There are no prerequisites for this class. The final project does not necessarily have to involve programming, but will require competency in working with and designing for digital artifacts. If you are unsure about your background please come talk with me. Grad students from other departments with the appropriate background are welcome!

There are no required textbooks. All readings will be posted on the class Canvas site.

Grades in this course will be determined by:

• 20% Reading discussions
• 45% Group project
• 10% Statistics lab
• 15% Exam
• 10% Participation

Much of the grading in this course is necessarily subjective. We will attempt to communicate expectations and feedback throughout the course, but it is your responsibility to communicate with us if you would like guidance in this regard.

This course is based off James Fogart's excellent course at UW: Advanced Topics in HCI.

Assigned readings will focus on research topics, generally consisting of:

• A historic framing paper: presenting a theory, language, or understanding that can help in understanding and contextualizing the contributions of additional research.
• Two papers that provide more recent or specific contributions: presenting the type of contribution you might initially be expected to attempt in your research.

You are expected to read: (1) the historical framing paper, and (2) either of the more current papers (in other words, whichever seems more compelling or interesting to you). You obviously may choose to read all three. The lectures will link to the assigned readings on Canvas and provide any day-specific revisions to this reading structure.

You are expected to have read and considered the assigned readings prior to class, as the in-class discussions are a critical component of this course.

Written Discussions
To help prepare for an engaging and meaningful discussion, we require short, written discussions of the readings. These discussions are expected to be 200-350 words (2-4 paragraphs) depending on the length and complexity of the readings. This is only a guideline, it is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition.

Your discussion should not be a summary of the reading. Instead, you should focus on the following four points, with a section header for each point:

• Most important point as related to HCI: What is the single most salient point made in the readings as they relate to the broader field of HCI? Justify your answer by explaining why you think the point you describe is significant and the criteria you are using for significance. Your answer should reflect your own analysis of the topic, rather than just restating the authors' claims of significance.
• Other key points: What are the other key points of the readings? Why are they significant? Which of these points were most surprising to you? Emphasize key points rather than just summarizing the readings as it appears in the text. This information should be written in your own words and express your own understanding of the material. It should not be a paraphrase of the readings and should not include exact text from the readings or from other sources without appropriate citations. Limit your answer to no more than five other key points.
• Particularly compelling points: What aspects of this work were particularly well done or effective?
• Unanswered or confusing: What questions were left unanswered by the readings? What parts of the readings were hopelessly confusing?

The discussions are due no later than 9:00am on the date in which a reading is to be discussed. Discussions turned in after the deadline will not be graded, except for compelling reasons. You will turn in your discussion in PDF format using Canvas -- a link will be posted in the lectures along with the readings.

• 0: If you do not participate.
• 1: If your participation seems weak and does not convince us you read, understood, and considered the readings.
• 2: If your participation shows you read and understood the readings and had something interesting to say. This will be the most common grade.
• 3: Reserved for especially insightful participation.

A course project will be a major component of your work. This will require hands-on experience with HCI, while remaining open to different possibilities.

Because you are still new to HCI research, we do not necessarily expect you to produce publishable work. Instead, the expectation is that you will do something interesting. It is then up to you to define interesting according to what you want to accomplish in this project, seeking appropriate feedback from the teaching staff. For example, you might choose to:

• Design and implement a new piece of HCI technology.
• Design and execute an appropriately compelling study with HCI research implications.
• Perform a feasibility analysis or pilot study to inform future research plans.
• Replicate an existing study or technology.
• Execute a sufficiently interesting design problem (i.e., focusing on design without regard to research novelty).

We expect most students will do projects in groups of two. We will very strongly discourage individuals. Working in groups is a necessary part of doing research, and also important for the logistics of this course.

Course staff will be available to meet and provide early feedback on Tuesday Sept 5th and Thursday Sept 7th. Meeting is optional. Sign up for the reserved meeting times.

Project deliverables are defined in terms of a proposal, a pair of self-defined milestones, and a final report. These are due:

• Proposal: Tuesday, Sept 26, 2017
• Milestone: Sunday, Nov 5, 2017
• Milestone: Sunday, Dec 3, 2017
• Final Report: Monday, Dec 11, 2017

Your proposal will define your initial plan for this project. You can and should update this plan based on feedback, progress, and findings. But the proposal needs to demonstrate a robust initial plan for your project.

You are welcome and even encouraged to align your project with your research goals outside this course. However, it is critical to define what you will specifically accomplish in the course project. The course project must stand on its own.

Proposals consist of a short document and a short in-class presentation.

Document: Prepare a 1-page document addressing the following points:

• What makes the project interesting? What is the problem or research question? What is the pain-point you want to solve, the new capability you want to enable, or the research you want to explore?
• What existing understanding of the problem has been developed? For a research proposal, this will briefly cover the most important related work in the space you are exploring. For a design proposal, this will introduce existing solutions, why they fall short, and the potential opportunity.
• What milestones will the group plan to accomplish? There are two milestone reports in the semester, one early and one late. These are opportunities for feedback and guidance from staff and classmates. Explain what your group will plan to accomplish by each of these milestones. You will be asked to revisit these plans during those milestone reports.
• What might the group explicitly decide to omit? Progress requires compromise, as you cannot accomplish everything. Explain what aspects of the project you might choose to ignore or defer in this course. This is your opportunity to scope the project appropriately for this course.

Presentation: Prepare a 5-minute presentation consisting of 3 to 4 slides.

Each group will give a short in-class presentation of their proposal. This is an opportunity for feedback from staff and classmates. Your presentation should cover the same information as the document.

This is an opportunity for feedback, not a formal presentation. Please be appropriately candid, thoughtful, and engaged.

