Information Design Lab

The digital presence of Information Design Lab, IDC, IIT Bombay

ID 405 - Human Computer Interaction

Instructor: Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam

Registration: ASC may require some students to register manually. If so, please use this registration form and take my signature by Jan 9th, 11 am.

Timings: Wednesdays and Fridays 9:30 am to 11 am (LT 301), and some Saturdays at IDC.

Office Hours: Fridays 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM at my office in Transit Building, Room No. 330 or by appointment.

If you're on Github, you can watch the Github course repo for updates.

Course Overview

This is an introductory course about user-centred design of interactive products and systems. The course will introduce basic theoretical elements of HCI such as Garrett's layers of user experience, human cognitive processes such as memory, affordances, mappings, conceptual models and heuristics and principles of good design.

The course will provide an introduction to the HCI design process, including how to understand users through contextual interviews, how to analyse interviews to identify problems and opportunities, how to define usability goals and user experience goals, how to model users with techniques such as stages of use model and personas, how to explore solutions through scenarios, how to prototype explorations and how to evaluate prototypes for usability.

The course will also cover latest trends in HCI with respect to mobile and wearable technologies and the Internet of things.

Schedule

DateContent
7th Jan, 2015Overview of the course
9th Jan, 2015Introduction to HCI (View slides)

Assignment 1: Find 3 unique usability problems in the day-to-day objects that you have observed or encountered. Describe them in 3 slides in a presentation. Submit as a Google drive link on 12th Jan, by 8 pm to venkatra.iitb@gmail.com

14th Jan, 2015Design of Everyday Things (View slides)
16th Jan, 2015User Research: Contextual Inquiry (View slides)

Guest Lecture by Prof Anirudha Joshi

Assignment 2: In groups of two, conduct an interview with a newcomer to IIT Bombay in trying to understand their perspective on way-finding in the campus. Record the audio with the user’s permission. (If the user disagrees, take notes and prepare transcripts). Try to follow as many sutras of contextual inquiry as possible.
Submit 3 one-minute audio clips / transcripts from this interview in a google drive folder by 23rd Jan (Fri), 8 pm. Each clip / transcript should demonstrate your understanding of one of the sutras during the interview. Name the audio file according to the sutra. In an accompanying Word/PDF document, write a short (100 word) description of each audio file / transcript and a justification of the sutra. You may embed photographs to establish the context of the interview. Don't forget to list your names.
21st & 22nd Jan, 2015Design of Everyday Things -- Mental Models (contd.)

Review of Assignment 1 - 3 usability problems
Additional briefing on Assignment 2 - contextual inquiry

Optional Reading: Why Are Contextual Inquiries So Difficult?

28th Jan, 2015Design Languages for Mobile Platforms (View Slides: PPSX with animation, PDF without animation)
30th Jan, 2015Layers of User Experience (View Slides)

Assignment 3: Draw conceptual models of the following videos:

Submit your models in two A4 sheets, either drawn neatly by hand or drawn using a software tool and printed out. The drawings should be comprehensively labelled and annotated so as to be self-explanatory.
Due: 4 Feb 2015

Optional Reading: Bye, Google Maps Citymapper is what happens when you actually understand user experience.

4th Feb, 2015Ethnographic Research Methods–Contextual Inquiry Revisited, and Image of the City (mapping) (View Slides)


Optional Reading: Recruiting and Interviewing, a chapter from Observing The User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research by Mike Kuniavsky.

11th Feb, 2015Visual Design: Perception Principles (View Slides)


Optional Reading:

13th Feb, 2015User Modelling (View Slides)
User Persona: Katie Bennet, digital camera user -- from Designing for the Digital Age: Creating Human-Centred Products and services by By Kim Goodwin (pp.230)


Optional Lecture:
SOM Leadership Lecture Series 2015: Mr Deep Kalra, Founder and Chairman, Makemytrip.com, 13th Feb, 4.45pm, F C Kohli Auditorium.

18th Feb, 2015HCI Design Process (View Slides)
Guest Lecture by Prof Anirudha Joshi.


Optional Reading: Evaluating Relative Contributions of Various HCI Activities to Usability by Anirudha Joshi and NL Sarda.

27th Feb, 2015Recap of the HCI Design Process
Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process (refer to previous week's slides).
Group Presented: Arnav & Vinay -- Travel application


Optional Reading: How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from a Failing Startup to a Billion Dollar Business.

