General Assignment Guidelines

Keep in mind that we have to read many writeups. It is in your best interest to make these write-ups clear, concise and as easy to read as possible.

We will want hardcopies of assignments so it is easier to write our comments on them. However, to be safe, be sure you always have either an electronic version or a photocopy of your assignment. Assignments are due at the beginning of class on the due dates stated.

Project Proposal Assignment

The goals of this assignment are to give you the opportunity to observe the need for good HCI design in the computer systems in the world around you, to give you practice in analyzing the problems you observe.
 
 
The general topic area in which the proposals are expected to fall are information management and use, but if you have ideas outside of this area that is ok. The proposals you make will be the basis for the course projects, so don't propose something too large like designing the entire interactive web site for Fidelity. Instead, you should look at either an existing systems and how a piece of it might be improved, or propose a new interface that solves an existing problem. We will select projects from these proposals to be done by teams of students within the class, so think about what might be feasible for three to four people in the course of the semester.
 
 
The proposal should be an essay of no more than two pages of double-spaced typewritten text. The essay should include a concise statement of the problem you've observed, an analysis of the problem, suggestions for improvements and a rationale for those improvements, and a brief experimental design to test whether one or all of your suggestions would actually solve the problem.
 
 
The experiment section should include brief descriptions of what you would vary (independent variables), what you would measure (dependent variables), the types of people you would use as participants in the experiment, the tasks you would ask those people to perform (method), and predictions of the results you would get and what those results would mean if you got them (discussion).
 
 
Since there are no psychology pre-requisites for this course, I do not expect you to know everything about experimental design for this assignment. However, a lot of experimental design is just common sense, so do the best you can. I will teach experimental design later in the semester, so you will know more about this by the end of the class.
 
 
This is an individual assignment. Your proposals should follow this outline and 100 total points will be awarded as shown:
1. Problem (short) [10]
2. Analysis [20]
3. Suggested Improvements [20]
4. Experiment: [20]
1. Independent Variables
2. Dependent Variables
3. Participants
4. Method
5. Results and Discussion
5. What your "core competencies" are.
6. (Optional) Who, if anyone, you were already hoping to work with (especially if part of some existing project).

Your creativity and writing will account for the remaining 30 points. We will grade on how well you follow this outline, the creativity of your idea, and how well you analyze the problem and define an experiment to test your improvements.

For examples of how to do these kinds of writeups, see the projects at http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/courseware/cs160/fall97/projects/index.html
These projects are of a different flavor than the kind we expect to see in this class, but should help you get started.