Month / Week

Topic and Readings

JANUARY

1/20 - 1/24

Welcome: See announcements 1 and 2

1/27 - 1/31

Computing Models and Usability Issues

à Read and submit a written, critical overview of Shneiderman: Chapters 1, 2 and 3 - - due 1/31, length of three double-spaced pages and a cover page.

Additional Readings:

Definition of HCI -- http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html

A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~amulet/papers/uihistory.tr.html

Suggested Readings in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), User Interface (UI) Development, & Human Factors (HF): http://www.hcibib.org/readings.html

The role of HCI in Interface Design:

AUTHOR: Gwen M. Gregory
TITLE: Design Wise
SOURCE: Information Today 17 no3 65 Mr 2000

Examples of research in the design of an interface for library services:

AUTHOR: Julia Gelfand
TITLE: Designing Web Interfaces to Library Services and Resources
SOURCE: Library Resources & Technical Services 44 no2 105-6 Ap 2000 (Book Review)

AUTHOR: Angi Faiks and Nancy Hyland
TITLE: Gaining User Insight: A Case Study Illustrating the Card Sort Technique
SOURCE: College & Research Libraries 61 no4 349-57 Jl 2000

A comparison of two online catalogs designed to offer a diversity of materials:

AUTHOR: Elisabeth Green; Alison J. Head
TITLE: Web-Based Catalogs: Is Their Design Language Anything To Talk About?

HCI Bibliography: http://hcibib.org/hci-sites/BIBLIOGRAPHY.html
Journals about HCI: http://hcibib.org/hci-sites/JOURNALS.html

FEBRUARY

2/3 - 2/7

New Methods, New Goals

Understanding Human Activities and Relationships

à Read and submit a written, critical overview of Shneiderman: Chapters 4, 5, due 2/7 -- length of three double-spaced pages

2/10 - 2/14

User-Centered Designs

Readings:

Read Shneiderman Chapters 6-9.

Additional Readings:

Don Norman and the Design of Everyday Things: http://www.jnd.org/ -- I include readings from Don Norman's and Jakob Nielsen's web-site throughout the schedule. Don Norman is the author of The Design of Everyday Things (also referred to as the Psychology of Everyday Things). The latter is a popular textbook for user-centered design courses. If you check out the web site (http://www.jnd.org/), you will see interviews with Don Norman and also information about the above book.

AUTHOR: Roberta Astroff
TITLE: Searching for the Library: University Home Page Design and Missing Links
SOURCE: Information Technology and Libraries 20 no2 93-9 Je 2001

AUTHOR: John D'Angelo and Sherry K. Little
TITLE: Successful Web Pages: What Are They and Do They Exist?
SOURCE: Information Technology and Libraries 17 no2 71-81 Je '98

2/17 - 2/21

Usability Design do's and don'ts

à Identify a web site, a software package, a database, etc. to evaluate in terms of usability dos and don'ts. Work on this assignment during this week and also during next week.

Readings:

AUTHOR: Brenda Battleson, Austin Booth, and Jane Weintrop TITLE: Usability Testing of an Academic Library Web Site: A Case Study SOURCE: The Journal of Academic Librarianship 27 no3 188-98 My 2001

Usability Is Not a Luxury On the Internet, Usability is Not a Luxury—It is Fundamental to Customer Relationship: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/UsabilityIsNotLuxury.html

DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/DVDmenus.html

Link to Bad Designs by Michael J. Darnell posted here: (http://degraaff.org/hci/publications.html) Bad Designs -- http://www.baddesigns.com/ (click on Table of Contents to see all bad designs)

Http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020722.html
Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, July 22, 2002: Becoming a Usability Professional.

The above is a column written by Jakob Nielsen with good advice on how to become a usability professional. Among other things, he suggests that a new usability professional should start with a SMALL PROJECT. I cannot over-emphasize how important the above advice happens to be given time limitations and a need for a well-focused project.

