM. Conf. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work.
10/10	End of Week 2: Project teams due
10/13	Fieldwork and ethnography (Discussion: Catherine, Francisco)	Blomberg, J., Burrell, M., and Guest, G. 2003. An Ethnographic Approach to Design, Human-Computer Interaction Handbook; Dourish, P. 2006. Implications for Design, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems; Holtzblatt, K. 2003. Contextual Inquiry, Human-Computer Interaction Handbook; Gaver, W., Dunne, T., and Pacenti, E. 1999. Cultural Probes, interactions.
10/15	Prototyping and design (Discussion: Marisa, Matt)	House, S. and Hill, C. 1997. What Do Prototypes Prototype?, Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction; Tohidi, M., Buxton, W., Baecker, R., and Sellen, A. 2006. Getting the Design Right and Getting the Right Design, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems.
10/17	End of Week 3: Project abstract drafts due
10/20	Ubiquitous computing (Discussion: Patrick, Phoebe)	Weiser, W. 1991. The Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American; Abowd, G. and Mynatt, B. 2000. Charting Past, Present, and Future Research in Ubiquitous Computing, ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction; Dourish, P. 2001. Getting in Touch, Where the Action Is; Benford, S., Crabtree, A., Flintham, M., Drozd, A., Anastasi, R., Paxton, M., Tandavinitj, N., Adams, M., and Row-Farr, J. 2006.Can You See Me Now, ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction; Tolmie, P., Pyckock, J., Diggins, T., MacLean, A., and Karsenty, A. 2002. Unremarkable Computing, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems.
10/22	Information Visualization (Discussion: Kyle, Josef)	Card, S., Mackinlay, J., and Schneiderman, B. 1999. Information Visualization (ch1); Heer, J., Viegas, F., and Wattenberg, M. 2007. Voyagers and Voyeurs: Supporting Asynchronous Collaborative Information Visualization, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems; Tufte TBD
10/24	End of Week 4: Finalized project abstracts due
10/27	Information seeking (Discussion: Phoebe, Justin)	Pirolli, P. and Card, S. 1999. Information Foraging, Psychological Review; Yee, K., Swearingen, K., Li, K., and Hearst, M. 2003. Faceted Metadata for Image Search and Browsing, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems; Amershi, S. and Morris, M. 2008. CoSearch: A System for Co-located Collaborative Web Search, Proc ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems.
10/29	Social computing (Discussion: Patrick, Marisa)	Ames, M. and Naaman, M. 2007. Why We Tag, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems; Sen, S., Lam, S., Rashied, A., Cosley, D., Frankowski, D., Osterhouse, J., Harper, M., and Riedel, J. 2006. tagging, communities, vocabulary, evolution, Proc. ACM Conf. Computer-Supported Cooperative Work; Doanth, J. 2004. Sociable Media. Encyclopaedia of Human-Computer Interaction; Erickson, T., Smith, D., Kellogg, W., Laff, M., Richards, J., and Bradner, E. 1999. Socially-Translucent Systems: Social Proxies, Persistent Conversation, and the Design of "Babble". Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems.
11/3	Project meetings
11/5	Project meetings
11/10	Tools and Toolkits (Discussion: Kyle, Matt)	Myers, B., Hudson, S., and Pausch, R. 2000. Past, Present, and Future of User Interface Software Tools, ACM Trans. Computer-Human Interaction; Hartmann, B., Wu, L., Collins, K., and Klemmer, S. 2007. , Programming by a Sample, Proc. ACM Symp. User Interface Software and Tools; Li, Y., Hong, J., and Landay, J. 2004. Topiary: A Tool for Prototyping Locaton-Enhanced Applications, Proc. ACM Symp. User Interface Software and Tools.
11/12	No meeting	Paul at CSCW 2008 conference
11/17	Critical design (Discussion: Marisa, Josef)	Dunne, T. and Raby, F. 2006. Hertzian Tales (extract); Sengers, P., Boehner, K., David, S., and Kaye, J. 2005. Reflective Design, Proc. Conf. on Critical Computing; Gaver et al., various. Drift Table and The Plane Tracker (videos); Gaver, W., Sengers, P., Kerridge, T., Kaye, J., and Bowers, J. 2007. Enhancing Ubiquitous Computing with User Interpretation: Field testing the Home Health Horoscope, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems.
11/19	Affect and emotion (Discussion: Kyle, Justin)	Norman, D., Ortony, A., and Russell, D. 2003. Affect and Machine Design, IBM Systems Journal; Picard, R. 2000. Affective Computers, from Affective Computing; Boehner, K., DePaula, R., Dourish, P. and Sengers, P. 2005. Affect: From Information to Interaction, Proc. Conf. Critical Computing.
11/24	Persuasion (Discussion: Marisa, Francisco)	Consolvo, S., McDonald, D., Toscos, T., Chen, M., Froehlich, J., Harrison, B., Klasnja, P., Lamarca, A., LeGrand, L., Libby, R., Smith, I. and Landay, J. 2008. Consolvo et al, Activity Sensing in the Wild, Proc. ACM Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems; Mankoff, J., Matthews, D., Russell, S., and Johnson, M. 2007. Mankoff, Matthews, Fussell, and Johnson, Leveraging Social Networks to Motivate Individuals to Reduce their Ecological Footprints, Proc. Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science.
11/26	Pre-Thanksgiving break
12/1	Project presentations
12/3	Project presentations
12/05	End of Week 10: Research reports due by 5pm

INFX 231B: Research in Human-Computer Interaction (Fall 2008)

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Research in Human-Computer Interaction

Weekly Discussions

Project

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