Course Handbook

This is the course handbook for the course The Human Factor.

Version: Semester 2, 2018/2019.

Introduction

“If the user can’t use it, then it doesn’t work at all.” (Susan Dray) In this course, we will look at the art and craft of building technical systems that people can actually use successfully. To this end, we will draw on relevant results from anthropology, behavioural, cognitive and social psychology, and sociology.

The course will be taught using a flipped classroom – before class, you will work through materials; in class, we will work on activities designed to review the material and deepen your learning.

While this course does not have any prerequisites, students who take The Human Factor have often done one or both of two “feeder” courses. These are HCI and Case Studies for Design Informatics 1.

The course is different from the Informatics HCI course as it is currently taught in that it places far more emphasis on the people who use technology, and the context in which technology is used. Where the HCI course focuses on conducting studies in human-computer interaction, and on creating usable interfaces, this course will draw far more heavily on ergonomics, psychology and sociology.

The course differs from Design courses in that it is more theory oriented, and the main learning outcome is not to produce an artefact, but to understand how artefacts are used, and how designs enable or hinder meaningful use.

This particular iteration of the course is split into two parts:

Learning Outcomes

The formal learning outcomes for the Human Factors part are:

  1. understand how anthropometric, perceptual, cognitive, and social factors affect the interaction between people and technical systems
  2. evaluate the usability of a human-computer interface

The formal learning outcomes for the Visualisation part are:

  1. Interpretation: Correctly interpret non-standard visualizations
  2. Critique: Critically judge its visualization design with respect to deception and perception flaws.
  3. Design: Create an appropriate and informed (re)design of a visualization for a specific context and data set.

Notes on the Human Factors Learning Outcomes

Informally, this means that in the  want to get you used to a different way of seeing that will allow you to spot potential usability problems, make informed judgements about potential causes, and make plausible suggestions for changes that might alleviate these usability problems. We will cover some methods for formally testing your assessments of usability.

Each week’s learning outcomes are structured into three groups, understand (concepts that you should be familiar with), remember (concepts that you should remember for quizzes and assignments), and apply (skills).

One of the main themes of the course is learning from errors. So please do ask questions, make suggestions, and let me know what is and isn’t working for you.

Assessments

There are two types of assessments – those where you get points just for completing them, and those that are actually graded.

Pass/fail assessments

These cover a total of 2.5% of your grade, and are only administered for the Human Factors part. All you need to do is submit on time (with adjustments as appropriate). The aim of these assessments is to give Maria  enough information to allow her to tailor the face to face sessions to your needs. The tasks are to ask questions and comments about the materials for the week, or to report on your own experiences.

  • Administered using: Top Hat
  • Due dates:  January 21, 2019, 9am; January 29, 2019, 9am; February 4, 9am; February 11, 9am; April 1, 9am

Your grade for these assessments is the percentage of assessments that you completed on time. If you complete all, you will get 100 on this component, if you complete half, 50, and if you complete none, 0.

Graded assessments

  • Usability Case Study, around 1000 words. Marked out of 100, contribution to final mark: 45%.
    Open for submission through Learn: Tuesday, January 29 2019, 9am.
    Submission closes: Friday, March 1, 12pm
  • Fast online quiz, 25 questions in 20 minutes. Covers key concepts from Weeks 1-3 plus S4.2 and S5.2. Marked out of 100, contribution to final mark: 12.5%
    Open through Learn: Friday February  15 2019, 9am.
    Submission closes:  Saturday February 16 2019, 8:59am 
  • Visualisation Assignment, around 1000 words. Marked out of 100, contribution to final mark: 40%.
    Open for submission through Learn: Tuesday March 9, 9am.
    Submission closes: Friday April 26, 12pm 

All assessments will be marked according to the Postgraduate Common Marking Scheme. For those of you that are used to other systems of marking, bear in mind that anything above 70% is great, and anything below 50% is not a pass at Master’s level. For all written assignments that are not quizzes and not marked pass/fail, I use a detailed grading scheme.

After completing a quiz or submitting an assignment, please take a screenshot of the confirmation screen so that you have independent proof should the technology not work as required.

General Rules

IMPORTANT: If you need an extension, contact the Informatics Teaching Organisation (ITO) as soon as possible.

Make sure that you submit any written assignments using your exam number only, and that you state the number of words in your assignment. Your exam number is the number that starts with B on your student card. Table of contents, figure captions, table captions, and references do not count towards your total number of words. You have some flexibility – you can go over the word count by 100 words in the Case Study, and 200 words in the Usability Report, but not more.

Make sure that you know how to cite, how to quote, and how to avoid plagiarism.

Usability Case Study

For the case study, in around 1000 words, describe a single, small, specific problem that could make an app, a device, or a piece of software difficult to use for somebody because of something they fail to perceive or something they fail to understand. References, Figures, Tables, and captions do not count towards the overall word count.

Explain why it could be a problem, for whom it could be a problem, and suggest how that problem could be addressed. This problem has to be something  that you have observed yourself. Use as many figures, tables, and pictures as you can to document the problem and your proposed solution in detail.

Use references from the literature (textbooks, scientific papers, etc.) to underpin your argument. Blog posts and forum posts are fine for illustrating the problem itself, but your case study must cite at least three references from the scientific literature.

A detailed marking scheme and an outline of a sample case study will be published on LEARN.

Quiz Assessments

Before you attempt your first quiz, be sure that you have worked through the practice quiz on Learn and have carefully read the tips and tricks for taking quizzes on Learn. If your set up fails you while you are taking a quiz, please do let me know as soon as possible, so that I can

The quiz is a mix of  multiple choice and true/false questions. Sometimes, there is more than one correct answer. The questions will be drawn from a pool of questions. The sequence and choice of questions will be randomised, so that no two quizzes are the same.

Visualisation Assignment

Pick a data set of your choice (at least 20 elements (rows) and 6 attributes (columns)) and create an appropriate visualization by hand or using available tools (discussed in class on March 26). Do not use the data you have received in class for the 2nd visualization tutorial.

You are not required to visualize all your data. Pick the interesting bits. Pick what you have learned and what you want to communicate. If you can visualize all your data, great. But often several simple visualizations are more effective since they can specific aspects with more clarity.

Describe your design choices and argue with the literature or concepts discussed in the lecture wherever possible.

  1. Part I: Describe your design rationale for the visualization (25%, up to 300 words):
    • What is your data and where is it coming from?
    • What do you intent to show?
    • Why have you chosen this visualization?
    • Which alternative designs did you consider?
    • Which tool did you use to create it and which drawbacks did you encounter?
  2. Part II: Create an explanatory piece to communicate context, insights, and take-home messages from in this data, using visualizations (75%). This can be
    • an infographic (minimum 2 visualizations, around 200 words, 1 A3 page)
    • a report (minimum 2 visualizations, around 200 words)
    • a data comic (minimum 2 visualizations, minimum 5 panels, 1 A4 page)

The ‘200 words’ refer to the text included into the story, i.e., the text that is telling your story to your intended audience. Make sure to explain to your audience (discussed in the 3rd visualization tutorial)

  • What issue you are talking about and why this is important to you or the world.
  • What data you are using and where it is coming from
  • Explain the visualizations you use and make sure your audience is understanding them
  • Explain what we can see in the visualization and what we learned about the issue you are talking about.

Again, briefly describe (up to  500 words)

  • your intended audience,
  • the messages you want to convey,
  • the context in which the story will be read by your audience, as well as
  • your design rationale for how your visualization story matches these goals.

For the visualization assignment, please hand in a single PDF that contains the three following components. There is no page limit.

  1. For Part I: your visualization, your rationale, and possible sketches of alternatives if it helps you arguing your final design choice.
  2. For Part II: Your visual story, e.g., a data comic, an infographic, a report plus your rationale description.

Delivery, Workload, and Feedback

The Human Factors part of the course is delivered using a flipped classroom. This means that you will be expected to read the required resources (typically textbook chapters) and to engage with some of the materials posted on the web site before class. You can expect to spend 5-7 hours doing that every week. While most flipped classroom teaching involves videos, the Human Factors sessions use written materials – including your textbook! – and podcasts instead. Videos take up more bandwidth and require you to watch; whereas you can download and listen to podcasts whenever you like. I will do my best to provide transcripts for all podcasts.

If the recording equipment deities smile upon us, the lectures will be recorded, but don’t count on it – bring your own equipment!

We will use TopHat for attendance recording and some in-class interaction.

Tutorials

There will be six tutorials. Tutorial groups are published on LEARN.

Week 3: Revision of the ABCS

Week 4: Revision of Usability Study Planning

Week 5: Descriptive Statistics and logging errors

Week 7: Tasks and Scenarios

Week 8: Visualisation Techniques

Week 10: Storytelling and Presentation

Tutorial Number Tutor Day Time Room Dates

1

 Mohammad Monday 11:10-12:00 G3, 30 Buccleuch Place Jan 28, Feb 4, Feb 11, Mar 4, Mar 11, Mar 25

2

 Mohammad Monday 12:10-13:00 M1, Appleton Tower Jan 28, Feb 4, Feb 11, Mar 4, Mar 11, Mar 25

3

 Benjamin Bach Tuesday 11:10-12:00 4.14, Appleton Tower Jan 29, Feb 5, Feb 12,  Mar 5, Mar 12, Mar 26

4

 Nicole Meng Tuesday 12:10-13:00 4.14, Appleton Tower Jan 29, Feb 5, Feb 12,  Mar 5, Mar 12, Mar 26

5

 Maria Wolters Wednesday 11:10-12:00 M1, Appleton Tower Jan 30, Feb 6, Feb 13,  Mar 6, Mar 13, Mar 27

6

 Maria Wolters Wednesday 12:10-13:00 Teaching Room 10, Old College Jan 30, Feb 6, Feb 13,  Mar 6, Mar 13, Mar 27

7

 Nicole Meng Thursday 11:10-12:00 5.01, Appleton Tower Jan 31, Feb 7, Feb 14, Mar 7, Mar 14, Mar 29

8

 Adam Jenkins Thursday 12:10-13:00 7.14, Appleton Tower Jan 31, Feb 7, Feb 14, Mar 7, Mar 14, Mar 29

Skills and Equipment

You will need strong English language skills, as the course involves a lot of in-class debate and listening to others under noisy conditions. Maria speaks with a Scottish-German accent, which may be difficult for you to understand if you’re mainly used to American accents. Benjamin also speaks with a German accent, and he also often speaks very fast.  If you have trouble understanding either of us, and need us to speak more slowly and/or clearly, let us know.

Bring your own device! Laptops, tablets, and phones are welcome in class. I trust you to use them responsibly, and to keep your phones on silent. I also assume that if you’re physically present, you’re ready and prepared to take part actively in class activities.

I am happy for you to record course sessions using your own recording devices, but please make sure that you protect your classmates’ privacy. These recordings are only for your own use and study. As our sessions won’t be classical lectures, I won’t be using lecture recording technology.

You will need

  • stable Internet access, preferably through an Ethernet connection, to submit assignments and take part in quizzes
  • earphones and an Internet connection with sufficient capacity to watch videos and listen to podcasts
  • a device that you can take to class which allows you to submit answers to Top Hat questions. Top Hat allows you to answer questions by sending a text to a number that is charged at the normal rate, so all you need is a simple phone.

Readings

Most weeks are designed around specific chapters in the main text book, Ritter, Frank E.; Baxter, Gordon D; Churchill, Elizabeth F. (2014): Foundations for Designing User Centred Systems. Springer. Additional readings are given in specific weeks.

The recommended supplementary readings for research methods are

Boynton, Petra (2016): The Research Companion. 2nd edition, Routledge. Sample chapter.

Creswell, John (2015): A Concise Introduction to Mixed Methods Research. Sage.

Tullis, Tom / Albert, Bill (2013): Measuring the User Experience. 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufman.

Please also refer to the course materials for the two feeder courses, HCI and Case Studies for Design Informatics 1.

Contact Information

Dr Maria Wolters
Room 4.32A, Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street

Skype: mkwolters, Google Hangout: maria dot wolters at gmail

Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag
Course Materials “The Human Factor” von Maria Klara Wolters ist lizenziert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell 4.0 International Lizenz.