So, for your final projects find something you will enjoy working on for the next couple of months and keep it small in scope or manageable). Jakob Nielsen recommends a variety of books with information on usability. Of course there is not enough time to read all the books he suggests, at least not within the next 2-3 months, so below find some short articles and other pieces with information on usability. The following links are in addition to other items in the syllabus, such as articles and the textbook, that cover usability in a variety of contexts.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html

This is a short, but informative, piece on usability in which the author makes the case of 5 test-subjects as enough with which to carry out a usability test. (For your final project, I am asking you to test the interface to services you will be proposing using only 3 subjects.)

http://www.library.arizona.edu/library/teams/access9798/lft2paper.htm

A longer article-type of a web posting that covers usability testing at the University of Arizona Library. A good overall article with definition(s) of usability and how to do a test.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9712a.html

A nice short web piece by Jakob Nielsen about web usability studies since 1994. Check this piece out. It is a short piece and also an interesting and authoritative one.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Here you will find TONS of links on usability testing and all of these links are good. Check them out!!!

http://jthom.best.vwh.net/usability/

*** You need to do a test with at least three users to test the interface to the services you will be proposing / designing. The hyperlink above connects to a number of links with definitions and descriptions of ethnographic research, surveys, questionnaires, self-reporting logs, etc. You will be selecting one of the usability tests from the above web site to use in your work. Spend some time perusing the contents of the web site! ***

2/24 - 2/28

Continue working on your usability evaluation and start preparing for next week's meetings.

MARCH

3/3 - 3/7

3/8

[1]

Put the final touches on your web-site usability evaluation activities. Prepare a 10- minute presentation for March 8 when we meet in person to tell your classmates and instructor about findings from your usability evaluation. Write-up main points about your evaluation in the form of a handout.

Start thinking about your final project. Prepare one page about your selected task in terms of the following: Select project task. Read about this task and report during a short 5-minute presentation in class about some of the information you have found about your task. Look at user interfaces that do this task or similar tasks and summarize what you have learned. Start identifying subjects for your evaluation.

IN-PERSON MEETING AT FULLERTON -- The following will take place:

1. Presentations of your usability evaluations. You provide handouts (maximum of one page) for all students and for your instructor
2. Your short statements (maximum one page) about the nature of your selected topic / task for a final project. Copy this to the back of the usability evaluation handout. Please note that this is the point in the semester when you officially commence work on your final project.
3. Discussion about various issues of usability and user-centered issues in interface designs. What's an interface?

3/10 - 3/14

[2]

Generate and consider multiple scenarios for design of the user interface for your final project.

Readings:

Toilet Paper Algorithms: I didn't know you had to be a computer scientist to use toilet paper (modified, August, 2002)
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/ToiletPaperAlgorithms.html

AUTHOR: Christine L. Borgman, Anne J. Gilliland-Swetland, Gregory H. Leazer, Richard Mayer, David Gwynn, Rich Gazan, Patricia Mautone
TITLE: Evaluating Digital Libraries for Teaching and Leaning in Undergraduate Education: A Case Study of the Alexandria Digital Earth ProtoType (ADEPT)
SOURCE: Library Trends 49 no2 228-50 Fall 2000

3/17 - 3/21

[3]

Continue development of the interface for your final project. Submit a report of 3-5 pages in length describing your user interface (describe how your visualize the interface in terms of links, organizational features, buttons, menus, color schemes, size of letters
and fonts, etc.) -- due 3/21

3/24 - 3/28

[4]

SPRING BREAK

APRIL

3/31 - 4/4

[5]

Revise / continue developing interface based on comments from instructor. Complete a preliminary prototype for your interface and write user documentation.

à Submit a 3-page user documentation report -- due 4/4.

4/7 - 4/11

[6]

Finalize your interface and make appointments with your test subjects for testing the interface. In order to conduct a usability study you would need to have an operational interface.

4/14 - 4/18

[7]

Start your user evaluation (usability) study.

Readings (just in case you are doing a questionnaire to evaluate your design, here is some additional information):

Web-Based User Interface Evaluation with Questionnaires:
http://www.acm.org/~perlman/question.html

4/21 - 4/25

[8]

Complete usability study

à Submit results of your usability study to instructor for comments (length of submission at your discretion) -- due 4/25

MAY

4/29 - 5/2

[9]

Revisit your initial intentions for a task in this project - did you do what you said you would do in this project? Is the project complete?

If you desire, submit a preliminary report for comments from instructor

5/5 - 5/9

[10]

Read Shneiderman Chapters 9-10. Proof read paper / report one last time.

5/12 - 5/13

[11]

à Final project / report due. Length 25 pages, including bibliography. NO LATE PROJECTS ARE ACCEPTED.