You will gain an overview of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), with an understanding of user interface design in general, and alternatives to traditional "keyboard and mouse" computing; become familiar with the vocabulary associated with sensory and cognitive systems as relevant to task performance by humans; be able to apply models from cognitive psychology to predicting user performance in various human-computer interaction tasks and recognize the limits of human performance as they apply to computer operation; appreciate the importance of a design and evaluation methodology that begins with and maintains a focus on the user; be familiar with a variety of both conventional and non-traditional user interface paradigms, the latter including virtual and augmented reality, mobile and wearable computing, and ubiquitous computing; and understand the social implications of technology and your ethical responsibilities as engineers in the design of technological systems. Finally, working in small groups on a product design from start to finish will provide you with invaluable team-work experience.

Students enrolling in this course should come with curiosity, eagerness to learn and discuss new ideas, expectation of a strong emphasis on communication, enthusiasm for working with a group of peers (potentially) from diverse backgrounds, and committed to completing the assigned readings in advance of each class. The term project, which accounts for the majority of your marks, will be done in groups--ideally two to three students per group. Each member must take on a primary responsibility of at least one task, e.g., serving as a webmaster or a testing coordinator, and identify their role. While team members will necessarily work together on multiple aspects of the project, this is not required for every task. As noted below, the workload in this course can be substantial.

By far the most frequent complaint about this course is the workload associated with the project, typified by this comment from a course evaluation: Although I believe those who report spending more time on HCI than they do on most other courses, at least one student every year writes that the workload was non-trivial but reasonable. The expectation of a heavy workload may be an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy. Students can obtain good marks without killing themselves, but need to focus their efforts on the right activities that contribute to their grades. I describe my rationale for this approach to teaching in my teaching philosophy.

If you're a regular ECSE student, you already know the drill. Non-ECSE students wishing to enroll in this course should submit a brief statement to me, summarizing your relevant background, reasons for taking the course, what you expect to contribute, and what skills or experience you hope to gain from it. Graduate students wishing to enroll should select ECSE-542 and are expected to carry out an additional project, typically oriented toward a conference publication on an HCI topic, for the "graduate credit" (worth 25% of your grade).

There are assigned readings, all available on-line, for each class. As noted above, students are expected to have completed these readings in advance of each class. Videos and additional (optional) readings are also provided as further resource material. As such, there is no official text required for the course, although many good HCI references are available. Note that readings in the ACM Digital Library are available free, without a personal subscription, provided that you access them via the McGill computer network (e.g., via VPN). A few other readings are contained in the password-protected section of the course website.

There is no examination in this course. Instead, your grade will be based on regular assessments of your learning and on your work on the term project. Graduate students receive a fourth credit in this course based on their individual project report.

We will use class time to review the topics covered in the assigned readings, carry out exercises, and assess your learning, both individually and in groups. It is important that you complete the assigned readings in advance of each class.

Your primary homework activity will center around the term project, which you will be working on in groups.

All assigned work is due on the specified deliverable date and time. For project components, a web agent will collect all of the material from the project web pages and copy it to a private directory. You may continue to modify your web pages beyond the deadline, but any such changes will not be seen by the marker. In cases of illness or other compelling reason warranting an extension, the group must notify the instructor at least one week in advance of the due date, in order to make special arrangements. Barring such advance notice, no credit will be given for late work.

Peer-evaluations will be conducted through an on-line tool.

Your instructor values it. Google my name with "academic integrity".