Dear All, we finally finished the marking of the course work. We took into consideration several pieces of information: not only the results of the assignments, but also the quality and quantity of individual contributions to the user research, including diary reflection, forum contribution, questionnaire feeling etc.

The marks can be downloaded from here; the file can be opened with the password you should have received by email.

All people are allowed to take the oral examination (apart of the person required to contact the professor); consider however that people failing the course-work will have to recover their marks there and will be thus asked some additional questions.

• Partitioning of the students for the February exam. Note: people who have received a weak mark on the practical part will be asked some questions on the same topics.
• Exam dates: 21-22/01/13 and 12/02/13. Remember to subscribe on Esse3.
• SmartCampus is now OPEN SOURCE! Read the official announcement here
• Last slides of the course added.
• Below you can find the course slides translated into Italian.
• The forum is online for technical questions and bug reporting (mail to sysadmin@smartcampuslab.it if you have trouble subscribing)

1. Introduction to user centred design
2. Usability and design principles
3. Heuristics
4. User requirements
5. Usability evaluation
6. Storyboarding
7. Balsamiq
8. Designing visual interfaces
9. Interviews
10. Questionnaires
11. Cognitive processes
12. Slides complete in italiano (trad. a cura di Ilenia Pezzato)
13. Memory
14. Revision lecture
15. Additional reading on memory, thought and language (Italian only)
16. Second assignment
17. Third assignment

The mark is composed of 2 parts.

• Course-work: 50% of the mark
• Oral examination: 50% of the mark

The course-work is designed around 3 deliverables with hard deadlines (see course-work description). Students respecting the deadlines will be given personalized feedback and help during the course. They are also given a smart-phone at the beginning of the project to be used in the evaluation.

The oral examination will be organised as an individual discussion where students will integrate the material introduced during the lectures using the course-work as a working example.

Students who (for whatever reasons) are unable to respect the deadlines shall submit all deliverables 2 weeks before attending the oral examination. They have to use their own smart-phone or evaluate a web-application.

Groups details are recorded at http://goo.gl/Ru2iu. No changes are allowed ofter October 12, 2012. People who did not register, will have to do the course-work individually.

This document describes the Project to be completed by the students who are taking the module Interazione uomo-macchina (Human-Computer Interaction) in the academic year 2012/13. The course-work is designed around hard deadlines and accounts for 50% of the final mark.

The course-work is designed to give students first-hand experience of an evaluation and design project of a mobile application. The evaluation is based on analytical techniques (heuristic evaluation, design principles), user testing, and a diary study. Early prototyping is required to support the communication of design ideas on how to improve the applications based on the evaluation results.

The project includes both individual and group activities. Students are exposed to typical group work dynamics, and will learn how to share information and co-ordinate activities. Furthermore, they will learn how to present their findings and co-ordinate a design team.

The project will be conducted in semester 1 starting 16 October 2012. It includes 3 deliverables.

• D1. Heuristics evaluation – group + individual evaluation (20% of project mark).

Deadline October 31, 17 PM. Send the Excel file to deuffici@disi.unitn.it with subject ‘Heuristic Evaluation HCI’ (no deliverables will be accepted after the deadline).

• D2. Usability evaluation - group deliverable (20% of project mark)

Deadline November 20, 17 PM – e-mail to deuffici@disi.unitn.it with subject ‘Usability evaluation HCI’ (no deliverable will be accepted after the deadline).

• D3 – Final report – Evaluation methodology and results + Suggestions for redesign – group work (60% of project mark).

Final deliverable due by December 14th, 2 PM – e-mail to deuffici@disi.unitn.it with subject ‘Final assignment HCI’ . Please note this is a hard deadline. Students who do not deliver in time will not be entitled to attend the first section of the oral examination.

The project is aimed at evaluating a set of mobile applications designed in the SmartCampus project. Students will be given a smartphone to be used during the evaluation.

The objectives are twofold:

• understand the limitations of the current system in terms of utility, usability and the overall user experience, based on both analytical evaluation, user testing, and personal experience.
• propose suggestions for design improvements using early prototyping techniques and knowledge of best design practices.

The procedure for the execution of the course-work is detailed below.

Each student individually performs an expert-based evaluation of three SmartCampus applications: Journey Planner, Discover Trento and Communicator (more information about the apps can be found at http://www.smartcampuslab.eu). The evaluation should be based on the heuristics proposed by Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html), the design principles discussed in the lecture (unit 2) and the heuristics suggested by Bertini et al. 2006. Results of the personal analysis (conducted independently by each student) have to be recorded in individual sheets of the Excel file. The group then analyses all individual reports and prepares a final list of usability problems listed by their severity (impact on user performance). A standard format for registering individual and group results is attached.

Deliverable 1 –Heuristic Results – Excel file containing group results and individual contributions. (Evaluation of group performance)

• Samsung Galaxy S II evaluation form: http://goo.gl/WF2rZ
• Diary about your experience with the mobile: http://goo.gl/jIi7V
• Group evaluation form: hcicourse_groupevaluation.xls
• Bertini et al., “Appropriating and assessing heuristics for mobile computing”: bertini_et_al._appropriating_and_assessing_heuristics_for_mobile.pdf
• Terms of usage for the smartphone: termini_utilizzo_smartphone.pdf, slide_for_hci_coursework_eng.pdf
• Heuristic evaluation examples: http://designingwebinterfaces.com/6-tips-for-a-great-flex-ux-part-5
• Samsung Galaxy S II commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjWIGvjKecY
• SmartCampus project website: http://www.smartcampuslab.eu
• Introduction slides about SmartCampus: 20121016_smartcampus_projectpresentationtostudents.pdf
• Clarification slides from the 23/10 lecture: clarifications.pdf

Silvia Bordin: bordin@disi.unitn.it

Nicolò de Uffici: deuffici@disi.unitn.it