Syllabus

Contact and Office Hours

• Instructor: Austin P. Wright
• Email: awrigh20@calpoly.edu
• Lecture Time and Location: MWF, 3:10PM-4:00PM, 14-232B
• Lab Time and Location: MWF, 4:10PM-5:00PM, 14-232B
• Office Hours: 14-222, TW, 1pm-3pm (or by Appointment)

Learning Objectives

This course is designed to teach you the fundamentals of the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) so that by the end of the course you will be capable of engaging with contemporary scholarship in HCI, and conduct HCI research in either academic or applied settings. This includes the abilities to:

• Explain fundamentals of human-computer interaction.
• Identify human capabilities and limitations for interaction with computers.
• Use sensors and actuators suitable for human-computer interaction purposes to provide alternatives to traditional input/output devices.
• Contrast human-computer interaction spaces, styles, and paradigms.
• Explain constraints related to environment, devices, and tasks.
• Assess natural user interface capabilities and challenges.
• Explain potential applications for affective, pervasive, or social computing and other emerging technologies.
• Apply human-computer interaction principles and practices to the development of interactive applications as a member of a team.
• Analyze and evaluate the user experience of interactive systems using qualitative and quantitative methods.
• Prepare and deliver effective technical oral presentations.

Grading

The grade breakdown for this course is as follows:

• Class participation (15%)
• Assignments (15%)
• Midterm Exam 1 (20%)
• Midterm Exam 2 (20%)
• Final Project (30%):
  • Final Project Proposal (5%)
  • Final Project Literature Review (5%)
  • Final Project Presentation (5%)
  • Final Project Paper (15%)

At the end of the quarter, I will round UP your final numerical score and turn that into a letter grade using the following grading scale:

• A ∈[100, 93]; A– ∈[92,90]
• B+ ∈[89,87]; B ∈[86,83]; B– ∈[82, 80]
• C+ ∈[79,77]; C ∈[76,73]; C– ∈[72, 70]
• D+ ∈[69,67]; D ∈[66,63]; D– ∈[62, 60]
• F ∈[60,0]

Note that this is the first time this class has been offered in this form at Cal Poly, and so some of the exam difficulty will be hard to judge ahead of time. Do not worry if the midterms are difficult and the scores are low based on the overall grading scale above. Upwards corrections will be made and communicated throughout the quarter in order to ensure a reasonably fair and lenient final grade distribution. My goal is for this course to be challenging and rigorous, but not punishing.

Participation

Class participation means more than just showing up to class, although showing up is a requirement to participate. It means showing up prepared and engaging with the material, group discussions, and lab activities. I will not generally be taking formal attendance, however if I notice poor attendance on any given day I may choose to hold spur of the moment (easy for anyone in the room) pop-quizzes. Additionally stronger attendance requirements for important specific days such as for presentations will be communicated.

Exams

This course will include two written in-person exams. The exams are scheduled during the regular lecture+lab 110 minute time slot. However, they are designed to require only 75 minutes, and so anyone with accommodations for time and a half will be able to take the exam at the same time as the rest of the class. If you require additional accommodations let me know well in advance and I am happy to work with you and the DRC to provide reasonable accommodations.

Late Policy

Due dates for every assignment are provided on the course schedule, in addition there may be some in-class assignments to be completed and turned in during the lab period. Unless otherwise stated, assignments are due on the listed days / during the class period. However, I recognize that sometimes “life happens.” In these instances, you may use your allotted two flex days. These days allow you to submit an assignment up to two days late without penalty. You can use these days for any assignment and for any reason. You do not need to provide me with the reason: simply email me within two days after the deadline and tell me how many of your flex days you would like to use. Once you’ve used all of your flex days, then point deductions will occur for any assignment submitted after the deadline. An assignment submitted 24 hours after the due date will only be eligible for 80% of the maximum number of point allotted. Assignments submitted more than 24 hours after the due date will not be accepted. If you experience extenuating circumstances (e.g., you are hospitalized) that prohibit you from submitting your assignments on time, please let me know as soon as reasonably possible. I will evaluate these instances on a case-by-case basis.

Resources

Slides and Other Materials

For your reference, the PDF versions of class lecture slides will be made available on the course website in addition to all assignment and project descriptions and details. You have my permission to use them as a part of this class. Please do not share course materials with others outside of the course.

While slides will be made available after class, they are NOT designed to be a standalone, complete, course notes reference. Slides are used to augment lecture, but you are responsible for the content actually covered during lecture, in addition to any assigned readings. Therefore I highly recommend taking your own notes (physical written notes generally are shown to be the most effective in assisting in the retention of material) as well as sharing notes and helping each other when studying or if you are a classmate has to miss a lecture.

Textbooks

This course will be using two primary reference textbooks that are recommended but not required.

• Human-Computer Interaction: An Empirical Research Perspective, I. Scott MacKenzie
• Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, Yvonne Rogers, Helen Sharp, and Jennifer Preece

In particular, If you have any difficulties acquiring copies of these books, you may visit my office hours to get a borrowed copy for the quarter.

In addition to these textbooks there is one additional required reading: The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman (2013). I highly recommend you get a physical copy, but digital and audio copies are available. Finally, there will be a few research papers assigned towards the end of the quarter which will be accessible through Cal Poly and the ACM Digital Library. However, again, if you have any issues just come talk to me and I will help you get access to all materials.

Classroom Conduct and Climate

All members of this class are expected to contribute to a respectful, welcoming, and inclusive environment for everyone. I expect us to strive to build a community in which:

• We all treat each other with dignity and kindness, recognize the diversity our backgrounds and experiences, and remain open-minded and willing to challenge our beliefs without denigrating any people inside or outside of the classroom.
• We are not snobs. We do not assume background knowledge or imply there are things that somebody should already know or do in order to be a member of the community.
• After our own work is complete, we support one another’s learning by sharing our expertise generously if invited to do so.
• We consistently make the effort to actively recognize and validate multiple types of contributions to a positive classroom environment.
• We strive to contribute meaningfully to group work.

Academic Integrity

Work you turn in must be your own. Although I encourage you to have lively discussions with one another, all work you hand in must be your own, unless otherwise specified. Evidence that your submissions are plagiarized from another student or an unapproved source will be taken seriously. At minimum, you will receive a 0 for the assignment, and potentially also an F in the class and report filed with the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities.

You have a number of resources at your disposal to help you succeed in this course (your peers, myself, online sources), and I am usually willing to work with you on flexible deadlines. If you feel you need to plagiarize in order to succeed, know that you almost certainly have other options. Just come talk to me!

AI Policy

I recognize that there is no uniform policy on the use of AI across your other courses which may make understanding the various policies on it's use difficult. If you have any questions please just talk to me, we are working together to help you have the most effective educational experience, so we are on the same team. That being said, in this course, AI may not be used in any substantial way in the writing, design, critiques, or reflections assigned in this course. All of the writing and design assignments are there for you to think through problems yourself. The process is the thing I care about, the place where the learning happens, and the thing you skip when using AI in such a context.

However, this course will involve some programming projects, and since the goals of this course do not involve teaching you how to program (which is assumed as a prerequisite), you may use AI to help with some of your programming with the following provisions:

1. You must state that you used it and in what ways you used it in a comment in your code ("I used ChatGPT to help with…")
2. You are responsible for any mistakes that it makes. It will make mistakes or mislead you on occasion. You can’t blame the AI if you get something wrong.
3. You are responsible for actually understanding how everything you turn in actually works, and if it becomes clear that you don't understand your own code and work, then I will treat it as not your own code and thus give the assignment a zero at a minimum.