Description:

Students gain a basic overview of methods for designing and testing common user interfaces. They get experience to solve the problems where software and other products do not communicate with the user optimally, since the needs and characteristics of users are not taken into account during product development. Students gain an overview of methods that bring users into the development process to ensure optimal interface for them.

Contents:

1. Introduction into the area of user interfaces. Usability, user centered design.
2. Design evaluation: predicitive and interpretative techniques.
3. Design evaluation: usability testing.
4. Context and domain analysis.
5. User research, ethical aspects, collaborative design. Personae.
6. Information architecture design.
7. Prototyping user interfaces (paper mock-up, software tools).
8. Psychology of interaction and user interface guidelines.
9. Patterns of design and user behavior
10. User support, navigation and classification.
11. Ergonimics.
12. Special user interfaces, accessibility.
13. The position of UI design in software life cycle.

Seminar contents:

1. Project rules and topics
2. Heuristic evaluation, interface analysis.
3. Teams formation, project assignment.
4. Usability lab demonstration.
5. Cognitive and heuristic walkthrough, inspection.
6. Project status presentation & discussion.
7. Design and recognition of icons
8. Project status presentation & discussion.
9. Prototyping (Denim, HTML, Flash, Visual Basic,...).
10. Project review, final agreement on project finish
11. Consultations
12. Project presentation.
13. Project presentation.

Recommended literature:

1. Sharp H., Preece J., Rogers Y. : Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction (5th Edition). John Wiley & Sons, 2019. ISBN 978-1-119-54730-3.
2. Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C. ''Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction (4th Edition)''. Addison Wesley, 2004. ISBN 0321197860.
3. Nielsen, J. ''Usability Engineering''. Morgan Kaufmann, 1993. ISBN 0125184069.
4. Galitz, W. O. ''The Essential Guide to User Interface Design''. Wiley, 2002. ISBN 0471084646.

Keywords:

Usability, user research, context analysis, information design, prototyping, ergonomy, accessibility.

Abbreviations used:

Semester:

• W ... winter semester (usually October - February)
• S ... spring semester (usually March - June)
• W,S ... both semesters

Mode of completion of the course:

• A ... Assessment (no grade is given to this course but credits are awarded. You will receive only P (Passed) of F (Failed) and number of credits)
• GA ... Graded Assessment (a grade is awarded for this course)
• EX ... Examination (a grade is awarded for this course)
• A, EX ... Examination (the award of Assessment is a precondition for taking the Examination in the given subject, a grade is awarded for this course)

Weekly load (hours per week):

• P ... lecture
• C ... seminar
• L ... laboratory
• R ... proseminar
• S ... seminar