Course-PM

This is the course PM for the course Graphical Interfaces. Make sure that you read it through carefully since most essential information is written down here.

TDA493 / TIA106 Graphical interfaces lp2 HT20 (7.5 hp)

Course is offered by the department of Computer Science and Engineering

Due to covid-19, this course is fully online.

Contact details

• Examiner: Thommy Eriksson (thommy@chalmers.se)
• Teacher: Jasmina Maric (jasmina@chalmers.se)
• TAs: Mattias Hallin (mattais@student.chalmers.se), Tove Ekman, Frederik Göbel, and Molly Zelmerlöw Sigander

 

Schedule

The correct schedule can be seen in the module "Course information".

Course changes since last year

• Individual project have gotten one more week, and a mid-presentation. One exercise have been taken away so there is now two exercises
• All exercises and projects changed. One reason is that one teacher have been changed, another being that we wanted to have a topic as relevant for as many students as possible.

Summary of what is expected from you

In short, this is what is expected of you as a student.

• Watch the recorded lectures
• Participating in the exercises and the follow-up crit(ique) sessions
• Ask for tutoring when you think you need it, ask questions or give opinions in class when you need to
• Completing the group project, including hand-ins and presentations
• Completing the individual project, including hand-ins and presentations
• Read the literature (“About Face”)
• Take the written exam
• Fill out the course evaluation

The Module pages and the assignment descriptions describe in detail the different parts of the course. The list above is a summary; so make sure you read through the whole course PM. This course relies heavily on projects since this is the best form to practice interface design as well as the precious art of understanding and working with fuzzy project requirements as well as cooperating with people with other skill-sets, views and ideas.

Supervision

Supervision is a very important part of this course, so don’t forget to utilize this resource. It is especially important since the course is running fully online, and keeping in touch with course teachers and peers is especially challenging and important.

Therefore, we have three kind supervision every supervision day, in order to cover the different needs you might have.

First, we start with 15 minutes of Q&A with the whole class. This is the opportunity to ask questions that others might be interested in, and initiate discussions.

Second, there will be one or more tracks of time slot supervision, which is booked in advance via Canvas. If you want feedback on design sketches, we strongly recommend that you send in the sketches the day before, at the latest at 17:00. Then the supervisor will have a chance to review your sketches and be better prepared.

Third, we will also have an open office track where a Zoom room is open and you can drop in and ask quick questions.

 

We hope that this set-up will be as flexible as possible, so that everyone can find a supervision they need.

All supervision is online, via Zoom (or Mozilla Hubs for those interested, contact thommy@chalmers.se ).

We strongly advise you to ask for supervision. The supervision is there to lift your projects and your skills. It is not a judgment or evaluation. The “judgment” will come when you have completed your work and hand it in. Think about it – it is usually the good designers that ask a lot of questions! The supervision can be about details or general questions, about creative issues or technical problems. Anything that has to do with graphical interfaces in general and your assignment in particular.

If you need ad hoc help during the group and individual projects – technically or creatively – you are most welcome even outside of the scheduled time for supervision. We believe it is better to have you ask for help exactly when you need it. Use e-mail to any of the teachers. We check our mail several times a day, not weekends though. We have other duties outside of the course, of course, but will help you as soon as is possible. Make it easy for us to answer! A quick, concise question often gets answer within a couple of hours (at least during office hours), and more complex questions during the day or the following day.

 

Hand-ins

All hand-ins are done using Canvas. We will not accept hand-ins via e-mail or any other means than Canvas. Canvas supports group hand-in, so each group needs only to hand-in each hand-in once in the system. When the hand-in is graded and if there is any feedback you will see this in Canvas.

 

Exercises

All exercises are done in groups of three, in self-assigned groups. Check project groups in Canvas to sign up. There shall be new groups for every exercise. The exercise is done during a specific time (see the schedule). The teachers is available on Zoom for questions and spontaneous feedback.

The result of the exercise should be interface sketches (mockups, not interactive prototypes), a sketch of your GUI in the form of one or more digital “screendumps” created in a software of your choice. The final result should be handed in as .pdf.

During the same afternoon as the exercise we meet in parallel sessions for short presentations and constructive critique from the teachers and other students (what we call crit sessions). Each group will get one or two minutes to explain and argue for their solution, and then about then minutes of feedback and critique from the teachers and classmates will follow. You are most welcome to give constructive feedback on each other’s work, and you might occasionally be prompted to do so by the teachers. Be prepared to give constructive critic at any time during the crit session.

