Textbooks
There are no textbooks required for this course. Students are expected to read the lecture notes and attend class. There are three relevant but entirely optional books:
- Helen Sharp, Jennifer Preece, Yvonne Rogers. Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 5th Edition, Wiley, 2019.
- Tim Brown. Change by Design, Revised and Updated, Harper Business, 2019.
- Donald A. Norman. The Design of Everyday Things, MIT Press, 2014.
Class Format
The philosophy of learning HCI is “learning by doing.” As such, the course is highly-interactive and will be operated in a design studio style.
- During the class, students are required to attend the class lectures and work in teams of 4 or 5 to perform the design activities assigned every week. The instructor and TAs will drop in the discussion of student teams to offer help and suggestion.
- Doing activities with the team in-person is strongly encouraged. Students are encouraged to bring personal computers as the in-class activities are mostly based on digital tools.
- For each week, there are about 2 hours in-class time for lectures, questions, and design activities, and about 1 hour out-of-class time for continuing the activities.
- Throughout the term, there are other individual and group deliverables, such as reading reflections, mid-term report, project presentation, and final report. Team members are expected to work together, and peer review comments collected end of the term.
Grading
Students will be evaluated by the quality of their participation, assignments, presentations, and class projects. The course contains three main grading components: preparation, design, and product. The marking scheme is:
| CS449 | CS649 | Preparation |
| 2% | 2% | 1a. Ethic training |
| 0% | 0% | 1b. Team formation |
| 10% | 10% | 1c. Reading reflections |
| CS449 | CS649 | Design |
| 18% | 18% | 2a. Design document |
| 20% | 15% | 2b. Mid-term report |
| 5% | 5% | 2c. Design critiques |
| CS449 | CS649 | Product |
| 15% | 15% | 3a. Project presentation |
| 15% | 15% | 3b. Demo video |
| 15% | 10% | 3c. Final report |
| - | 10% | Research proposal |
Please refer to the Schedule page for detailed due dates of all the deliverables.
1a. Ethic Training
The TCPS 2 Tutorial Course on Research Ethics (CORE), also known as the TCPS2 tutorial, is mandatory for all researchers who intend to engage in research with human participants. In this course, you will be interviewing target end users. Before contacting users and conducting interviews, you are required to complete the ethics tutorial. Each student needs to complete the ethics tutorial individually. If you have taken this tutorial previously in other courses or activities, you do not need to take it again.
From the Welcome Page, click on the “Login to Core / Create Account” button on the right. Click “Create new account here” and fill in the required fields; make sure you register using your uwaterloo.ca email address. A confirmation email will be sent to the email address that you provide (check spam if you do not see it in your mailbox). Click on the activation link only once to activate your account. Once your account is activated, you can log in and begin the tutorial. It can take up to 3 hours take to complete CORE, depending on how many examples and activities you explore. You can go through the modules at your own pace; your progress is automatically saved, and you can log out and in again to resume your session. If you experience any difficulties, refer to TCPS 2: CORE Frequently Asked Questions.
All students must complete the ethic training; otherwise, you cannot continue in the course. If you have done the training within other courses before, the certificate of completion can be reused. Submit the certificate of completion with your name on it to the corresponding LEARN Dropbox. Late submissions receive 0 mark.
1b. Team Formation
Students will work in teams throughout the term. Teams must be formed at the beginning of the term and are expected to stay the same during the term. All project deliverables are submitted per team and marked accordingly. At the beginning of the term, each project team is required to choose a project topic under an overarching theme.
Find teammates during the first class, and on MS Teams/Piazza after. There must be 4-5 students in your project team. Teams should be formed within the same class section with rare exceptions subjected to an instructor’s approval. After forming a team, conduct a team meeting to finalize your team information, including team name, team member names/emails, potential project topic, etc.
All students must be in a team to move forward. After forming a team, designate one person from the team to submit the finalized team information using this online Project Team Information form. During your initial team meeting, develop a team contract using this template (by making a copy) to answer a set of questions about how your team will function this term. Submit your team contract by putting a link to the document in the designated area of the design document.
In the end of the term, students are required to complete a Team Peer Evaluation form to provide their individual perspectives on the teamwork and their teammates. The responses may be used for adjusting individual marks based on the final team marks.
1c. Reading Reflections
All students must individually complete two reading reflections. Each reading reflection must discuss at least three items from the weekly reading lists available on the Schedule page. The reading reflections should be about what you learned from the reading materials, how they relate, connect, or influence each other, how they can be applied to your project, and any commentaries you want to share. The reading reflections should be less than 1000 words and each student’s reflections should be unique.
Each reading reflection is graded out of 10, with the following grading scheme.
| 2 marks | writing style, format, and grammar |
| 2 marks | degree of completeness (all aspects included) |
| 6 marks | quality of content (clear description, sufficient details, insightfulness) |
Submit your reading reflections to the corresponding LEARN Dropbox.
2a. Design Document
Each team must maintain a document of their design process of the project by updating the document weekly with two main items: group discussion and design activities. Students must attend every team meeting, and attendance is reported on the design document. Special consideration can be made for a few exceptions (e.g., academic travel, illnesses, and family emergencies). However, you must discuss your anticipated absence with the instructor, and provide the necessary justification and documentation.
Every week, there will be several design activities that the team must work on together. Each team must document the discussion points of their meeting and the results of the design activities. Some design activities will be completed in class while some out of class. The TA/instructor will drop in your team discussion in class to help with any questions or to provide design advice or directions. Make use of the TA/instructor’s experience and expertise! Ask questions, solicit feedback, engage them in testing out your ideas.
The weekly design document is graded out of 5, with the following grading scheme. Absent or non-contributing individual team members will receive 0 mark.
| 1 mark | completeness of meeting minutes |
| 2 marks | completeness of design activity results |
| 2 marks | quality of design activity results |
The design document is updated (submitted) weekly throughout the term (Week 3 to Week 11; in total, 9 entries). At the beginning of the course after forming your team, an online design document using this template will be created by the TAs, sharing with all your team members and the instructor. Note that your team contract will also be linked here for a reference. The TAs may use the editing history of the online document to enforce submission deadlines.
2b. Mid-term Report (Visual)
Each team must create a visual mid-term report in the form of a recorded presentation to consolidate their activities done in the first half of the project, spanning the following key design stages: empathize, define, and ideate (partially). The mid-term report presents the rationale, reasoning, insights, and outcomes you have in those stages, as well as the solid logical connections between these stages: e.g., how the outcomes of a previous stage influence the next stage. The length of the recorded video presentation must be within 10 minutes.
You are encouraged to use illustrations, animations, etc. Your work will be judged based on quality rather than length. Specifically, the following main aspects should be included in the mid-term report:
- Background: your pre-design research into academic literature, relevant theories, and prior solutions/products to understand the background and status quo of your design context.
- Context Study: your inquiries into the context using methods from the stage of Empathize (such as value proposition, personas, empathy maps, and user interviews) to establish in-depth understandings about the needs, pain points, or desires of the target users (or other relevant stakeholders).
- Design Framing: your framing of the problem and design opportunities resulted by applying methods from the stage of Define (such as affinity diagrams, task analysis, and user tasks).
- Initial Solution: your initial design solution illustrated by tools from the stage of Ideate (such as storyboards and user stories).
The mid-term reports are graded out of 10 based on the following grading scheme.
| 2 marks | style, format, and design |
| 2 marks | degree of completeness (all aspects included) |
| 6 marks | quality of content (clear description, sufficient details) |
Submit your mid-term report to the online Mid-term Reports folder associated with the #General channel on MS Teams, named with [team #]-[team_name]-mid-term-report.mp4. The mid-term reports are publicly available to the whole class.
2c. Design Critiques
Teams are expected to provide each other with concrete suggestions for their mid-term reports. Each team will be assigned to a critique team. The critique teams must give at least 5 actionable recommendations after reviewing the mid-term reports of the receiving teams. The receiving teams must respond to these recommendations on how to incorporate them in the future. For the recommendations that you think are not reasonable and/or impossible to address, provide rationales in your responses.
The design critiques (that you give) and responses (to the critiques you address) are graded out of 5 with the following grading scheme.
| 1 mark | number of recommendations |
| 2 mark | concreteness of recommendations |
| 2 mark | quality of responses |
Submit your design critiques and responses to the online Design Critiques & Responses folder associated with the #General channel on MS Teams, named with [team #]-[your_team_name]-[the_other_team_name]-[critiques/responses].pdf.
3a. Project Presentation
Each team must present their project at the end of the course in class lively. You should reflect on your design process throughout the five key stages: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The presentation should include 4 main topics as shown in the weekly to-do’s. First, introduce what you are doing and why. Second, demonstrate your high fidelity prototype with a video or lively, which could be an initial/incomplete version and refined later for other deliverables. Third, describe the surprises or learned lessons arose in your design process. Fourth, describe your hope for the future. Also, remember to include a final slide (non-presenting) with the contributions and task divisions among team members. Every team member should be involved in the presentation (not necessarily all presenting), and the length must be within 8 minutes.
The project presentation is graded out of 10 with the following grading scheme.
| 3 marks | length and delivery (clear speaking, clear slides) |
| 2 marks | degree of completeness (all topics included) |
| 5 marks | quality of presentation (clear description, sufficient details) |
Submit your presentation slides to the online Project Presentations folder associated with the #General channel on MS Teams, named [team #]-[team_name]-slides.pptx. However, you can still refine the slides until the class and present the refined version. The project presentation slides are publicly available to the whole class.
