Course description
Human-Computer Interaction III: Ethics, Needfinding & Prototyping
This course takes you through lessons 14 through 18 of CS6750: Human-Computer Interaction as taught in the Georgia Tech Online Master of Science in Computer Science program.
In this course, you’ll begin by learning the design life cycle. This is the process by which we investigate user needs, brainstorm potential designs, create prototypes, and evaluate those prototypes. This life cycle provides the structure for the third and fourth courses in this professional certificate.
A key part of the design life cycle, however, is human subjects research. In interface design, this involves asking users for information about what they do and what they need, and then asking them for feedback on the prototypes that you develop. In HCI more broadly, this may involve testing different ideas with users to see what facilitates the best user experience. Whenever we interact with users, though, we need to keep in mind users’ rights to privacy and transparency, and so we begin this course with a discussion of ethics in HCI. This is grounded in the university Institutional Review Board process, but also investigates the role of ethics in HCI in industry as well.
From there, you’ll move on to needfinding and requirements gathering. It is always tempting to jump straight into designing an interface based on our intuitive understanding of a task or need, but successful interface design always starts with an understanding of the users: who are they, what they do, and what they need.
Who should attend?
Prerequisites
None
Training content
- The structure of the design life cycle: needfinding, brainstorming, prototyping, and evaluation.
- The value of research ethics and the importance of emphasizing the user’s rights.
- The role of Institutional Review Boards in governing university research.
- The importance of ethics in industry and the mechanisms for ensuring they are maintained.
- The importance of needfinding in the design life cycle.
- Mechanisms for active needfinding, including surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
- Approaches to personal needfinding, including participant observation and apprenticeship.
- Ways to observe organic interaction, such as naturalistic observation or investigation of hacks and workarounds.
- The data inventory, a structure for ensuring you understand your user and their problems.
- Approaches to brainstorming design ideas, both individually and in groups.
- Methods for further exploring design ideas, such as user personas and storyboards.
- The spectrum of prototyping, from low-fidelity to high-fidelity.
- The importance of low-fidelity prototypes in getting early feedback.
- Approaches to low-fidelity prototyping, such as paper prototypes and Wizard of Oz.
- Multi-level prototyping, or prototyping at variouslevels of abstraction.
Course delivery details
This course is offered through The Georgia Institute of Technology, a partner institute of EdX.
5-6 hours per week
Costs
- Verified Track -$99
- Audit Track - Free
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