4th Mar, 2015Role Models and Task Models (View Slides)
Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process.
Group Presented: Nikita, Akhil, (Gokul, Barghav) -- Insta-Quiz


Optional Reading:

11th Mar, 2015Microinteractions (View Slides)
Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process.
Group Presented: Zeal, Kashyap, Aatish -- An app for improving patient (doctor?) experience in hospitals


Optional Reading:

13th Mar, 2015Microinteractions (contd.)
Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process.
Group Presented: Aditya Dave, Anukriti -- Music App


Optional Reading: Case studies of user interface/user experience design process

18th Mar, 2015Microinteractions - Quiz
Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process.
Group Presented: Jivraj, Rahul -- Online/Mobile Retail Pharmacy
20th Mar, 2015Prototyping (View Slides)
For an exhaustive list & comparison, check out Prototyping Tools (and a slightly older comparison done by Cooper).
Specifically for:
  • IA (wireframes): Paper prototypes, Balsamiq
  • visual design: Adobe suite (Illustrator?), Sketch (Mac only)
  • interactivity: Basic interactions in Marvel, Pop, InVision, Proto.io apart from directly prototyping in the browser
  • animations/transitions: Quartz Composer/Origami (Mac only), Framer.js (Requires code), Pixate (Mac only I think). Basic animations can also be done in Keynote/Powerpoint, and some of the apps under interactivity

      Group presentations on the project ideas -- Answering questions: 1. What matters? and 2. How should we respond? from the HCI design process.
      Group Presented: Ravi, Aditya Palod -- Information Portal for Higher Studies Applicants Abroad
25th Mar, 2015Internet of Things (View Slides)
20th Mar, 2015Internet of Things (Contd.)
Group presentations on the project ideas (2nd stage) -- Answering question: 3. How should we detail it out?
Group Presented:
  • Zeal, Kashyap, Aatish -- An app for improving patient & doctor experience in hospitals
  • Arnav & Vinay -- Travel Planning Application
1st & 3rdApr, 2015No class due to holidays. The remaning groups must complete their 2nd stage presentations on 8th Apr.
10th Apr, 2015Usability Testing Tools (View Slides)
15th Apr, 2015UI Ethics (View Slides)
17th Apr, 2015End Semester Examination; 9:30 to 11:00 AM; at regular class venue
You are allowed to refer to your own hand-written notes during the exam. However you are not allowed to discuss with each other during the exam.
18th Apr, 2015Final Prsentation of Projects (Part 1) 10:00 to 11:30 AM; at IDC Conference Room No.2
Groups Presented:
  • Aditya, Anukriti -- Music app
  • Zeal, Kashyap -- An app for searching & scheduling doctor appointments
  • Arnav & Vinay -- Travel Planning Application
25th Apr, 2015Final Presentation of Projects (Part 2) 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM; at IDC Conference Room No.1
Groups to present:
  • Nikita, Akhil, Barghav, Gokul -- Insta-Quiz
  • Pritam, Umang, Shubham, Arnab -- Online/Mobile Household Services
  • Rahul, Jivraj -- Online/Mobile Retail Pharmacy
  • Ravi, Aditya Palod -- Information Portal for Higher Studies Applicants Abroad

Links to slides will be added after the respective lecture

Assessment

For this course, you will be assessed as follows (updated):

Textbook

There is no recommended text for the course. All lecture slides will be made available as PDFs after the lectures for your reference. However lecture slides alone won’t be sufficient to prepare for the end semester exam. So keep a notebook and take notes.

Reference Books

  1. Cooper, Alan (1999). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity. USA: Sams.
  2. Garrett, Jesse James (2002). The Elements of User Experience: User-Centred Design for the Web. USA: New Riders Press.
  3. Heskett, John (2003). Toothpicks and Logos: Design in Everyday Life. UK: Oxford University Press.
  4. Krug, Steve (2000). Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. USA: New Riders Press.
  5. Kuniavsky, Mike (2003). Observing The User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research. USA: Morgan Kaufmann.
  6. Lidwell, William et al. (2003). Universal Principles of Design. USA: Rockport Publishers.
  7. Norman, Donald (2003). Emotional Design: Why We Love (Or Hate) Everyday Things. USA: Basic Books.
  8. Norman, Donald (2002). The Design of Everyday Things. USA: Basic Books
  9. Papanek, Victor (2003). Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change. USA: Academy Chicago Publishers.
  10. Raskin, Jef (2000). The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems. USA: Addison-Wesley Professional.
  11. Rogers, Yvonne, Preece, Jenny, Sharp, Helen (2011). Interaction design: beyond human-computer interaction. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
  12. Tidwell, Jenifer (2005). Designing Interfaces. USA: O'Reilly Media.

Contact

You can reach Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam via email