CPSC 581 Human Computer Interaction II

Advanced topics and applications in human computer interaction, with emphasis on developing skills for designing highly interactive human-computer interfaces.

Computer Science 481, and Permission of the instructor

Information that you should read about how to get into this course

Main events and deliverables will be recorded on the Schedule.

Classes and labs are contiguous: you are expected to go to both. Monday, Wednesday

• 10:00 - 11:15 (class)
• 11:15 - 12:15 (lab)

• Textbook Bill Buxton (2007) Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. Morgan Kaufmann.
• Course handouts (sold at near-cost prices)
• A Sketchbook as describe
• Portfolio materials as described and as needed
• Prototyping supplies as described and as needed

• Sketchbook - 10%
• Final Portfolio - 10%
• Project (60%) and Exercises (20%) - 80%

Project Assignments

• Designing for a Pressure-Sensitive Keyboard
• Designing multi-touch / single display groupware
• Designing physical user interfaces

Sketching Exercises

• Storyboarding
• Slide Shows

Portfolio Exercises

• Using Camtasia to create a portfolio entry

• Introduction
• Sketching the User Experience pdf
• What is a Sketch? pdf
• The Sketchbook? pdf (see video)
• The Design Crit pdf
• Vanilla Sketches
• Storyboard Sketches
• Slides Shows / Animation - part 1
• Slides Shows / Animation - part 2
• Slides Shows / Animation - videos

Handouts

• Sketchbook
• Portfolio materials
• Prototyping supplies

Resources

Software

• Programming: Visual Studio 2008 (including WPF), MSDN for VS 2008 and Expression Blend
  • Go to U Calgary MSDNAA Software Center. After registering, login, then click Software (top left), then select Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition. You should also download the MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2008. Expression Blend is an advanced interface builder for WPF.
• Toolkits and SDKs: Developer Cookbook - research software and examples for many of the assignment-specific tools we will use. You can download these to your personal computer.
• Screen Recorders: Camtasia, by TechSmith creates videos by recording your screen, but its only a 30 day free trial. CamStudio is a freeware alternative to Camtasia. Audacity is audio recording software that is available for free. Or you can take a video of the screen with a video camera.
• Screen Snapshots: Snagit, by TechSmith lets you capture and annotate regions of your screen and save them as images, but its only a 30 day free trial. Alternately, you can use the print screen function in Windows and edit the captured image.

WPF / C# Programming

• Books. See the WPF Programing Resources, which includes books available electronically to students from the U of C library for free, and a list of helpful WPF web sites.
• Course tutorials. by Nic Marquardt

Smart Tabletop SDK

• Instructions and Tutorials. The Smart Tabletop SDK allows you to program multiple mice in order to emulate a multi-touch table. The instructions detail how to get the SDK and how to program the SDK.

Assigned Readings

• Reading list - updated as needed

Sketching Resources

• Sketching Methods and examples of different ways of creating an interactive sketch.

Example Portfolios (randomly collected from the web)

• Example paper portfolio with permission of Mark Watson
• Ken Perlin whose examples are live
• Six Revisions
• Newark1.com
• Studio7
• Brian Carter
• N.Design Studio - just for some variety
• Telling Bank Its not a portfolio, but it does show an 'idea' unfolding over time.

The student site is where you will put all your completed works.