Course Syllabus
Learning area
Applied Experimental Psychological Sciences
Learning objectives
Knowledge and understanding
- To develop understanding of the interaction between people and technology, with focus on new technological developments such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive apps. Knowledge of how these tools can be used as a means to create contexts within which human behaviour and cognition can be studied as well as of how people approach and interact with novel technologies.
Applying knowledge and understanding
- Students will be able to apply basic concepts of human-technology interaction to everyday relevant issues.
Contents
• This course provides an overview of the field of human-technology interaction, with a focus on the application of knowledge to the design life cycle.
• Students will be involved in a real software development project: they will design, create and evaluate a mobile app or a 3D interactive experience using a simple visual programming environment in project.
• The course will provide students with tools and techniques for creating, prototyping and improving interactions in different fields encompassing new technologies such as ubiquitous computing, virtual and augmented reality.
• By the end of the course, students will have learned some useful techniques and gained an understanding of systematic procedures for creating usable and useful designs and systems.
• The course is NOT programming intensive.
Learning outcomes:
• Being able to design effective interactions between humans and technology (i.e., computers, wearable devices, car systems, mobile phones, websites, apps, etc.) in specific areas (medical, entertainment, educational, etc.).
• Being able to apply design principles and knowledge from research to a new interaction problem.
• Being able to go through the iterative process of needs finding, prototyping, evaluating and revising.
• Being able to discover the goal behind a design (e.g., usability, research, behavioural change, entertainment, etc.) and to measure the effectiveness in achieving it.
• Being able to build a prototype for the evaluation of interactions with a mobile app.
Detailed program
1. Introduction.
• The place of HTI between UI, UX, HCI, IxD, Accessibility and inclusiveness
• The design cycle.
• Describe what and who is involved in the process of interaction design.
• Difference between good and poor interaction design.
• Applications and examples
2. Recap of Design Principles (especially for students who did not attend Cognitive Ergonomics or Applied Neuroscience courses)
• Identifying a task
• Human abilities and cognitive load.
• Theories, principles and heuristics: affordances, cognitive modelling, human needs and motivation, activity theory and situated cognition.
• Explain the main principles and advantages of a user-centered approach.
• Cognitive aspects of interaction design
Human Error
Attention and multitask performance
Memory limits and interaction design
Compare cognitive frameworks applied to HCI.
Mental models
• Emotional interaction
Emotions and user experience.
Emotion recognition and and its applications
Expressive Interfaces and Emotional Design
Affective Computing and Emotional AI
• Interaction Design in Practice
AgileUX
Interaction Design Patterns
Open Source Resources
Tools for Interaction Design
• Requirements Elicitation
Prepare and run data gathering program, interviews and questionnaires preparation and execution
Analyze and present collected data
Use data gathering techniques to discover requirements
• Prototyping
Translation of models and requirements in prototypes
Types of prototypes and models: verbal, paper, Wizard of Oz, wireframe, physical prototype, personas, user profiles, timelines, scenarios, storyboards, video prototyping, user modeling.
• Evaluation
• Types of Evaluation: Qualitative, Empirical and Predictive evaluations.
• Challenges of Evaluation
• Inspections: Heuristic Evaluation and Walk-Throughs
• Agile methods: A/B testing, live prototyping.
3. Social Interaction
• Social mechanisms used to communicate and collaborate.
• Social affordances
• Social presence means.
• Persuasive Technologies and Behavioral Change
• Technological support for collaboration and group participation.
• Collect, analyze and visualize data on large scale (social media) and its social impact
• New social phenomena resulting from “hyper-connection”
4 Interaction personalization
• Recommender systems
• Companions
• Search engine optimization
• Simple website recommendations without coding
5. Creating a mobile app prototype
• Research, design, and evaluation for real.
• Elements of Computational thinking: expressing problems and their solutions in ways that a computer could execute.
• Introduction to code free APP developing tools.
