Spend 2 or more hours with an unfamiliar computer application, following these steps:

1. List some functions of the application and tasks that people use it for. What can be done with the application? Which functions are most important to you? Are there capabilities you probably would not use? Would some people use different features, or would most people use the same features?

2. Describe in a general way the human-computer interface or user interface to the application. Does it require a mouse or trackball? Does it rely mostly on typing? Are the displays simple or complex? Is color or sound or animation used? Is there on-line help? Did you have written documentation?

3. Start to use the application to do something. As you do, write down some of your reactions. Does everything work the way you expect it to? If so, give examples of things you try. If not, describe what surprises you. Can you find things that you need? Do you use documentation or do you just start trying things? Describe some actions that you take and exactly what the computer does in response (you are recording the human-computer "dialogue"). Find at least one nice thing about the interface, and at least one thing that could be improved.

4. As you spend your two hours with the application, continue to record your experiences, observations, surprises, likes, and dislikes.

5. Prepare a report of about 3 pages and a brief, 3-minute presentation of your experiences for January 13.

The most important activity is reading and understanding the material. The field of human-computer interaction is now emerging and the literature has grown in the past few years. There are relatively few courses taught in this area. You have a unique opportunity to develop a comprehensive understanding of a field in only 10 weeks, but this requires a lot of reading. The other assignments are relatively light. The lectures and discussions will not cover all of the readings.

• The title and first author’s name.

• The main points that the article seemed to make (one paragraph is sufficient).

• What you liked, disliked, found interesting or found unclear (one or more paragraphs).

• A subjective numerical rating on a 1-to-6 scale (1 low, 6 high) of the significance of the material.

The rating numbers are to help get discussions started and shouldn’t be agonized over. It is important to get the reviews in.

You may omit 10 reviews, although a few designated articles can’t be skipped.

This project will be either to choose a system or application and to evaluate the software from a usability perspective, reporting your study and making recommendations for improving the software; or to implement a small system,with particular emphasis on the user interface and its usability. Details will be presented later. Usability evaluations will employ one or more technique covered in class. The project is intended to be done in groups of 2 or 3, in part because many of these techniques are easier to employ with two or more experimenters. The study could be done in an outside organization or it could be done at UW.