Course Syllabus

Much of the technology we create is for humans to use. As developers, designers, and managers, you will all make decisions that will impact the utility and usability of that technology. Human-Centered Computing (HCC) combines elements from CS, psychology, and design to guide us in making design and implementation decisions that prioritize creating effective and enjoyable user experiences.  

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Compare and contrast multiple prototyping approaches, and explain the benefits of using different fidelity, media, and evaluation techniques
• Describe clearly the HCI design process and understand the trade-offs between quality of designs and resources like time
• Develop interactive prototype(s) for clearly-defined tasks using an object-oriented approach 
• Discuss the concept of contextual inquiry and know when/where to use it
• Understand and implement principles of team work in collaborative prototyping

• Laptops are required. Please bring them to every class.
• Website: This canvas site. 
• No Textbook: Any readings will be posted on Canvas and/or Perusall.

Note:

• Course staff will aim to respond within two business days.
• Course staff may not read email or check piazza after 5pm, on weekends, or on holidays.
• To protect student privacy, Dr. Wiese and Dr. Pandey can only respond to course-related emails from accounts that end in "utah.edu"
• There is another Professor Wiese in the School of Computing (Eliane). Don't count on her to forward your emails.

Course Announcements

• Announcements about scheduling, released grades, and other logistical issues will be made through Canvas Announcements.
• Please configure your notification settings so that you see all announcements.

• 30%: Prototyping Bake-offs. Team programming assignments (in groups). You'll do 3 of these during the semester, with three different groups, randomly assigned. Bake-offs will include in-class demos and collection of performance data by testing your prototypes on your classmates.
• 25%: Homeworks. You'll have individual homework assignments throughout the semester aimed at helping you strengthen and demonstrate your understanding of course content. Expect to have a homework assignment most weeks, scoped appropriately.
• 35%: Pop quizzes. We'll have many pop quizzes throughout the semester during the class period, and you must be present in class to take the pop quiz. Quizzes are designed to evaluate your understanding of recent course content.
  
• 10%: Class Participation. Class participation will be evaluated throughout the semester, and will be based on data that we capture about who participates during in-class exercises. This grade is explicitly based on participation (did you do it?) and not on correctness.

This is the Dream Team: Undergraduate students who took related classes before and/or were TAs for those!

	Jens He/Him I am Jens! I am excited to TA, it will be my first time. I am a graduate student with a Human-Centered Computing focus. I got my undergrad in Computer Science here at the U. My undergraduate thesis explored how people with spinal cord injuries utilize technology and the important design considerations involved. I used the principles I learned in this class for research, analysis, and writing. This subject material is a lot of fun, it allows us to see the human perspective of Computer Science. I look forward to helping you learn, and learning with you.
	Nidhi she/her Hi! I'm Nidhi! I'm in my final year as a CS Undergrad, minoring in Arts Technology. I took this class Fall 2021 and absolutely loved it. I've been a TA for 3540 over the past two semesters and I'm looking forward to join the course staff again this semester. The impact of software usability and user accessibility throughout the entire design process has truly resonated with me. I was able to apply this, as well as other skills from this class, during my internship this summer. Keep in mind, this course is quite different from your typical CS classes, so don't hesitate to think outside the box. Good luck!
	Ophelia she/her Hi everyone, I'm Ophelia! I'm a CS Undergrad who took this class two semesters back and loved it–it’s honestly my favorite CS class I’ve taken at the U. I'm excited to TA for this class again this semester! This class has taught me so much about how the design of a program is integral to its success, and gave me some really valuable teamwork skills that have served me well in my other classes. The class itself is a bit unorthodox compared to other CS classes, focusing not upon coding and instead upon anticipating the needs of a user, yet I found its content to be incredibly useful. I truly hope that you enjoy this class. Best of luck, and don’t hesitate to talk to me or one of the other TAs if you have any questions!
	Cristina she/her Hello, I’m Cristina, an undergrad studying CS and Management. I took this class last semester and found in it a side of CS that I had not seen before in school. I enjoyed how it brought the technical side of CS into the context of how it may be applied to effectively fulfill user’s needs. No matter how good a computer scientist or developer is, their technical ability is wasted if they cannot identify a useful problem and design a solution that puts the users first. This class can be a lot of fun if you embrace that it is not about learning how to code, but about putting the ability to code to good use.
	Thomas he/him Hello, I'm Thomas. I'm a third year CS student. I was encouraged to take this class after doing some Human Centered Computing research and I am very glad that I did. This class helped open my eyes to a different side of computing and introduced new ways of thinking about how individuals with unique needs and wants interact with these metal boxes that consume so much of our lives. I'm excited to help you in any way that I can and I hope you enjoy learning and thinking about these topics as much as I do.

Note: Assignment deadlines are based on our current best estimates. We will discuss deadlines in the first two weeks of class and may adjust as needed.

• Aug 21 (Mon)    : First day of class
• Sep 27 (Wed)    : Prototyping Bake-off 1
• Oct 09-13    : Fall break, no classes
• Nov 01 (Wed)    : Prototyping Bake-off 2 
• Dec 04  (Mon)    : Prototyping Bake-off 3
• Dec 06 (Wed)    : Last day of class

Many class periods will include class participation, pop quizzes and discussions about programming bake-offs.

At the end of the semester, your grades will be rounded to the nearest tenth and mapped to a letter.