3b. Demo Video
Each team must create a video to demonstrate your final product (i.e., high-fidelity prototype). The length of the video must be within 3 minutes. You should have supporting comments in the video to explain what is being shown. You can also include any other aspects of work you have done, if you would like to and if the time on the video allows you (for example, your paper prototype to show the progression of the design). Note the purpose of the video is to just demonstrate of the final product, which is different from the mid-term presentation video that descries the design process.
The demo video is graded out of 10 with the following grading scheme.
| 2 marks | quality of visuals (appealing design) |
| 4 marks | quality of description (clear and logical content) |
| 3 marks | quality of product prototype (design and functions) |
Upload your demo video to a sharing platform such as YouTube and submit the video along with your final product using this Demo Video Submission Form. The demo videos may be made publicly available to the whole class.
3c. Final Report (Written)
Each team must write an online final report in a format of a blog post that documents your entire process. This is a polished, concise and integrated article based upon your design document, and combined with your evaluation of the prototypes.
Do not simply copy and paste the content from your design document, either. The report should not be a collection of fragmented notes and descriptions. Rather, the report should present a compelling, compact story about your whole design exploration, with sound and solid logic connections between different stages and activities in your process. Think from the reader point of view. You are encouraged to use multimedia to support your story, such as the demo video and images from your design process. The report should be roughly 2700 words. More specifically, the final report must include the following five aspects:
- Introduction, e.g., a concise and attractive description of:
- the context/topic of your project and your value proposition (make clear the timeliness, and societal relevance)
- problems to solve and goals to achieve (make clear what are the benefits of solving this problem)
- (very briefly) your solution (what your system do and how it solves the problem)
- (very briefly) your findings (the most striking results/insights from your evaluation of the prototype)
- Background, e.g. existing knowledge and status quo:
- related literature: knowledge by prior studies/theories that is related to your exploration/design, and how you build upon them.
- existing solutions: current techniques/implementations/products that solve save or similar problem. And why your proposed solution is still necessary, unique, or advantageous (in certain respect).
- Context Study, e.g., how you study the context using methods from the stage of Empathize:
- profiling users (or stakeholders): persona and empathy maps
- exploratory study process: user observation and interviews
- exploratory study results: affinity diagrams and user tasks (make clear how the results shape your design considerations)
- Design, e.g.:
- design alternatives: storyboards, sketches, and user flows (make clear how you select from the alternatives and why)
- design iteration: how you develop the idea based on others’ feedback, your actions taken, and your decisions about important design features
- final design: a compelling and concise presentation of the final design solution (together with your video figure and illustrations)
- Implementation and Test, e.g.:
- low-fidelity (paper) prototype and evaluation
- high-fidelity prototype and evaluation
- design iteration: others’ feedback and your evolving design
- Conclusion, e.g.:
- reflection on the design process (make explicit the key insights you learnt from this design exploration and how they could help designers/developers in the future solving similar problems)
- current limitations and future plan
The final report is graded out of 40 with the following grading scheme.
| 5 marks | writing style, format, and grammar |
| 10 marks | degree of completeness (2 marks each aspect, sufficient details) |
| 25 marks | quality of content (5 marks each aspect, clear description) |
For consistency, Medium is used for writing and hosting the blog posts. Submit your link to the blog post using this Final Report Submission form. The links to these blog posts may be shared publicly on an aggregated article on Medium or on social media.
Research Proposal (CS649 Only)
Students who enroll in CS649 must write a research proposal, in addition to the above deliverables. The research proposal should be 4-6 pages (excluding references, roughly 2500 words) using either the ACM Latex or Word template (use the \documentclass[acmsmall,screen]{acmart} option). The research proposal needs to focus on a different topic from your team project but under the same overarching theme of the class. Your work will be judged based on quality rather than length. Refer to the Resources page for tips on academic writing. Samples of past research proposals can be found here.
Please read more information regarding the research proposal. The proposal should at least contain the following sections:
- Introduction: describe what research questions may be interesting to ask given the solution that you designed.
- Related Work: conduct a literature review of prior work related to your research questions, with at least 10 references.
- Proposed Solution: describe your solution to address the questions, including its functionalities and rationale behind its design.
- Study Design: choose one or two HCI research methodologies and describe in detail a user study you can potentially run to validate your solution.
The research proposal is graded individually out of 10 with the following grading scheme.
| 2 marks | writing style, format, and grammar |
| 2 marks | degree of completeness (all aspects included) |
| 6 marks | quality of content (clear description, sufficient details) |
Submit your research proposal to the corresponding LEARN Dropbox.