The final exam was given Wednesday, 11 June, from 7 to 8:30 pm, in Center 217A.

The class wiki is at http://disco.ucsd.edu/csewiki/UserInterfaceDesign, thanks to Dana Dahlstrom. You will find some interesting, and sometimes perhaps surprising, information here.

Be sure to reload pages frequently, because sometimes they are updated frequently! Also, you should check this page frequently for notices. Homework and readings are posted on their respective webpages, not given in class. All webpages are subject to frequent and/or unannounced updates.

The class notes do not cover everything you need to know for this course, and their emphasis may not reflect the importance of material. The notes will not serve as a substitute for the lectures or the assigned readings. Moreover, the lectures and readings go beyond the text, and are at least as important as the text. In addition, there will be handouts, diagrams on the board, and possibly guest appearances at lectures. In short, all of lectures, notes, text, and additional readings are absolutely necessary.

You are allowed to talk with other students about how to approach homework problems, but you are not allowed to work together on solutions. Please read the Integrity of Scholarship Agreement site and the offical UCSD policies on Plagariasm; see also the most recent amended policy (sorry, it's in MS Word). You are expected to abide by these rules; failure to do so can have serious consequences.

New technologies provide the means to build superb new systems, as well as phenomenally ugly and awkward systems that still fully meet their performance and functional requirements. This course will explore several approaches towards a scientific understanding of basic issues of usability, representation and coordination that arise in interface design and related areas, such as how to best organize complex information in multimedia. There will be some focus on social issues, semiotics. and new media interfaces. See the course outline for more details.

We may distinguish the following levels of interface design issues:

1. technology;
2. ergonomics;
3. individual psychology; and
4. social, cultural, and organizational issues.

• semiotics - the study of signs and meaning, including metaphor;
• ethnomethodology - the sociology of ordinariness;
• narratology - the study of stories;
• discourse analysis - the study of discourse;
• actor-network theory - a network approach to the sociology of technology and science; and
• cognitive linguistics.

Tuesday, Thursday, 5:00 to 6:20 pm (approximately), in Center 217A

Section ID 465984, Section A00

There is no TA for this class, and hence no discussion section

My office hours begin at 6:20 on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

The only required book is Shneiderman; other required readings will made available on the web or handed out in class.

• Designing the User Interface, Ben Shneiderman, Addison Wesley, 1998 (thrid edition). ISBN 0-201-69497-2.

Recommended Books

• User-Centered Website Development, by Daniel McCracken and Rosalee Wolfe, Prentice-Hall, 2003. ISBN 0-13-041161-2.
• The Way We Think, by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, Basic Books, 2002. ISBN 0-465-8785-X.
• Human-Computer Interaction, by Jennifer Preece, Prentice-Hall, 1998. ISBN 0-13-239864-8.
• Interaction Design, by Jennifer Preece, Yovonne Rogers, and Helen Sharp, Wiley, 2002. ISBN 0-471-49278-7.
• Information Visualization, by Robert Spence, Addison Wesley, 2001. ISBN 0-201-59626-1.
• Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud, Harper Collins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-097625-X.
• Introduction to Barthes, Mireille Ribiere (Hodder & Stoughton, 2002). ISBN 0-340-84499-X.

Other Relevant Books

• The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman, Doubleday, 1988.
• Aramis, or the Love of Technology, by Bruno Latour, Harvard University Press, 1996.
• Requirements Engineering: Social and Technical Issues, ed. by Marina Jirotka and Joseph Goguen, Academic Press, 1994.
• The Humane Interface, by Jef Raskin, Addison Wesley, 2000.
• GUI Bloopers, by Jeff Johnson, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000.
• Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence, by Charlotte Linde, Oxford, 1993.
• The Literary Mind, by Mark Turner, Oxford, 1997.
• The Civilization of Illiteracy, by Mihai Nadin, Dresden Univ Press, 1998.
• Algebraic Semantics of Imperative Programs, by Joseph Goguen and Grant Malcolm, MIT Press, 1996.

Your grade will depend primarily on the quality of your project, plus a shortened final exam, possibly tempered by an assessment of your class participation; your project should reflect your familiarity with the readings, lectures and class notes, especially the material that is unique to this class; see the projects information page. There are homework assignments; they should be handed in, but will not be graded; see me after class if you want feedback. I will try to arrange a session for voluntary presentations of projects if there is sufficient interest.

1. Reading assignments.
2. Class notes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, A.
3. Homework assignments.
4. Information on projects.
5. The CSE 171 homepage has links to quizzes and exams from various versions of that class. Also, here is a link to last year's version of this course.

• The ACM TechNews newsletter usually contains two or three articles that relate closely to user interface design issues; the above link is for the current issue, but back issues are also available on the site.
• Homepage of the book Designing the User Interface, by Ben Shneiderman, Addison Wesley, 1998 (thrid edition).
• Homepage of Interactions magazine, published by the ACM.
• The Yale Style Manuual, perhaps the best general style manual available on the web.
• The Interface Hall of Fame and Interface Hall of Shame.
• Homepage of Ben Shneiderman.
• Essays of Don Norman.
• The UCSD Semiotic Zoo.
• Homepage of Jennifer Preece; see in particular, the subsite on her new book, Online Communities.
• Homepage of Phil Agre at UCLA; many interesting publications on "information studies", plus a good bibliography, and many interesting links.
• Homepage of Geoff Bowker, interesting material on sociology of science, including biodiversity informatics, information infrastructure, classification systems, medical records, and more.
• Homepage of Leigh Star, interesting material on sociology of science, including boundary objects, classification systems, information systems, and more.