CSE 171 Readings

CSE 171: User Interface Design: Social and Technical Issues

Readings

NOTES:

The class notes are not a substitute for the assigned readings! They are often meant to supplement or correct the readings, and sometimes 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.
To read gziped postscript files, you must first extract the postscript from the gzipped file. On Windows machines, this may be too arcane for the Winzip Wizard, but Power Archiver should work; on Apple machines, the Stuffit Expander should work. For viewing and printing postscript, use GSView or Ghostview; these can be downloaded from the net, although they may be complex to install. CSE Unix machines already have gunzip and ghostview, and older versions of Netscape call them automatically.

Due 2 April.
- Chapter 1 of Shneiderman.
- Section 1 and Section 2 of the class notes.
- Basic Webbing Notes by Joseph Goguen.
Although theoretically this material should have been read before the second class meeting, it is of course acceptable to have read it before the third meeting.
Due 9 April.
- Chapter 2 of Shneiderman.
- The Scientific American interview with Ben Shneiderman: meet our author and some of his recent obsessions, including agents.
- Agents of Alienation by Jaron Lanier.
- Section 9.3.5 of Shneiderman (p.325).
- One Cannot Not Interact by Mihai Nadin. (If you liked that, you might also (optionally) want to read Interface Design: A Semiotic Approach by the same author.)
Due 16 April.
- Chapter 3 of Shneiderman.
- Section 3 of the class notes.
- Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman. This paper is very condensed and will need to be read several times by many of you; you may need a dictionary, and the class notes will also help.
- 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 to have a deep understanding of this material; however, it is interesting to get a taste of how semiotics is used in the humanities, and the historical information is also of some interest. The most important points about basic semiotics can be found in On Notation by Joseph Goguen, which is required reading for next week.
- (Optional) read Are Agents an Answer or a Question? by Joseph Goguen.
- (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.

Due 23 April.

Re-read Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman.
Chapter 4 of Shneiderman.
Section 4 of the class notes.
On Notation by Joseph Goguen; a PDF version is also available. This is a short introduction to some basics of Peircean semiotics, with illustrations from computer science and mathematics.
Techniques for Requirements Elicitation by Joseph Goguen and Charlotte Linde; a PDF version is also available. This is a short critical survey of methods for determining what users really need.
Autonomic Computing, a call for papers that introduces a new buzzword, and makes some strong claims.

Due 30 April.

Chapters 5 and 14 of Shneiderman.
Read Section 5 of the class notes.
Providing Social Interaction in the Digital Library by Mark Ackerman.
Tour the UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo for content, not just form as in earlier homework, paying particular attention to its semiotic introduction.
Semiotic Morphisms, by Joseph Goguen; you may skim sections 3.1, 3.2 and 4.
A brief webpage on Speech Acts and Mitigation, which includes some interesting examples.

Due 7 May. These are suggestions to help you review for the midterm.

Re-read Semiotic Morphisms, by Joseph Goguen, especially sections 2 and 3.
Re-read sections 3,4 5, 6 of Techniques for Requirements Elicitation; a PDF version is also available.
Re-read Speech Acts and Mitigation.
Re-read On Notation by Joseph Goguen; aPDF version is also available.
Re-read Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman.
re-visit the UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo.
Review classnotes, sections 1 to 5.
Review highlights of Shneiderman, chapters 1 to 5, and 14.
Review vocabulary.

Due 14 May.

Chapter 6 of Shneiderman.
Section 6 of the class notes.
Pages 1 to 11 (up to but not including Section 3) of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design; a PDF version is also available.
Answer Garden 2: Merging Organizational Memory with Collaborative Help by Mark Ackerman.
The Structure of Narrative, especially the BNF description of narrative structure.

Due 21 May.

Chapter 15 of Shneiderman.
Section 7 of the class notes.
Information Visualization and Semiotic Morphisms, by Joseph Goguen and D. Fox Harrell; be sure to look at the pictures, but note that the versions of these pictures in the book are better. There is also a postscript version of the paper.
Re-read pages 1-15 of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design (up to but not including Section 3.1) and read Section 4 (pages 15 to 18).
Formal Notation for Conceptual Blending; you do not have to understand the technical details of this.
Read some basic information on XML; this is available at many places, including www.xmlinfo.com, or the O'Reilly XML Pocket Reference by Robert Eckstein, or www.w3.org (they maintain the XML standards), or www.xml.com, or www.xml.org.

Due 28 May.

Chapter 16 of Shneiderman.
Section 8 of the class notes.
Multimedia Phase-spaces by Peter Bøgh Andersen; a PDF version is available, with some pictures in color.
Re-read pages 1-18 of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design, and read pages 18-22 (completing Section 5) on blending; you may skim the difficult math and concentrate on the examples; a PDF version is also available. Note: A correction to the reading assigment from this paper was posted late, so you may hand in homework problem 5 one week late if you wish.
(Optional) The Algebra of Copyright by Andrius Kulikauskas.

Due 4 June.

The "Afterword" of Shneiderman.
Section 9, Section 10 and Section A of the class notes.
Appendices A and D of An Introduction to Algebraic Semiotics, with Applications to User Interface Design, and review what you have previously read; Appendix C is optional; do not read Appendix B.
Web-based Support for Cooperative Software Engineering, by Joseph Goguen and Kai Lin; a PDF version is also available. Please focus on the Tatami conventions for the user interface, and their justifications (pages 11-14).
(Optional) Towards a Social, Ethical Theory of Information for material on information, stories and values, especially pages 13-14 on narrative.
(Optional) Dynamic Logic by Peter Bøgh Andersen; a PDF. version is also available.
(Very Optional) Notes on Gradient Logic.

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