Teaching

Here is an overview of my current Clemson teaching activities. If you want me to help on your project, be your advisor, or do an internship with me, please read this.

HCC8310: Fundamentals of Human-Centered Computing

This course is an introduction to the theory of Human-Centered Computing. It is primarily intended for students pursuing a PhD in HCC, but it is also useful for students who are generally interested in the science of understanding how people interact with computers.

This course has two specific goals. One goal is to acquaint you with the existing theories HCC researchers use to understand, describe, argue, and hypothesize about the interaction between humans and digital systems. The other goal is to teach you how to develop such theories using observation and analysis.

HCC8330: Research Methods for Human-Centered Computing

This course is an introduction to research principles and methods, particularly those used in Human-Centered Computing research. The goal of the course is to introduce you to the scientific method of answering questions, the evaluation of information from a scientific perspective, the design of experiments, non-experimental methods of HCC research, how HCC research is conducted, and how HCC findings are communicated.

The goals of the course will be accomplished through the combination of textbook and supplemental readings, lectures, projects, assignments, and exercises. In addition, students are encouraged to participate in the class to discuss their relevant research interests and HCC research in general. Upon completion of this class you should have the knowledge and skills to enable you to consume and critique scientific research in HCC, use tools of HCC research (e.g., ACM database, Zotero), work in an HCC lab, write a scientific research proposal, and propose and conduct a scientific evaluation of an HCC system.

HCC4400/6400: Measurement & Evaluation of HCC Systems

This course will teach you how to scientifically evaluate computing systems using a quantitative, user-centric approach. By the end of this course you will be able to statistically evaluate data obtained from a user experiment, a survey, or system usage log files.

HCC8410: Advanced Measurement & Evaluation of HCC Systems

This advanced course will pay special attention to two very important state-of-the-art methods for HCC research: The measurement and evaluation of subjective valuations of users‘ usage experience using multi-item psychometric instruments and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA), and the evaluation of structured models of hypotheses using structural equation modeling (SEM). We will also cover advanced methods such as Rasch modeling and factor mixture analysis.

Most existing HCC research tests hypotheses one by one, and uses behavioral proxies or single-item measurements to test users‘ subjective valuations. Evaluations using CFA and SEM are more accurate, more comprehensive, and easier to report.

CPSC4140/6140: Human and Computer Interaction

Using Web sites or mobile apps is not always a pleasant experience. Take signing up for this class as an example: this is a complex and counterintuitive task that involves a confusing search interface to look up the course code and then pressing a series of buttons to add it to your schedule. The designers of this experience clearly did not take the principles of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into account!

As many of you will enter careers where you will develop or manage such Web technologies, the goal of this class is to teach you how to do better. So, while the title of the class is “Human Computer Interaction”, the secret special title is “Why Some Apps and Web Sites Suck and How to Fix Them”. If that‘s something you want to learn more about, then this is the right class for you!

In this course I will hand you a toolbox of user-centric design tools that can be used to create and evaluate interactive online experiences that optimally support users‘ goals and tasks. You will use these tools in a group project in which you and your team members completely redesign an online experience of your choice. In other words: you will pick some Web site or app that currently really sucks, and fix it! By the end of this course, you will be able to recognize the basic principles of human-computer interaction in existing designs, critique existing designs based on guidelines, create interactive “paper prototypes” of new designs, and iteratively explore new designs using think-aloud user tests.