Computer Science Curriculum 2013 and Software Engineering Curriculum 2014 recommend eight and ten hours of human-computer interaction (HCI) concepts, respectively. SE2014 notes that human factors and usability are areas where motivation is needed within SE pedagogy, "Students will often not appreciate the need for attention to those areas unless they actually experience usability differences or watch users having difficulty using software." However, while HCI topics include user-centered design, basic human principles, evaluation and understanding of links to technological and societal issues, many contemporary industry settings require broader skills in support of the user experience (UX), defined by Neilsen and Norman as "all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company." As industry demands for people with skills in UX grow, it is useful for educators to share their best ideas and practices in the teaching of these concepts. For educators currently teaching HCI and for those planning to teach HCI and UX, we hope to discuss strategies for including broader UX topics in their classes. Additionally, we hope to include faculty who might be integrating UX topics into curricula from psychology, human factors, Advanced Placement CS Principles courses and others. We anticipate discussion of the following: UX research methods, approaches to UX design and validation, UX requirements analysis, specification and UX business case development. We will discuss these concepts in the context of computer science and software engineering education and application as well as other settings of interest to participants.

Prior research suggests that "closer" interface styles, such as touch and tangible, would yield poorer performance on problem solving tasks as a result of their more natural interaction style. However, virtually no empirical investigations have been conducted to test this assumption. In this paper we describe an empirical study, comparing three interfaces, varying in closeness (mouse, touchscreen, and tangible) on a novel abstract problem solving task. We found that the tangible interface was significantly slower than both the mouse and touch interfaces. However, the touch and tangible interfaces were significantly more efficient than the mouse interface in problem solving across a number of measures. Overall, we found that the touch interface condition offered the best combination of speed and efficiency; in general, the closer interfaces offer significant benefit over the traditional mouse interface on abstract problem solving.

Usability and accessibility have become increasingly important in computing curricula. This article briefly reviews how these concepts may be included in existing courses. The authors conducted a survey of student attitudes toward these issues at the start and end of a usability engineering course that included a group project with an accessibility component. Results of the survey indicate that students’ awareness of issues related to usability and accessibility are increased after taking the course and completing the project. Our work and results are potentially valuable to CS educators in three ways: (1) They validate the usefulness of the survey instrument in assessing pedagogies in usability engineering, (2) They provide useful insights into the attitudes of CS majors relative to the important topics of usability and accessibility, and (3) They point to possible benefits of including usability and accessibility topics into CS curricula.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) allow users to relay information to a computer by capturing reactions to their thoughts via brain waves (or similar measurements). This "new" type of interaction allows users with limited motor control to interact with a computer without a mouse/keyboard or other physically manipulated interaction device. While this technology is in its infancy, there have been major strides in the area allowing researchers to investigate potential uses. One of the first such interfaces that has broached the commercial market at an affordable price is the Emotiv "EPOC" headset. This paper reports on results of a study exploring usage of the EPOC headset.

Accessibility and usability have become increasingly important in design and development of technology. This poster briefly reviews how accessibility concepts may be included in computer science courses as students are educated to become practitioners. In a usability engineering course, the authors included a group development project that included an accessibility component. They conducted a survey of student attitudes toward these issues at the start and end of the course. Results of the survey indicate that students' awareness of issues related to usability and accessibility are increased after taking the course and completing the project. In particular, students showed a significant increase in their rating of importance for the item "broadening the range of technology users". The authors also performed a factor analysis of the survey responses and determined that items fell into three factors, one of which was concerned with accessibility and usability.

Term projects in an undergraduate Usability Engineering (UE) course provide opportunities for students to put the abstract ideas of what they have learned in class into practice. Projects provide students with opportunities to learn that the process of usability engineering is rarely as smooth as it would seem in the abstract. Moreover, term projects give students the opportunity to learn about specific methodologies and notations.One critical phase of the term project is the user interface specification; in our undergraduate UE course we have found the specification phase to be a significant pedagogic challenge. Key elements to that challenge are: 1) Presenting the project requirements in such a way that the students can generate a specification, 2) Defining the form and format for student work, 3) Teaching the process of specification and 4) Assessing the students' work. In this paper, we describe our approach to each of these four challenges. Since 1996, we have had good success with our approach; however, student data suggests that students still find the UE specification process difficult. In Spring 2003, we added some extra steps in our process that seem to lead to greater student understanding and success.

