CMPT 363: User Interface Design 
Contact information Lisa Welburn 
ldumont@cs.sfu.ca 
ASB 10863
Office Hours: Mondays 4:30 - 6:30 or by appointment 
TA Yingchen Yang
ycyang@cs.sfu.ca
ASB 10802
Office Hours: Tuesdays 4:30 - 6:30
Course Web Page www.cs.sfu.ca/CourseCentral/363/ldumont
Calendar description This course introduces students to the design, implementation, and evaluation of human-computer interfaces, with emphasis on user-centered design and graphical user interfaces (GUI). It stresses the importance and necessity of effective user interface design and presents current design approaches and tools. Students will gain valuable knowledge and experience by applying the lectures to actual challenges of user interface design and implementation. 
Prerequisite CMPT 201 (Data and Program Abstraction).
Goals To gain theoretical knowledge and practical experiences in the fundamental aspects of designing, implementing and evaluating interfaces. 
  • Understand good design and gain experience designing systems that are usable by people. 
  • Learn techniques for implementing interfaces and build applications using prototyping tools. 
  • Gain knowledge and experience with a variety of simple methods for evaluating the quality of an interface. 
The course will examine design, implementation, and evaluation. Theoretical class lectures will be augmented by case studies of interface successes and failures; you will be expected to provide examples of problems you have had with computers and contribute to class discussion. You will also apply the theoretical knowledge learned to a series of assignments. These assignments will cover the design, implementation, and evaluation cycles. 
Course texts Required
  • Binder of selected readings purchased from SFU bookstore
Recommended
  • Baecker, R., Grudin, J., Buxton, W., and Greenberg, S. (1995) Readings in Human Computer Interaction: Towards the Year 2000 (2nd Edition), 950 pages, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc, California.
  • Usability Engineering, Nielson, Jakob, AP Professional, 1993
  • The Non-designers Design Book, Williams, Robin, Peachpit Press/Addison Wesley, 1994 
  • The Psychology (Design) of Everyday Things, Norman, D. A., Basic Books, 1989
  • Task-Centered User Interface Design: A Practical Introduction. Shareware: ftp.cs.colorado.edu/pub/cs/distribs/clewis/HCI-Design-Book Lewis, C., Rieman, J.,1994. 
Grading Students must attain an overall passing grade on the weighted average of exams in the course in order to obtain a clear pass (C or better).
  • Exams (50%)
    • Mid-term: 20% 
    • Exam: 30% 
  • Assignments (50%)
    • Assignment 1: 4%
    • Assignment 2: 14%
    • Assignment 3: 18%
    • Assignment 4: 14%
Exams will be a mix of short and long answers, and multiple choice questions. Questions will test your knowledge about facts you have learned in the course, your interface design abilities, and your ability to link and apply the concepts presented in the course. This includes both in-class work and text readings. 

Assignments will be posted on the class web page. Assignments will apply the knowledge learned in class. Reports that are poorly written or presented will be heavily penalized. Some assignments will require implementing user interfaces. MetaCard, a rapid prototyping system, will be used for these assignments. A brief description of MetaCard will be illustrated in class but you will be expected to learn it outside of class. The full commercial version is available on PCs in the lab, and demo versions can be freely downloaded from MetaCard's website ( http://www.metacard.com ) for PC, Mac and many flavors of Unix. 

Assignment deadlines are strictly enforced. Unless otherwise specified, assignments will be penalized 10% for each late day. No extensions will be given without medical documentation.