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4. Practicum

4.1. Introduction

This practicum module covers some practical applications of HCI and its related theories. In The Design of Everyday Things [TB:1], Norman discusses design in the real world and some of the practical compromises that must be made regarding innovation, moral obligation, and design thinking. In Designing the User Interface [TB:2], a collection of design case studies are presented to offer readers some examples of real-world design decisions and their implications.

4.2. Required Reading

Please read the items in the list of required readings below. If you are in CSCI 6800, then there may be some additional required readings.

Required Reading for Everyone

  1. Donald A. Norman. Chapter 7: Design in the World of Business. In The Design of Everyday Things, pages 258–298. Basic Books, New York, New York, Revised and Expanded Edition edition, 2013.

  2. Ben Shneiderman, Catherine Plaisant, Maxine Cohen, Steven Jacobs, Niklas Elmqvist, and Nicholas Diakopoulos. Chapter 6: Design Case Studies. In Designing the User Interface. Pearson, Boston, 6 edition, 2017.

Required Reading for CSCI 4800H and CSCI 6800

  1. I. Scott MacKenzie. Chapter 8: Writing and Publishing a Research Paper. In Human-Computer Interaction: An Empirical Research Perspective, pages 293–318. Morgan Kaufmann, Amsterdam, 2013.

Optional Further Reading

  1. Rolf G. Kuehni. 2004. Color: An Introduction to Practice and Principles. Wiley-Interscience, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2 edition. ISBN 9780471660064.

  2. Ellen Lupton. 2010. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2 edition. ISBN 9781568989693.

  3. Virpi Roto, Jung-Joo Lee, Effie Lai-Chong Law, and John Zimmerman. The Overlaps and Boundaries Between Service Design and User Experience Design. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021, DIS '21, 1915–1926. New York, NY, USA, 2021. Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3461778.3462058.

  4. David Bishop. The Theory of Conservation of Complexity. Interactions, 15(4):61–63, July 2008. doi:10.1145/1374489.1374504.

  5. Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. 2016. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 978-1501121746. URL: https://www.thesprintbook.com/.

4.3. Key Terms

creeping elegance

The tendency of programmers to disproportionately emphasize elegance in software at the expense of other requirements such as functionality, shipping schedule, and usability.

creeping featurism
featuritis

An inflamation of product features that is to detriment of other design goals like usability. The term can apply to products that offer many poorly designed features instead of fewer well-designed features. It can also apply to user interfaces in software applications that do not get updated when new features are added – over time, this creeping featurism leads to user experiences that no longer work well.

design metaphor

A metaphor (often a simile) that is used by one ore more designers as a heuristic to help organize design thinking and tackle ill-defined design problems.

design sprint

Developed at Google, the design sprint is a methodology for solving problems through designing, prototyping, and testing ideas with users. The methodology includes six phases that are usually spread across one to five days:

  1. Understand

  2. Define

  3. Sketch

  4. Decide

  5. Prototype

  6. Validate

See also

Google: Design Sprint Methodology

innovation

An alteration of what is established through the introduction of new elements or forms.

data blitz
lightning talk

A very short presentation lasting only a few minutes, usually with slides that auto-advance after a set number of seconds. Talks like this are a common component of the “Understand” phase in a design sprint, where knowledge experts are invited to articulate a problem space from various perspectives: business, user, competitor, and technologyical capabilities.

practicum

A practical section of a course of study.

service

An intangible product offered by a provider that does not transfer, itself, to users when sold or provided; instead, providers create value for users through performance.

SD
service design

A human-centered approach that focuses on customer experience and the quality of service encounter as a key value for success. UX and SD activities often overlap and complement each other [M4:1].

4.4. References

M4:1

Virpi Roto, Jung-Joo Lee, Effie Lai-Chong Law, and John Zimmerman. The Overlaps and Boundaries Between Service Design and User Experience Design. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021, DIS '21, 1915–1926. New York, NY, USA, 2021. Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3461778.3462058.