This graduate level course examines the interdisciplinary field of human computer interaction research and development. This is not a User Interface Design course (please see instead CSCI 4838/6838). Rather, this is a course that examines the trajectories of research on a whole host of human and technology interactional issues.
The course will appeal to students across numerous disciplines, including computer science; the social sciences (cognitive science, sociology, communication and more); business; the media arts; 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.
At the center of the course will be a new book by Erickson and McDonald and published in 2008 by the MIT Press, HCI Remixed: Essays on Works That Have Influenced the HCI Community. Students will uncover the trajectories of ideas that have moved through this field across time and across disciplines by studying classic readings upon which that textbook is based, and a sample of subsequent and current readings that have further advanced the field.
The 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 these skills, and includes deep reading of the field, critical review, focused writing, presentation, and discussion. By semester's end, students will have knowledge of major milestones, contributions and researchers in this field, and will have developed a repertoire of skills, intellectual relationships and materials they can leverage for their specialized concerns.