ITE3752 · SEM 6
Human Computer Interaction
Offline study guides — one per week, built from the lecture notes and lecture videos. Green bar = sections you marked as understood.
Exam practicePast papers with worked answersReal exam questions from previous years, fully solved, plus which topics come up most.
Week 01Humans, Computers & InteractionsWhere HCI came from, why it's multi-disciplinary, ubiquitous computing, human perception, two-way task-centred interaction, the HCI space, and its applications.
Week 02Interaction Models, Ergonomics & StylesDomain–goal–task, Norman's 7 stages and the two gulfs, slips vs mistakes, the Abowd & Beale framework, ergonomics, direct vs indirect manipulation, and interaction styles.
Week 03The Human as an Information ProcessorPerceptual, cognitive and motor systems; vision, hearing and touch in UI design; sensory memory, STM (Miller's 7 ± 2, chunking) and LTM; cognitive load; attention; motor skills.
Week 04Designing for Users — Tasks, Contexts of Use & User PerspectivesDesign for the task, not the interface; useful, usable and used; the user as processor, predictor and participant; the GPS turn example; UX beyond interaction.
Week 05Feedback Cycles & Levels of DesignAction, interaction, effect and feedback; feedback cycles everywhere; the bridges of execution and evaluation; Norman's 7 questions from the designer's and user's side; visceral, behavioural and reflective design.
Week 06Direct Manipulation & Invisible InterfacesDirect manipulation, the desktop metaphor vs the CLI, metaphorical vs literal invisibility, good vs bad design, invisibility by learning vs by design, and five tips for invisible interfaces.
Week 07Design Principles, Guidelines & StandardsThe authority vs generality spectrum; Norman's principles, Nielsen's 10 heuristics and Shneiderman's 8 golden rules; the 15 universal design principles with live good-vs-bad demos.
Week 08Mental Models, Representations & Error TaxonomyWhat mental models are, representations vs the implementation model, four traits of good representations, the full slip/mistake taxonomy, learned helplessness and expert blindness.
Week 09Cognitive Modelling — GOMS, KLM & Fitts's LawPredicting user performance before building anything: task analysis, the GOMS framework, keystroke-level model timings, Fitts's law, and the strengths and limits of predictive models.
Week 10Cognitive Task Analysis & Hierarchical Task AnalysisProcessor- vs predictor-oriented models, the 5-step CTA method, the customer-feedback thought stream, HTA in textual and diagram form with plans, and modularity through divide and conquer.
Week 11User-Centred Design & the Design Life CycleUCD vs specification-driven design, the 8 user characteristics, ISO 9241-210's 6 principles, the 4-phase iterative life cycle, and stakeholder-centred design (primary, secondary, tertiary).
Week 12Needfinding — Understanding Users, Biases & Requirement-Gathering MethodsThe first stage of the design life cycle: why needfinding matters, the seven questions about users and context, five biases and how to avoid them, and every method (naturalistic and participant observation, hacks and workarounds, apprenticeship, interviews, focus groups, think-aloud, questionnaires, documentation) through to representing the needs.
Week 13Evaluation — Measuring UsabilityWhy evaluation is the core of user-centred design, matching evaluation to the prototype's functions and stage, qualitative → usability → quantitative feedback across the design life cycle, the three types of evaluation (qualitative, empirical, predictive), and four key terms (reliability, validity, generalisability, precision).
★Mixed practice exam
20 random questions drawn from all 13 weeks (145 in the bank). Every attempt is a new mix — a good way to test whole-subject knowledge before the exam.