CSE 171 Readings

CSE 171: User Interface Design: Social and Technical Issues

Readings

NOTES:

The due date specifies the time by which you should have finished readings for the week ending that date; you should read approximately the first half for the first lecture and the rest for the second lecture.
The class notes are not a substitute for the assigned readings. They are often meant to supplement or correct the readings, and sometimes they are just what I felt like writing at the time, rather than what is most important. Also, please note that the lectures and the readings other than the text are often more important than the text.
For viewing and printing postscript on Windows machines, use GSView or Ghostview; these can be downloaded from the net. CSE Unix machines already have ghostview.

Due 5 April:
- Chapter 1 of the text, pages 1 to 15; you may also wish to read the Forward and Preface.
- Section 1 of the class notes.
- One Cannot Not Interact by Mihai Nadin; if you like that, you might also (optionally) want to read Interface Design: A Semiotic Approach by the same author.
- Tour the UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo, paying particular attention to its semiotic introduction and the various explanations; you can skip the final exhibit (on proof webs).
Due 12 April:
- Chapter 2 of the text, pages 16 to 36, and the Appendix, pages 264 to 273, on XHTML.
- Section 2 of the class notes.
- Read two handouts from Shneiderman Designing the User Interface, on agents and direct manipulation (pages 83 to 89 of the third edition), on interaction styles (pages 71 to74), and the two summaries for Chapter 2 (pages 89 to 90). These were handed out in class.
- On Notation by Joseph Goguen; a postscript version is also available. This is a short introduction to some basics of Peircean semiotics, with illustrations from computer science and mathematics.
- Agents of Alienation by Jaron Lanier.
- (Optional) Direct Manipulation vs. Interface Agents by Ben Shneiderman and Pattie Maes, Interactions, 4, no. 6, pp 42-61, 1997. Digest of a debate held at the 1997 CHI.
- (Optional) Are Agents an Answer or a Question? by Joseph Goguen. A postscript version is also available.
Due 19 April:
- Chapter 3 of the text, pages 37 to 58.
- Section 3 of the class notes.
- Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman. This paper is very condensed and may need to be read several times; some of you may need a dictionary, and the class notes will also help.
- Tutorial on Semiotics by Dana Dahlstrom and Vinu Somayaji (Note: you may find this useful as an ongoing reference).
- Skim the section entitled "Signs," in Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler, University of Wales, Aberystwyth; you may also want to read the "Introduction" and/or the "Preface"; if so, I recommend doing so after reading the "Signs" section. You do not need a deep understanding of this material, but it is interesting to get a taste of how semiotics is used in the humanities, and the historical information is also of interest. The most important points about basic semiotics are summarized in the reading above this one.
Due 26 April:
- Chapters 4 and 5 of the text, pages 59 to 104.
- Section 4 of the class notes.
- Reread Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman.
- Techniques for Requirements Elicitation by Joseph Goguen and Charlotte Linde; a postscript version is also available. This is a short critical survey of methods for determining what users really need, and for evaluating interfaces.
- A brief webpage on Speech Acts and Mitigation.
- Social Impact Statements, by Shneiderman and Rose; a postscript version is also available.
Due 3 May:
- Chapter 6 of the text, pages 105 to 123, and pages 273 to 282 of the Appendix on XHTML.
- Section 5 of the class notes.
- Providing Social Interaction in the Digital Library by Mark Ackerman.
- Affordance, Convention, and Design, by Donald Norman.
- Pages 1 to 11 (up to but not including Section 3) of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design; a postscript version is also available.
- (Optional) Analysing Interaction, by Christian Heath.
Due 10 May:
- Chapter 7 of the text, pages 124 to 133.
- Section 6 of the class notes (you can ignore the material inside [[...]]s).
- Read Notes on Narrative, and then read and think about the structure of the simple narrative in The Structure of Narrative, including the BNF description of narrative structure.
- Reread pages 1-11 of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design, and read pages 11-15 (completing Section 3) plus Appendix D; a postscript version is also available.
Due 17 May:
- Chapter 8 of the text, pages 134 to 149, plus pages 283 to 286 of its Appendix.
- Section 7 of the class notes.
- Reread pages 1-15 of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design (completing Section 3) and read Section 4 (pages 15 to 18); a postscript version is also available.
- Answer Garden 2: Merging Organizational Memory with Collaborative Help by Mark Ackerman.
- Introduction to Methods and Generalizations, by Gilles Fauconnier.
- (Optional) Blending and Metaphor, by Joseph Grady, Todd Oakley, and Seana Coulson.
- (Optional) Metonymy and Conceptual Blending, by Seana Coulson and Todd Oakley.
The last three will help you see what is currently going on in cognitive linguistics.
Due 26 May.
Because there are a lot of readings this week, they are due on Thursday instead of Tuesday.
- Chapter 9 of the text, pages 150 to 170, plus the remainder of its Appendix, pages 287 to 295.
- Section 8 of the class notes and Section 9 of the class notes.
- Information Visualization and Semiotic Morphisms, by Joseph Goguen and Fox Harrell; there is also a faster to download html version, with figures linked instead of included.
- Reread pages 15-18 of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design (Section 4) and read Sections 5 and 6 (pages 18-24), on blending; you can skim the difficult math and concentrate on the examples.
- Pages 11-14 of Web-based Support for Cooperative Software Engineering, by Joseph Goguen and Kai Lin, on the Tatami conventions for the user interface, and their justifications; a postscript version is also available.
- (Optional) The Algebra of Copyright by Andrius Kulikauskas.
- (Optional) Formal Notation for Conceptual Blending.
- (Optional) Metonymy and Conceptual Blending, by Seana Coulson and Todd Oakley.
Due 2 June:
- Section 10 and Section A of the class notes.
- Multimedia Phase-spaces by Peter Bøgh Andersen; a postscript version is also available, but the pdf has some pictures in color.
- Semiotics, Compassion, and Value-Centered Design.
- (Optional but highly recommended) Extenporaneous blending: Conceptual integration in humorous discourse from talk radio, by Seana Coulson (it's in Word).
- (Optional) Foundations for Active Multimedia Narrative: Semiotic spaces and structural blending, by Joseph Goguen and Fox Harrell.
- (Optional) Towards a Social, Ethical Theory of Information, especially material on information, stories and values.
- (Optional) Reality and Human Values in Mathematics; a postscript version is also available.
- (Very Optional) Dynamic Logic by Peter Bøgh Andersen; a postscript version is also available.