The course is mainly composed of lectures, readings, project assignments, and a mid-term exam. Pop quizes in relation to the required readings will be administered at the beginning of some classes. Lecture slides will be posted in Canvas soon after their corresponding class.

Note that some assignments are due right before class, others are due on non-regular meeting days. Students should consult the Canvas calendar to keep track of deadlines. There are no late days for the assignments.

The books referenced in the schedule are all available online through the Yale University Library:

Class-by-Class Schedule

Date Topic / Activity Assignment Required Reading * Grad. Reading *
Mon 01/14 History of HCI. Why care about design?      
Wed 01/16 Design Thinking   [RMiHCI, Ch. 1.1-1.6]  
Fri 01/18 Ethnography, Contextual Inquiry & Design Research Methods 1a: Proposal Brainstorm [CD, Ch. 3: Principles of Contextual Inquiry] Zimmerman et al., Research through design
Mon 01/21 No class. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.      
Tue 01/22 No class. Assignment due day. 1b: Project Proposal    
Wed 01/23 Problem Space vs Solution Space (Revisited). Tasks 1   Personas in the Encyclopedia of HCI (Sec. 30 - 30.5)  
Fri 01/25 No class. Assignment due day. 1c: Project Bid    
Mon 01/28 Tasks 2      
Wed 01/30 Personas, Scenarios, Storyboarding 2a: Project Ideation UX Comics
Fri 02/01 No class. Assignment due day. 2b: Design of a Research Plan    
Mon 02/04 Design of Everyday Things, Video Prototyping   [DoET, Ch. 6: The Design Challenge]  
Tue 02/05 No class. Assignment due day. 2c: Design Research Milestone    
Wed 02/06 Paper Prototyping and Prototyping HRI   K. Dautenhahn, HRI (Sec. 38, 38.1, 38.2, 38.3) G. Hoffman & W. Ju, Designing Robots With Movement in Mind (Sec. 1 - 4)
Mon 02/11 Testing & Patterns 2d: Design Research Review [RMiHCI, Ch. 10: Usability Testing]
Wed 02/13 Experiment Design   [RMiHCI, Ch. 2: Experimental Research]  
Fri 02/15 No class. Assignment due day. 2e: Task Review    
Mon 02/18 Participants & Designing for Diverse Needs   [RMiHCI, Ch. 15: Working with Human Subjects] Feng et al., Designing a Robot Guide for Blind People
Wed 02/20 Designing Based on Human Performance 2f: Design Milestone    
Mon 02/25 Interface Implementation 2g: Design Review    
Wed 02/27 Tangible User Interfaces, Computational Fab   Ishii et al., Radical Atoms Baudisch & Mueller. Personal Fabrication (Chapters 1 & 2)
Fri 03/01 No class. Assignment due day. 2h: Report of the Design Research    
Mon 03/04 Group Presentations 2i: Design Research Presentation    
Wed 03/06 Midterm      
Mon 03/11 No class. Spring Break      
Mon 03/13 No class. Spring Break      
Mon 03/18 No class. Spring Break      
Mon 03/20 No class. Spring Break      
Mon 03/25 Wizard of Oz (WoZ). Inspection-Based Methods (part I) Lit. Review Milestone (grad. students only) WoZ in HRI The Oz of Wizard
Tue 03/26 No class. Assignment due day. 3a: Low Fidelity Prototype    
Wed 03/27 Inspection-Based Methods (part II. students bring prototype) 3b: Heuristic Evaluation    
Mon 04/01 Proxemics 3c: Usability Testing Milestone Greenberg et al., Proxemic Interactions: The New Ubicomp?  
Wed 04/03 Long-Term Interactions    
Thu 04/04 No class. Assignment due day. 3d: Usability Testing Review    
Mon 04/08 Invited Lecture: Brian Scassellati 3e: Design Mockup    
Wed 04/10 AR/VR (Grad student presentations)    
Fri 04/12 No class. Assignment due day. 3f: Design Refinement Report    
Mon 04/15 Crowdsourcing (Grad student presentations) 4a: Initial Poster  
Wed 04/17 Final Poster Presentation and Pitch 4b: Final Poster Presentation and Pitch    
Fri 04/19 No class. Assignment due day. 4c: Initial Website    
Mon 04/22 Video Critique 4d: Video Prototype    
Wed 04/24 Poster Presentation 4e: Poster Session    
Thu 04/25 No class. Assignment due day. 4f: Final Video, and Final Website    
Fri 04/26 No class. Assignment due day. Lit. Review Report (grad. students only)    

* All required readings are due by the beginning of class for all students. Grad. readings are only mandatory for graduate students. Pop quizes about the readings will be administered throughout the semester.