This special session presents issues, approaches and experiences related to incorporating Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into the undergraduate CS curriculum. Since the publication of the ACM SIGCHI Curricula for Human-Computer Interaction in 1992 [1], CS educators have tried various implementations of these guidelines. These implementations have been mainly offered as elective courses or modules within other courses, partly because the CS mainstream has been slow to recognize the importance of user interface design and HCI issues in software development.Today at least 50% of the code written for software applications is specific to the user interface. Average end-user expertise is continually dropping due to the proliferation of inexpensive computers available to the general public. Accordingly, user interface effectiveness has become increasingly important in software development, as the user interface has the power to make or break a software product. Through its emphasis on user-centered design, task analysis, and usability evaluation among other topics, an HCI course addresses more than 1/3 of the guidelines and imperatives of the ACM Code of Ethics [2]. This includes issues related to professional review, evaluations of computer systems, social responsibility and quality of life, and non-discrimination and dignity of end-users.CS educators have begun realizing the importance of incorporating HCI into the educational experience of students. Approximately 40% of the CAC-accredited degree programs include an HCI course at the upper level; however, this course is offered mostly as an elective (37% of degree programs) as opposed to a required course (3% of degree programs) [3]. Also, HCI is included as a core knowledge area in Computing Curricula 2001 [4, 5, 6]; unfortunately, only six hours have been devoted to it, as opposed to, say, 36 hours for architecture.

The most recent report of the Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001) suggests that updated curricula must reflect the broadening nature of our discipline. Two areas that are included in the strawman draft of CC2001 are software engineering (SE) and human-computer interaction (HC). While the first inclination might be to incorporate these minimal HC concepts in a traditional SE course, we propose a different approach. This paper outlines a project oriented HC course in which we are able to emphasize SE in the context of HC concepts. We include an overview of course content that illustrates our approach.

User interface designers are challenged to design for diverse users, including those of different genders, cultures and abilities; however, little research has been directed at this problem. One factor which may inhibit such research is its cost. This paper presents an approach which offers a way to seek out important characteristics of designs in a cost-effective way and reports on the results. In a study reported here, subjects from different nationalities and of both genders evaluated three dialog boxes specifically designed for 'white American women'. 'European adult male intellectuals', and 'English-speaking-internationals'. The dialog boxes were evaluated with conjoint techniques of preference rankings, and factor-analysed adjective ratings. These results showed that female subjects had stronger and more consistent patterns of preferences than the male subjects. All subjects preferred interfaces rated high on an accessibility factor and disliked complex layouts; this effect was even stronger for women. Nationality did not effect ratings. Gender had a stronger effect on the outcome than nationality.

Although hypertext offers exciting new ways of presenting and accessing information, there is little research which systematically compares the usability of hypertext against traditional media with an eye to improving the design of the hypertext. This paper presents the results of an experiment which examined the performance and navigation strategies of users engaged in a question-answering task using either a hypertext encyclopedia of Sherlock Holmes facts (the HyperHolmessyTMstem) or the traditional paper form. The results showed that, overall, the hypertext users were marginally more accurate in answering questions, and excelled at questions where the key information was embedded in a text entry. The book users were marginally faster overall, but excelled only in answering questions based on graphics. Hypertext users showed a preference for those tools which most closely mimicked use of a conventional book. They used a hierarchical structure to guide their navigation strategy in early trials, but soon learned to navigate in a non-hierarchical, flat way.

As CASE (computer-aided software engineering) technology begins to mature, there are more and more opportunities to integrate CASE into the computer science classroom.An undergraduate software engineering course taught at Bowling Green in the fall of 1989 was a pioneering attempt to use sophisticated and real-world CASE tools in a semester-long project.To assess the impact of the use of CASE on the students' attitudes, a questionnaire was distributed at completion of the project.In the specific example of undergraduate software engineering education, we found that CASE can be a significant enhancement.Student attitudes were positive and the quality of their work appeared to be better compared to the traditional course.

The continuing demand for the development of new software and maintenance of existing software has made productivity an important issue in the software industry. In the past, increases in productivity have come from the introduction of software engineering techniques. Today, software engineers are looking to CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tools as a possible source of further improvements in productivity. This paper provides an overview of current CASE tools, with a focus on three types of tools: framing environments, programming environments and general environments. Two specific CASE systems are discussed in some detail. CASE systems in the context of software engineering education are also discussed.

A survey of undergraduate software engineering courses was conducted. The survey covered the issues of course level, course content, course organization, project characteristics and department demographics. The descriptive statistics show that the typical course focuses on the software development life cycle and includes a project intended for actual use. The project is carried out by teams of students, with student leaders. The issues of suitable textbooks, staffing, obtaining suitable software and sources of materials and training for teaching user-interface design surfaced as problem areas.

A survey of undergraduate software engineering courses was conducted. The survey covered the issues of course level, course content, course organization, project characteristics, and department demographics. The descriptive statistics show that the typical course focuses on the software development life cycle and includes a project intended for actual use. The project is carried out by teams of students, with student leaders. A factor analysis disclosed that three different sorts of courses are currently being offered. The most predominant course is the Later-Life Cycle course, which focuses on the later stages of the software life cycle. Detailed design, coding, testing, and maintenance receive in-depth coverage in this style of course, and the student's grades are heavily dependent upon the project. The Early-Life-Cycle course emphasizes requirements analysis, specification, and system design. Written reports are an important component of this course, and the project is again a large portion of the students' grades. The third style of course is the Theoretical-Issues course. Software metrics, project management, and legal and ethical issues are covered. The students are upper level, and they use journal articles as a source of materials. The issues of suitable textbooks and sources of materials and training for teaching user-interface design surfaced as problem areas.