Note that grades below a B- are possible, but I would prefer students to contact the course staff so they can get help learning the material, and then we don't have to worry about those cuttoffs.

Working effectively in a team is a learning objective for this course. Expectations include:

• Working with 3-4 teammates throughout the semester.
• Synchronous meetings with teammates outside of class time.
• Honest and respectful communication with your teammates.

Perspectives of the course staff:

• We believe teamwork is an improvable skill.
• We have seen small problems grow into big ones. Not sure if something is a big enough issue to discuss with the course staff? If it's on your mind, it's worth talking to us. We'd rather prevent big problems.
• We have also seen students improve their interpersonal skills, communication, and conflict management through this course - especially among the students who talked with the course staff about their teamwork.

Challenges, Grading, and Academic Misconduct:

• Talk with Professor Wiese/Pandey or a TA if your team is struggling to work together effectively or if there are any questions about respectful/professional conduct. 
• Typically, all students on the same team will do the same amount of work and will get the same grade. 
• If teammates don't do the same amount of work, they may get different grades. 

Collaboration

Many elements of the class are collaborative, and we want you to learn from and help your peers. Team collaboration on the bakeoffs is required. In addition, we encourage you to discuss content from the course, including homeworks at a conceptual level with other students. Looking at someone else's code, copying, or retyping something that was written by someone else are all considered academic misconduct.

Academic Misconduct & Cheating

The School of Computing Academic Misconduct policy is available at https://www.cs.utah.edu/docs/misc/cheating_policy.pdf and applies to this class. Further course-specific clarifications are below.

The following will be considered cheating (academic misconduct) for all course activities:

• Work presented as a student/team's own that is from a source other than course materials or the course staff, and is presented without a citation or other attribution. This includes the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools without citation, documentation, or authorization.
• Fabricating data.
• Not reporting or misreporting negative incidents on a usability test.
• Note: there might be other ways to violate academic integrity in this class that I haven't thought of. Please don't be the reason I need to add more examples to this list.

Additional considerations for Quizzes:

• Collaboration on these activities is considered cheating (academic misconduct).
• You must complete the quiz in class during the time allotted during class.

Copying from course materials

Work copied from a class resource must include citation/attribution. For assignments, failure to properly cite course resources may result in a 0 for that assignment or a portion of that assignment, at the discretion of the course staff. However, this will be considered as not meeting requirements for assignment quality rather than academic misconduct. Citations are an important part of professional writing. If you copy something from a class resource, make that clear by using quotation marks and citing your source. 

Note 1: As stated above, work copied and not cited from outside sources (that is, not course materials), will be considered academic misconduct.

• Deadlines will be implemented in Canvas as 11:59pm, except for Bakeoffs which will be due at 1:59pm on the day of the bakeoff.
• The course staff will happily give you feedback on a late assignment to assist your learning. Please contact Prof. Wiese/Pandey to arrange this.
• You can submit homework up to 48 hours late for a penalty of 10% per 24 hours

Dropping assignments and quizzes:

This policy is intended to handle situations where "something came up unexpectedly." We've all had mornings where the car doesn't start, we got stuck in traffic, or we stayed up too late the night before and don't feel like we can make it to class. Please do not ask for exceptions for these kinds of situations. As such, we will implement the following policy:

• we will drop your two lowest quiz scores 
  
• We will drop your one lowest individual homework assignment

If you use these early in the semester (e.g. "I didn't go to class today so I missed the quiz"), these are spent. You will not get additional accommodations for these situations.

Miscellaneous:

• All assignments must be done in English.  

Please contact Prof. Wiese/Pandey as soon as possible to request accommodations. TAs cannot grant accommodations.

• All requested accommodations with completed CDA paperwork will be granted (https://disability.utah.edu/)
• Other requests may be granted too, but we will consider them on a case-by-case basis.

Content Warnings

This course includes discussions of real-world impacts of technology, some of which are uncomfortable. If there are specific subjects that you need advanced notice for, please contact Prof. Wiese/Pandey at the beginning of the semester.

Extreme personal circumstances

Please contact your instructor as soon as possible if an extreme personal circumstance (hospitalization, death of a close relative, natural disaster, etc.) is interfering with your ability to
complete your work.

Religious Practice

To request an accommodation for religious practices, contact your instructor at the beginning of the semester.

Active Duty Military

If you are a student on active duty with the military and experience issues that prevent you from participating in the course because of deployment or service responsibilities, contact your instructor as soon as possible to discuss appropriate accommodations.

Disability Access

All written information in this course can be made available in an alternative format with prior notification to the Center for Disability Services (CDS). CDS will work with you and the instructor to make arrangements for accommodations. Prior notice is appreciated. To read the full accommodations policy for the University of Utah, please see Section Q of the Instruction & Evaluation regulations.

If you will need accommodations in this class, contact:

Center for Disability Services
  801-581-5020
  disability.utah.edu
  162 Union Building
    200 S. Central Campus Dr.
     Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Like every course you enroll in through the Kahlert School of Computing, this course is subject to the policies and guidelines of the Price College of Engineering <https://www.coe.utah.edu/students/current/semester-guidelines> and the Kahlert School of Computing <https://handbook.cs.utah.edu/2023-2024/CS/Academics/policies.php>

This syllabus is not a contract. It is meant to serve as an outline and guide for your course. Please note that your instructor may modify it to accommodate the needs of your class.

You will be notified of any changes to the Syllabus.