Designing the User Interface '97

Course description: This five-hour course provides an overview of various interaction styles, workstation designs and aids to users, and teaches participants to become more responsive to the needs of the novice, occasional, intermediate and expert PC user.

Benefits:

• Participants learn about expert systems and present-day artificial intelligence scenarios.
• Systems design to evaluate ease-of-learning, informative feedback, response time, on-line aids, user manuals, and error handling.
• How novel applications of touchscreens, multiple windows and screens, on-line consultation graphics, animation and videodiscs can increase user satisfaction.
• The importance of adequate training materials, reference manuals, on-line help and human consultants.
• A broad perspective on what the dreams and dangers are for the future of computing.

Intended audience: This course is designed for engineers, scientists, programmers, systems analysts or anyone else who uses, designs, implements or evaluates interactive computer systems, including those who manage design projects.

Course Highlights

• Introduction
• Scope and motivation
• Usability labs
• Guidelines
• Documents
• Interaction Styles 1
• Menus
• Form fill in
• Command languages
• Interaction Styles 2
• Natural Language
• Direct manipulation
• Error messages & handling
• Screen Design
• Color
• Speech input/output
• Multi-window workstations
• Pointing devices
• User Manuals
• On-line help & instruction
• Developmental life cycle
• Philosophical concerns & hopes

Presenter: Dr. Ben Shneiderman is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, founder and head of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, and a member of the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. 3 VHS videotapes or 5 hours on VHS videotapes

Rental: none
Purchase: $800
Lecture notes: (included)
Textbook: (recommended) Designing the User Interface, by Dr. Ben Shneiderman