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General Information
6.831 User Interface Design and Implementation (H)
Lecture: MW 1-2:30
Room: 36-112
Prereq: 6.170 (or equivalent)
Units: 3-0-9
6 Engineering Design Points
Satisfies either the Computer Systems concentration or the Artificial
Intelligence &
Applications concentration
Staff
Instructor
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Prof. Rob Miller (rcm@mit.edu)
32-G716
x4-6028 (617-324-6028)
Office hours: Monday 2:30-3:30pm, or by appointment (email me)
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TA
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Min Wu (minwu@mit.edu)
32-G714
x3-6212 (617-253-6212)
Office hours: Tuesday 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm, or by appointment
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| Course Secretary |
Sally Lee (sally@csail.mit.edu)
32-G846
x3-6837 (617-253-6837)
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Web Site
The class web site is located at:
http://classes.csail.mit.edu/6.831
Readings, lecture notes, and assignments can be obtained from the web
site.
Class Mailing List
A class-wide mailing list:
6831 (at) lists.csail.mit.edu
is available for announcements and discussion. Everybody who
attends the first day will be subscribed to the list by default.
New students can subscribe using this link:
http://lists.csail.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/6831
If you don't want 6.831 email, you can unsubscribe yourself using the
web interface, too.
To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the 6.831 Archives.
Textbooks
There is no required textbook. However, readings will be assigned
for every lecture, generally from research papers accessible on the Web.
Recommended books:
- Norman, The Design of
Everyday Things, 1990.
This little
book is a
classic work on usability, not just of computer interfaces but also of
physical objects like doors, showers, and stoves. Full of great
anecdotes, plus theory about how users form models in their heads and
how users make errors. Belongs on every engineer's shelf.
- Nielsen, Usability
Engineering, Academic Press, 1993.
Somewhat dated
but still
useful handbook for discount usability engineering, covering many of
the evaluation techniques we'll be learning in this class.
- Mullet & Sano, Designing
Visual Interfaces, Prentice Hall, 1995.
A terrific
guide to graphic
design, chock full of examples, essential principles, and practical
guidelines. Many programmers have a fear of graphic design. This
book won't teach you everything --- it still pays to hire a designer!
-- but it helps get over that fear and do a competent job of it
yourself.
These textbooks are good references:
- Baecker et al, Readings
in Human-Computer Interaction: Toward the Year 2000, Morgan
Kaufmann, 1995.
- Shneiderman, Designing
the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction,
4th ed., Addison-Wesley, 2004.
- Dix et al, Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd
ed, Prentice-Hall, 1998.
- Olsen, Developing User Interfaces,
Morgan Kaufmann,1998.
Other books we like:
- Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information, Graphics Press, 1983.
- Raskin, The Humane Interface, ACM
Press, 2000.
- Johnson, GUI Bloopers: Don'ts and Dos for Software
Developers and Web Designers, Morgan Kaufman, 2000.
- Card, Moran, & Newell, The
Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, Lawrence Erlbaum,
1983.
Books about statistics and experiment design:
- Gonick, Cartoon
Guide to Statistics, Harper, 1994.
- Box, Hunter, & Hunter. Statistics
for Experimenters: An Introduction to Design, Data Analysis, and Model
Building. Wiley, 1978.
- Miller, Beyond Anova: Basics of Applied Statistics.
Wiley, 1986.
Grading
The largest contribution to your grade will be the course project (40%), in which you
will work in small groups to design, implement, and evaluate a
user interface.
Problem sets and homeworks
will be
assigned periodically, and will constitute 25% of your grade.
There will be two quizzes,
given during class time, which together count for 30% of your
grade. See the Course Calendar
for the dates. There will be no final exam.
This is a graduate class, and we will be reading and discussing
research papers. Preparation, attendance, and participation in
class will also be a factor in your grade (5%)!
| Course project |
40% |
| Problem sets and homeworks |
25% |
| Two quizzes |
30% |
| Class participation |
5% |
Collaboration Policy
You may freely discuss assignments
with other people, but you are expected to be intellectually honest and
give credit where credit is due. In particular, for the
individual problem sets (PS1-6 and HW1-2), you should write
your
solutions
entirely on your own; you should not share written materials with
anyone else; and you should list all your collaborators (everyone you
discussed the assignment with) on your handin.
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