Submission: Uploaded your proposal document by midnight on Tuesday, Sept 26, 2017. Presentations are in class on Wednesday, Sept 27, 2017. Only one person on the project team needs to submit the document and slide deck.

Submit your proposal document in PDF format.

Submit your proposal presentation in PDF, KEY, PPT, or PPTX format.

Two milestone reports serve as a check on the trajectory of your project and an opportunity for feedback and guidance from staff and classmates. Convey the state of your project and your plans for the remainder of the semester. Milestone reports consist of a short document and a short in-class presentation.

Document: Prepare a 1-page document addressing the following points:

• What you have done for this milestone, discussing current progress relative to previously stated plans.
• What you will do before your next milestone, including any adaptations based on your status or findings.
• Any areas where you could use advice or are blocked.

Presentation: Prepare a 10-min presentation consisting of 5 to 6 slides.

Each group will give a short in-class presentation of their proposal. This is an opportunity for feedback from staff and classmates. Your presentation should cover the same information as the document.

This is an opportunity for feedback, not a formal presentation. Please be appropriately candid, thoughtful, and engaged.

Submission: Upload you milestone documents on Sunday, Nov 5, 2017 and Sunday, Dec 3, 2017. The milestone presentations will take place on: Monday, Nov 6 and Wednesday, Nov 8; and Monday, Dec 5 and Wednesday, Dec 7.

Submit your milestone documents in PDF format:
Milestone 1
Milestone 2

Submit your mileston presentation in PDF, KEY, PPT, or PPTX format:
Milestone 1
Milestone 2

Prepare a final report that is 4 to 10 pages in length, excluding references.

Your final report should be presented in the same general structure as the papers you read this semester:

• Introduction and Motivation
• Statement of Contributions
• Related Work
• Description / Methods / Results
• Discussion / Future Work / Conclusion

Write according to the content you have. Be appropriately thorough and precise in your presentation, but do not needlessly pad your text. Format your report according to the SIGCHI Document Format.

Additional guidance regarding effective paper writing can be found in:
Jacob O. Wobbrock. Catchy Titles are Good: But Avoid Being Cute. Writing Advice, White Paper, 2015.

Submission: Uploaded you document by Monday, Dec 11, 2017.

Submit your final report document in PDF format on Canvas.

To aid in developing necessary skills, you will complete a statistics lab in R or JMP. The lab will walk you through analyzing an example data set, and you will then analyze two datasets from published research papers. You may work through the lab with a partner, but you must complete the write-up on your own. If you do work with a parnter please include their name in the write-up.

You will gain basic familiarity with analyzing experiments using mixed‑model analyses of variance. Consistent with lecture, this assignment is not intended to provide complete knowledge of how to design or analyze experiments, which is far beyond the scope of two lectures or an assignment. This assignment is instead focused on a pragmatic introduction to analyzing experiments based in designs you might later find useful. Please consider this assignment in the context of the material covered in lecture, as not all of it is repeated here.

In addition to the lecture material and the contents of this assignment, you might benefit from working through the first four sections of Jacob Wobbrock’s independent study in Practical Statistics for Human-Computer Interaction.

We will hold a discussion session about the independent study and how to conduct it in JMP and R. This independent study provides the background necessary for the lab if you do not already have a strong stats background. The discussion session will take place on Monday, Sept 25th from 4:30-6:00pm in the Evans Conference Room, which is the large room on the south end of WEB on the 3rd floor.

Additionally, Sam will hold office hours on Monday, Oct 16th to answer questions about the lab. The office hours will be 4:30-6:30pm in the Meldrum conference room (2nd floor of WEB).

Download
The assignment is available for download.

Submit
Your assignment will be due on Friday, Oct. 27th. Submit a ZIP archive including your document in PDF format and any additional files to Canvas.

A take home exam will give you an opportunity to demonstrate and apply your understanding of course material in a more substantial format. It requires you to connect concepts across papers, serving as an evaluation of your understanding and critical thinking about course concepts. If you have kept pace with the readings, you will find this exam much easier to approach. You may reference any of the articles, slides, notes, or other material readily available on the web. You may consult the course staff with any questions, but you must fully complete the exam on your own.

Download
The exam is available for download on Monday Dec 11th at 8am.

Submit
Upload your exam by Wednesday, Dec 13th at 11:59pm. Submit your document in PDF format.

These “vision” papers challenge a dominant pattern, propose going beyond mimicking prior technologies, or cast a vision of future technologies. This is certainly not an exhaustive set of such papers, just a set chosen to be interesting and appropriate.

Each student has two responsibilities.

First, organize into groups of 2 to 3 to briefly present one of the above vision papers. Sign-up in groups of 2 to 3 for a paper. If you need to find a partner(s) you can use the discussion thread about this on Canvas.

It is critical to remember most people will not have read the paper you are presenting. It is therefore your responsibility to explain the vision. One useful way of breaking down and explaining the vision might be to discuss these four points:

• What was the status quo at the time the authors wrote this?
• What was the author’s vision of future technologies?
• How has this vision played out since this publication?
• How might this vision continue to play out in the future?

Submit your presentation as 3 to 4 slides in PDF, PPT, PPTX, or KEY format on Canvas by 9am. Only one partner should submit.

Second, individually read at least one more of the above vision papers.

Read the following framing papers:

Below are examples of papers from CHI 2017 that correspond to Wobbrock’s types of research contribution in HCI.

Select two to review, focusing on papers that are most likely to correspond to the contribution style(s) relevant in your project. You should not focus on the details of these papers, but rather their organization of the research and how it is presented. We surface them to provide concrete examples of the contributions, but our in-class discussion will focus on the framing papers.

You must also pick one of the following: