Project Guidelines
This is a set of guidelines for your final report in CSC554. Your final report should look like a professional academic paper. Your project will be judged largely on its written presentation, though you should turn in a running system as well, unless this is impractical due to the inclusion of external software. Your final report may be no longer than 15 pages, with 1-inch margins and with text no smaller than an 11 point font. Your report may be shorter. Content is more important than length. The 15-page limit does not apply to figures, references, and appendices containing data; all discussion, however, should be within the 15 pages.
Your project should be a non-trivial implementation of the interface to some system. An implementation of the back-end system itself is not required; it can be an existing system or complete mock-up of a hypothetical system. By "non-trivial" I mean that the project should address some aspect of interaction that has the potential to tell an experienced HCI person something new: something not obvious or easily inferred from what is already known in the field. Further, there should be some evidence that the system would be used by the people it's targeted at. You should feel free to consult with me about what this entails, but I'll also expect you to do the necessary background reading to justify your project choice on your own. Examples (from past classes) of trivial interfaces would include the following:
- A mobile application for ordering pizza delivery.
- A generic desktop calendar application.
- A map application for an easily navigated area.
Examples (from past classes) of non-trivial interfaces would include the following:
- A mobile application offering advice, score-keeping, and social networking capabilities to disc golfers.
- A new physical input device for virtual environments.
- A two-handed, gesture-based Web browser using the Wii mote as a sensor.
Your final report should contain the following components, organized in some logical fashion. The bullet points below do not need to be addressed in separate sections. A description in italics indicates what I am looking for in each component.
An explicit problem statement, in which you describe the problem that you are trying to solve with your work. The statement should encompass both the task domain and HCI concerns.
Is the problem clearly stated?A description of the task domain, the target users, and representative scenarios.
Does the report reflect a good, detailed understanding of these areas? Is it clear why people in real life would be interested in the problem and its solution?A description of related work, including related systems (if such exist) and papers from the academic literature. Related work encompasses interactive systems in the task domain, interactive systems for related tasks, and general HCI research. Reference any external material you rely on including papers, books, commercial systems, Web pages, and so forth. Highlight the influences of this material on your work. Explain what makes your work novel.
How deep or shallow is the project team's knowledge of the area?A description of the design of the system. You should also describe its evolution through the design process, along with the influence of user testing and formative evaluation techniques on the design decisions you made. You should be very specific here.
Does the system reflect users' concerns? Have obviously good or obviously bad decisions been made?A presentation of the final system, which should not have obvious usability flaws. Walking through the use of the system with a few examples would probably be helpful.
Does this look like a real system that people could use without problems?An empirical evaluation of your interface, with classmates (or non-classmates) who are not members of your team. This should take the form of an experiment design and a pilot run.
Is the experiment well-designed? How convincing would the results be, if scaled up, that the system works as expected?An analytical evaluation of your interface, using techniques you judge to be most appropriate.
Are the analytical techniques justified and the results explained? Does the analytical evaluation give any insight into the system and its use?A discussion of the implementation.
How much was implemented, and how much was not? Were there any challenges? (Not challenges due to the team's learning curve, e.g., not knowing how to program a specific emulator, but more general challenges.) What remains to be done?
Overall, I want to read a well-written report that demonstrates strong knowledge of HCI, both in general and in the context of your project work.