6 Voice Interaction System Design
• What Is a Conversation
• Natural Language Interfaces
• Conversational UX Design Process
• Conversational UX Patterns
• Introduction to code free Conversational System prototyping tools
7 Interaction in Other Realities
• Introduction to code free immersive interaction systems prototyping tools
• Hardware
The Convergence of AR and VR
VR Input Devices
HMD System Calibration
HMD Latency Reduction
• VR Perception
Perceptual Constancies, Adaptation, Attention
Perceptual Stability, Attention, and Action
Distal and Proximal Stimuli
Sensation vs. Perception
Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processing
Limited Field of View, Exploration and Saliency
Motion Perception
• VR Interaction Concepts, Patterns and Techniques
Immersion, Presence, and Reality Trade-Offs
Interaction Fidelity
Proprioceptive and Egocentric Interaction
Reference Frames
Sickness and Fatigue
Visual-Physical Conflict and Sensory Substitution
Interaction Selection, Manipulation, Viewpoint Control, Indirect Control, and Compound Patterns
8 Human Robot Interaction
• Introduction to code free HRI prototyping tools (in simulation for the moment)
• Hardware: success and failures
• Anthropomorphism Applications in Interaction Design and Human Robot Interaction
• Theory of mind and intention recognition
• Spatial Interaction
• Nonverbal Interaction
• Verbal Interaction
• Robots in Society
9. Interaction design lessons from science fiction movies.
• Some interfaces that appeared in sci-fi movies and T.V. shows will be discussed and evaluated in the class. Students will try to answer the following questions: Should they work that way? How could they be improved?
10. Latest news from HTI
• Students talk to the class about some recent documents of their choice and approved by the instructo
Prerequisites
Good knowledge of the basis of Psychology enables a more aware use of the course contents, in particular: perception, memory, learning; research methods, experimental design. Students lacking such knowledge are encouraged to ask for a list of basic references that will be supplied during the course. Students are strongly recommended to attend Cognitive Ergonomics or Applied Neuroscience before taking this course.
Teaching methods
Teaching mixes frontal lessons with active discussion on case studies and research practice.
Students are encouraged to design and test interactive systems starting from the introductory material provided by the instructor
Course attendance is strongly recommended in order to take advantage of interactive lessons, research activity and hands-on with technology.
***Lessons will be held in presence, unless further COVID-19 related restrictions are imposed.***
Assessment methods
For course-attending students: the assessment includes one multiple-response test (during the course) on the course material (slides, papers, hands-on experiences), an oral presentation of a research paper (during the course), an oral presentation of the class project at the end of the course. Presentations can be organized as a group of at most two students, in which case the group has to present two papers. Course-attending students who prefer an alternative to the oral presentation of a research paper and/or the participation in the project can opt for an oral interview.
For non-attending students: the assessment includes an oral interview on the course material (slides and papers) and a project (at the end of the course).
Multiple-response tests will assess the student’s understanding of the theoretical background presented in the class. Oral presentation of research papers will assess the abilities to understand research papers, select the most salient information, and present data. With the project students will be able to apply their understanding of the subject and test their soft skills such as problem solving and managing time.
Textbooks and Reading Materials
• The material will be downloadable from eLearning and from the Bicocca digital library.
• Slides discussed during the lessons in PDF format will be downloadable from eLearning.
• Papers and book chapters in PDF will be downloadable from the Bicocca Digital Library and/or from eLearning.
• Suggested books:
Interaction Design beyond human computer interaction
The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd Ed.
The VR Book Human-Centered Design for Virtual Reality
Unity Virtual Reality Projects
Conversational UX Design: A Practitioner's Guide to the Natural Conversation Framework
Research methods in human computer interaction
• Real life examples: videos, hands-on with prototypes and final products.
• Practice tasks: Collaborative design with prototyping tools and evaluation
Staff
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Dimitri Ognibene