OVERVIEW. This graduate level course examines the interdisciplinary field of human computer interaction research and development. This is not an evaluation or methods how-to course (please see instead CSCI 3002 for undergrads or 5839 for grads). Rather, this is a course that examines the trajectories of research on a whole host of human and technology interactional issues.
WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE. The course will appeal to students across disciplines, including computer science; the social sciences (cognitive science, sociology, communication and more); business; humanities; and other disciplines that are increasingly focusing on informatics and user interaction in their particular areas of application specialization. Most students who want to address some combination of computation and human behavior will benefit from this content- and historical- survey of the field, which will be accomplished in large part by engaging in a combination of both shared and individualized readings.
WHAT & HOW YOU WILL LEARN. At the center of the course are two books: Erickson and McDonald (2008) and published by the MIT Press, HCI Remixed: Essays on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community, and Olson and Kellogg's (2014) Ways of Knowing in HCI. Students will uncover the trajectories of ideas and associated methods that have moved through this field across time and across disciplines.
The course material and methods for this course are modeled on features of the professional world of post-graduate research and development to help junior researchers develop skills of deep reading, critical review, focused writing, presentation, and discussion. By semester's end, students will have knowledge of major milestones, contributions and methods in this field, and will have developed a repertoire of skills, intellectual relationships and body of materials they can leverage for their specialized concerns.