Course Overview and Philosophy

CSCI488/688 will be structured as per usual at the 400/600 level. There will be a mix, roughly 50/50, of theory and practice. There will be projects, individualized (i.e. no two people will do the same project), but possibly in teams during the latter part of the semester.

Evaluation will be largely subjective: writing essays and/or papers. Much of the homework will be in the form of evaluating user interface design according to the principles and criteria covered in class. Note: This is a course where your writing skill are evaluated as well as what you have written.

The graduate students in CSCI688 will be expected to participate in all the activities engaged in by the undergraduate students enrolled in CSCI488 and, in addition, will be required to read and critically analyze a research paper from the literature, and present their analysis to the group.

Assignments

• Take Home Exam #1

• Short Interpretive Paper

• 3D Interface Project

• Final Assignment Options

3D Resources

• VR Source: The source for all things VR
• 3D Cafe's Free 3D Models Meshes
• The VRML Object Supermarket:
• Web3d Object Libraries
• Avatar Libraries

Lectures

• About the Humane Interface
• The Psychopathology of Everyday Things by Don Norman
• Tools and Techniques for Creative Design by S.J. Mountsford
• Interactive Systems: Bridging the Gap Between Developers and Users by Jonathan Grudin
  and
  Conducting and Analyzing a Contextual Review by Holtzblatt and Jones
• Site Usability Evaluation by Keith Instone (www.webreview.com)

Texts

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Still recognized as the most comprehensive and coherent set of guidelines published for developers. Note: the top of the page at this site reads like an advertisement; near the bottom of the page are links to download printed and PDF versions; and below that are links to an HTML version of the document itself.

The Interface Hall of Shame

an irreverent collection of examples of common interface design mistakes.

The Interface Hall of Fame

a collection of design solutions that will likely improve the effectiveness and usability of all applications that employ them.

Site Usability Evaluation

To Read/Review/Understand
AND follow the accompanying piece link to Usability Heuristics for the Web
and FROM THERE follow the Site Stress Test link

General Comments

• You are expected to be here. Come to class -- attendance will be taken semi-regularly.
  If you miss class, come and speak to me. This WILL affect your grade.
• Participate, cooperate, and help others.
• You can expect a substantial amount of outside class effort for this course.

Policy on Late Assignments

Therefore, the policy will be this: late assignments will lose a letter grade immediately, and then another letter grade after one week.

Special Needs

NDSU Academic Affairs New Course Syllabi Requirement

Any student with disabilities or other special needs, who needs special accomodations in this course, is invited to share these concerns or requests with the instructor as soon as possible.

Academic Dishonesty or Misconduct

NDSU Academic Affairs New Course Syllabi Requirement

Work in this course must adhere to the Code of Academic Responsibility and Conduct as cited in "Rights & Responsibilities of Community: A Code of Student Conduct" (1993) pp. 29-30. "The academic community is operated on that basis of honesty, integrity, and fair play. Occasionally, this trust is violated when cheating occurs, either inadvertently or deliberately .....Faculty members may fail the student for the particular assignment, test, or course involved, or they may recommend that the student drop the course in question, or these penalties may be varied with the gravity of the offense and the circumstances of the particular case."

Academic dishonesty can be divided into four categories and defined as follows:

• Cheating: Intentionally using or attemping to use unauthorized materials, information or study aids in any academic exercise.
• Fabrication: Intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise.
• Facilitating academic dishonesty: Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.
• Plagiarism: Intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise.