Software Usability Course notes for CSI 5122 - University of Ottawa

Software UsabilityCourse notes for CSI 5122 - University of Ottawa

Section 1:

Course Outline and Required Work

Timothy C. Lethbridge

<[email protected]>

http://www.eecs.uottawa.ca/~tcl/csi5122

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Themes of the course

Main theme: Software Usability Engineering:

• How to develop software systems that are highly usable

• Sub-theme: Adapting the software engineering process to produce more usable software

• Sub-theme: Enhancing your skills at design and evaluation of usability

Secondary theme: How do do good research in software engineering, HCI, and Usability

• Critical evaluation and writing papers in the usability domain

• Subtheme: How to design a good experiment, analyse usability data and present the results

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This is not a ‘pure HCI’ course

It is an ‘applied HCI’ course

• ‘E’course in OCICS

• There is also a separate A/S course available at Carleton, taught by Robert Biddle

We will focus on engineering practicalities

• Less consideration of HCI theory

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Background required

Just being a grad student in CS, SE, E-Business or a related subject should be enough

• All grad students should have had some undergrad background or work experience in software development

No HCI course is assumed as background

• So far this is not required in undergrad CS programs

• Those who have an HCI course or other HCI background will have only a small advantage

—Come to class, but 20% of the material may be review

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Learning about each other:

Who am I• I have taught

—CS since 1985—SE since 1990—Usability at the undergrad/grad level since 1993

• Main current research topics—Software Modeling (Umple) and complexity reduction—Software engineering tools, including their usability—Software Engineering Education

• Research projects with several companies over the years• Worked at Nortel for 2 years in the 1980’s

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Who are you

Name?

University?

Program? (MSc, PhD, OCICS, OCIECE, Systems Science, etc.)

Year of grad study?

Why are you interested in this topic

Topics In The Course

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Topics for the course 1Not necessarily covered exactly in this sequence

What is usability• How it compares with other qualities

Doing research in general

Usability in the Software Engineering• SE methods to improve usability• The Users and Usability Maturity Model• Economics of usability

—Justifying an investment in usability• Measuring usability• Setting realistic usability objectives

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Topics for the course 2Design for usability

• Task analysis

• User centred design

Evaluation techniques

• Heuristic Evaluation

• Evaluating usability by analysis of videos of users

• Experimentation and analysis of results in general

• Conducting formal experiments to validate usability

Internationalization and localization

Access for the disabled

Usability of multi-touch interfaces

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Pedagogical method

I will lecture about half the time

We will study user interfaces together and perform evaluations ‘live’

You will read research papers and reports and we will discuss them together

• Everybody will study all the papers

—One student will start the discussion by summarizing the paper

You will do projects, and present the results

• Topics include, UI design, UI evaluation, experiment, research

Motivational example 1

Microsoft Excel

• Poor error message when it can’t find an item

• http://tims-ideas.blogspot.com/2011/06/usability-blooper-microsoft-excel.html

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Work Plan

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Your work plan: Your grade will be tailored, based on a plan you will prepare

20% Everybody writes a final exam unless you already have A+ (> 90%) from the other components

• In which case multiply the other components by 10/8

80%: your choice of some combination of the following • If you do components worth> 80% then I scale the grade so it is out of 80%a) 5%: Leading discussion of a paper in class b) 25%: Research (literature review) paper (20 pages)c) 25%: Conducting a formal experiment with 5+ users, and writing up - 20

pagesd) 15%: Evaluating a user interface and formally writing it up - 15 pagese) 10%: Presentation of results from b, c, and/or d in class – 20-30 minutes,

including discussionf) 10% Creating a guest post for my blog (I will edit it and give you credit) or

a post on your blog for public consumption (can be related to b, c, d)

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Your work plan - 2

We will learn how to do the tasks in your work planWhat constitutes a good research paperHow to run an experiment and analyse the resultsHow to do evaluation and present the resultsHow to do a presentation

The weights for each component can be varied(e.g. > 25% or < 25% for a larger or smaller experiment)I will give you the weights when you propose to me what

you plan to do

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Your work plan - 3

I must approve each work item before you start

• You can prepare a full or partial work plan at any time

—Add to it as your ideas become more detailed

—Send plans to me by email

• For item a (papers) every student does one, but some of you may do 2

You must volunteer for the ones you want

First-come-first-served

• For each of b (research), c (experiment), and d (evaluation)

Email me a detailed outline of the proposed work

I will give you feedback before you start

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Ideas for finding topics for research papers

Browse the literature• I will give you some techniques for this later in this slide

deck

Pick a topic we have discussed in class.The following are a few examples:

• Metrics• Design techniques• Usability guidelines• Evaluation techniques

I reserve the right to deny a topic if other students have already picked it.

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Research paper basic criteria

Must be written in the same style as if you are submitting a paper to a journal or top conference

• E.g. SIGCHI, ICSE

We will be reading many papers in the course, so you can learn from the style of those papers

• But I will also point out some bad things to avoid

You must have at least 10 peer-reviewed references (from good conferences or journals)

You must analyse what you have read• Just giving me lots of facts is no good

At all costs, avoid plagiarism

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Evaluation project basic criteria

The system can be

—open source

—commercial

—your thesis topic

—something from a work environment (past or present)

• It cannot be so confidential

—students inthe class must be able to see it

http://www.site.uottawa.ca/~tcl/csi5122/projectIdeas/

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Deadlines

Give me your work plan By January 21• I will assign you deadlines spread through the course

Once deadlines are set, you are held to them!• 5% marks lost per day for each item that is late

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Interim feedback on draft materials

Optional: Send me a draft of your work 6 or more working days before it is due

• I will skim it and give you some ideas for improvement

• I will not have time to read it in detail at the draft stage, so I can’t guarantee that I find any or all faults

—But I will give you some basic feedback

Also optional: Send me your presentation slides 3 working days before your presentation date.

Mandatory: Send me a 3 page summary the design of any experiment 4 working days before you start executing it

Homework for Week 2

For week 2 read:

Regina Nuzzo,

“Scientific method: Statistical errors: P values, the 'gold standard' of statistical validity, are not as reliable as many scientists assume.”

Nature, 12 Feb 2014,

http://www.nature.com/news/scientific-method-statistical-errors-1.14700

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