CSE 271 Readings

CSE 271: User Interface Design: Social and Technical Issues

Readings

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: Introduction and Methodology
- Chapters 1 and 2 of the text, pages 1 to 15, and 16 to 36; you may also wish to read the Forward and Preface.
- Section 1 and Section 2 of the class notes.
- Affordance, Convention, and Design, by Donald Norman.
- One Cannot Not Interact by Mihai Nadin; if you like it, you might also (optionally) want to read Interface Design: A Semiotic Approach by the same author.
Due 12 April: Requirements Elicitation and CSCW
- Chapter 3 of the text, pages 37 to 58, and pages 264 to 273 of the Appendix on XHTML.
- Section 3 of the class notes.
- 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.
- 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.
- Introduction to Methods and Generalizations, by Gilles Fauconnier. This will give you a sense of what contemporary cognitive linguistics is about; we will go over this material in some detail later.
Due 19 April: Structural Organization and its Representation
- Chapters 4 and 5 of the text, pages 59 to 81 and 82 to 104.
- Section 4 and Section 5 of the class notes.
- 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.
- Semiotic Morphisms, by Joseph Goguen; we will explore the concepts in this short webnote in more detail as the course progresses.
- Tour the UC San Diego Semiotic Zoo, paying particular attention to its semiotic introduction and the various explanations; you can skim the last exhibit (on proof webs).
- Browse the Tutorial on Semiotics by Dana Dahlstrom and Vinu Somayaji; this is intended as a general reference for use throughout the course.
- 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 some interest. The most important points about basic semiotics have been summarized in previous readings.
Due 26 April: Interaction
- Chapter 6 of the text, pages 105 to 123, and pages 273 to 282 of the Appendix on XHTML.
- Section 6 of the class notes.
- Re-read Communication and Collaboration from a CSCW Perspective by Mark Ackerman.
- Providing Social Interaction in the Digital Library by Mark Ackerman.
- Answer Garden 2: Merging Organizational Memory with Collaborative Help by Mark Ackerman.
- 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.
- Are Agents an Answer or a Question? by Joseph Goguen. A postscript version is also available.
- (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) Analysing Interaction, by Christian Heath.
Due 3 May: Narrative and Semiotic Morphisms
- Chapter 7 of the text, pages 124 to 133.
- Section 7 of the class notes.
- 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.
- Narrative and Social Tacit Knowledge, by Charlotte Linde.
- A brief webpage on Speech Acts and Mitigation.
- Re-read 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 10 May: Evaluation
- Chapter 8 of the text, pages 134 to 149.
- Section 8 of the class notes.
- Social Impact Statements, by Shneiderman and Rose; a postscript version is also available.
- Re-read Introduction to Methods and Generalizations, by Gilles Fauconnier.
- (Optional) Blending and Metaphor, by Joseph Grady, Todd Oakley, and Seana Coulson.
- Re-read 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.
- (Optional) Metonymy and Conceptual Blending, by Seana Coulson and Todd Oakley.
Due 17 May: Information Visualization and Actor-Network Theory
- Chapter 9 of the text, pages 150 to 170, plus pages 283 to 286 of its Appendix.
- Section 9 and Section 10 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.
- Re-read 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. Also read Appendices A and C.
- Pages 11-14 of Web-based Support for Cooperative Software Engineering, on the Tatami conventions for the user interface, and their justifications, by Joseph Goguen and Kai Lin; a postscript version is also available.
- (Optional) Metonymy and Conceptual Blending, by Seana Coulson and Todd Oakley.
- (Optional) The Algebra of Copyright by Andrius Kulikauskas.
- (Optional) Semiotic Morphisms, Representation, and Blending for User Interface Design.
- (Optional) Formal Notation for Conceptual Blending.
Due 26 May: Multimedia, Blending and Humor
- Chapter 11 of the text, pages 189 to 209, plus the remainder of its Appendix, pages 287 to 295.
- Section 11 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.
- Foundations for Active Multimedia Narrative: Semiotic spaces and structural blending.
- Extenporaneous blending: Conceptual integration in humorous discourse from talk radio, by Seana Coulson (it's in Word).
- (Optional but recommended) Reality and Human Values in Mathematics; a postscript version is also available.
- (Optional but recommended) Dynamic Logic by Peter Bøgh Andersen; a postscript version is also available.
- (Very Optional) Notes on Gradient Logic.
Due 2 June: Access, Values and Ethics
- Read chapters 12, 13 and 14 of the text, pages 210 to 263.
- Section 12 and Section A of the class notes.
- Towards a Social, Ethical Theory of Information; this and the next reading can serve as a summary of much of the course.
- Semiotics, Compassion, and Value-Centered Design.
- Value Sensitive Design and Information Systems, by Batya Friedman, Peter Kahn and Alan Borning, pages 1-6 and 12-20. See also Value-sensitive Design, by Batya Friedman, in interactions, vol. 3, no. 6, pp. 16-23 (ACM 1996).