CPSC 4927 - Human Computer Interactions

(3) Credit Hours

This course provides an introduction to and overview of the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). HCI is an interdisciplinary field that integrates theories and methodologies from computer science, cognitive psychology, design, and many other areas. Course readings will span current theory and practice in interface specification, design and evaluation. Students will work on both individual and team projects to design, implement and evaluate computer interfaces. The course is open to students from other disciplines, providing them with experience working in interdisciplinary design teams.

There are two interesting areas the course will focus on: the first and central focus of the course is a semester-long team project, in which students will design, implement and evaluate a user interface. Teams will be incrementally led through the phases of ethnographic study and requirements analysis, scenario-based design, paper prototyping, computer prototyping, and several methods of usability analysis and evaluation. The second focus will involve an introduction to software architectures used in modern graphical user interfaces, including the implementation of a few simple interfaces using the Java Swing toolkit, for example. Prerequisites: CPSC 3600 with a grade of C or better. Only to open to BAS IT Cybersecurity majors. Differential course fee will be assessed.