Exercises are mandatory (you have to take two out of three), but not graded; so take the chance to be a bit wild & crazy sometimes!

 

Failed hand-ins

A failed hand-in is complemented with additional hand-ins at the end of the course. Note that these additional hand-ins might take time for us teachers to grade, and you will miss out on our feedback. So, hand-in in time and with good work.

 

Literature

“About Face - The Essentials of Interaction Design” by Cooper et al, Wiley, 2014, fourth edition.

Available at Cremona, and at the Chalmers Library as e-book, and of course elsewhere at major bookstores.

 

This is truly a graphical interface “bible” and a good reference for your future career. You are most welcome to read the whole book, but note that the exam questions are taken from the chapters 1, 5, 7-21, so make sure that you read these chapters thoroughly. Note that you have to read the book; it is not sufficient to only watch the recorded lectures!

 

Aim

After the course, you should be able to design a relatively complex graphic user interface, and be able to provide a valid design rationale for it.

 

Learning outcomes (after completion of the course the student should be able to)

Knowledge and understanding

• Know how and when to use different graphical interface elements
• Know how to use keypaths and scenarios to create an interaction sequence
• Know about commonly used interaction design solutions for graphical interfaces.
• Give account of the differences between touch-based interfaces and regular interfaces.

Skills and abilities

• Design a graphical user interface adapted to a specific use and user in terms of: layout, interaction sequence, correct use of controls and look and feel.
• Design a graphical user interface which is manipulated via mouse/pointer+keyboard
• Design a graphical user interface for a touch-based interaction

Judgement and approach

• Solve interaction design problems related to graphical interfaces and motivate your solutions
• Design a relatively complex graphical interface, and be able to provide a valid design rationale for it.
• Being able to select and apply previouly existing design solutions to new graphical interfaces.
• Being able to, from a scenario, extract a users needs in terms of graphical interface solutions. 

 

Content

Content includes, but is not limited to:

• Commonly used interaction design solutions in graphical interfaces
• Designing for users on different levels (e.g. beginners vs. experts)
• Designing interaction sequences
• Layout of graphical user interfaces;
• Designing look and feel; using color, text and graphics
• Correct use of graphical user interface elements such as controls, toolbars, menus, dialogues etc.
• The difference between regular user interfaces and touch-based interfaces. 

 

Organisation

The course is highly practical. Lectures and literature give a theoretical foundation, but this theory is immediately put into practice. When practicing, focus is upon motivating, making and analyzing the design decisions made. Most of the work is done in groups of various sizes but there is also a significant amount of individual work.

 

Grades

In order to finalize the course, you have to

• attend 1 out of 2 exercises (including crit sessions)
• have your group project approved (including presentation)
• get more than 60 points (out of 100) on the written exam
• have your individual project and presentation approved with more than 60 points (out of 100)

The grade you get is a combination of the grade on the written exam and the individual project (so from 120 up to 200 points for a passing grade).

he points for TDA493 (Chalmers) grades are as follows.

	Written exam	Individual project	Whole course
five	86-100	86-100	171-200
four	73-85	73-85	145-170
three	60-72	60-72	120-144
not approved

The points for TIA106 (GU) grades are as follows.

	Written exam	Individual project	Whole course
VG	80-100	80-100	160-200
G	60-79	60-79	120-159
not approved

 

Course evaluation

The course evaluation is done in the following steps.

1. Course representatives are selected (volunteering) – at course introduction
2. Intro meeting between course manager and course representatives, about a week into the course. The objective is to make contact, gather opinions on the course from the Examiner and students, and to decide and publish the date of the halfway meeting.
3. Halfway meeting between course manager and course representatives, about halfway into the course. The objective is to facilitate course development during the course. It is also an opportunity to suggest questions for the course evaluation questionnaire.
4. Filling out course evaluation questionnaire, at the end of the course (everyone!). The URL to the web based questionnaire will be sent to your e-mail address.
5. Final meeting between course manager, program manager and course representatives – in January. The meeting will discuss the course as a whole, fulfilment of objectives, implementation, teaching methods and working climate. Proposals for changes next year will be discussed.
6. Summary of evaluation published

Link to the syllabus Chalmers.
Link to the syllabus GU.