HCI Practicum

CS3205 Experiences

Lessons learned from teaching "HCI in Software Development" as a project-based course since 2018

CS3205 Experiences

Not enough time to iterate and improve initial design, learning from failed choices

Not enough time to develop a functional prototype, dissatisfying technically-minded students

Project roles do not always represent student interests or intended career paths

Guidance from client/domain expert is hit or miss due to their lack of commitment

Impact of each project is debatable as students are completely free to pick their own projects

Significant Learning

Categories that most CS courses fall short of covering

Significant Learning

From my research, such increased personal relevance explains 7% of a student's project grade beyond other factors.

Aligning content to student interests (personal relevance) to the point they fully invest in the learning process

"I am grateful

that I was placed

on a challenging team because it’s a realistic representation of what I may encounter in the future and now I have experience with conflict resolution. "

Help students build collaborative skills, including open communication, conflict resolution, and resilience

"This course

[CS3205] helped me to reevaluate my approach to my path as an engineer, it defeated my hubris, in a good way."

Allow student to integrate skills and concepts from multiple courses and experiences, inside and outside college

Thriving after College

Most significant factors for a succesful life after college contributing to well-being and workplace engagement (Great Jobs, Great Lives: The 2014 Gallup Purdue Index Report)

Thriving after College

8.7x

Students thrive in life when offered more "opportunities for deep learning experiences and real-life applications of classroom learning."

Students are always eager to learn how the process taught in class [CS3205] applies in real-life, during the invited panel with Deloitte Digital experts at end of every semester.

6.2x

One goal of the proposed practicum course is to connect students with mentors (professors) who have the technical expertise in their domain of interest.

Students thrive in life if they have had "professors that cared about [them] as a person" or "had at least one professor who made [them] excited about learning."

4.1x

Students thrive in life if they "had a mentor who encouraged [them] to pursue [their]

goals and dreams."

"The course had a significant positive impact on me. [...] This course [CS3205] builds a very high family connection between students and the professor... [...] All this gave me enjoyment and an excellent moral, which made me do good in the class and even in my other courses."

Project-Based Learning

Supporting significant learning through authentic projects

Student project artifacts from online reports

Authentic

Integration: Connecting ideas, people, realms of life

"I also feel that I have grown into a more confident team leader [...] I can definitely say that I am now a more confident and strategic team member."

"I learned a few things about myself as well, and can address new areas to improve as a person."

"This project and the lectures taught me many new skills that I had no idea even existed prior to taking this class, and it gave me knowledge that can be applied to an industry setting."

Caring: Developing new interests, skills, and values

Human Dimension: learning about oneself and others

Shopping cart for the visually impaired

"...I do want to

include HCI/UX into my current career choice (biomedical engineering) due to the fact that I have truly enjoyed learning and interacting with the material".

TravelAssist: Wireframing with Figma

Meaningful Learning

Helping students develop new interests, feelings, and values through meaningful and personally-relevant work

Actual comments from group members

Meaningful

"I have gained much more from this course in a few months than many classes have tried for years to instill. I will be able to take this course with me into the future and hopefully make the world better for it."

"I switched into this class as a second choice, and I'm so happy it did. It reaffirmed my decision to pursue CS and showed me a path to a career I feel like I can actually look forward to, get excited about."

Epilogue: Epilepsy tracking device and software recording seizure data for epileptic patients (Spring '21)

ΜΟΒΙΛΕ ΑΠΠΜΟΒΙΛΕ ΑΠΠΑΣFreeRead: mobile app helping low-income parents read to their children and building up community relationships (Spring '20)

Playful Experiences

Making learning fun through dramatization and embodiment

Playful

"I'll remember

the great memories from my classmates, and especially Mr. Apostolellis, who really helped me out when I was struggling. You did good, man. You did really good."

Actual comments attributed to students

Students completing the Work Activity Affinity Diagram (Spring '21)

Students completing the Work Activity Affinity Diagram (Fall '20)

"I am grateful

that I was placed

on a challenging team because it’s a realistic representation of what I may encounter in the future and now I have experience with conflict resolution. "

Image and comment from group's project report

WAAD? more like waad’s up! Having a blast!

Semester I: User-Centered Design

Apply UX/UCD and participatory design techniques to solve a given real-world problem, in the form of a story

CS3205 (soft) pre-req

Semester I

Evaluation Findings & Change Log

End-semester assessment of skills

User as the Hero

Week 1

Representative user as a client

Students are assigned a mentor

Students craft a journey for the user of their assigned application domain; steps and tools are predetermined (core content).

Concrete - Implementation

Concrete -

Inspiration

Prototype/MVP development

Student as the Hero

Readiness assessment

Students follow a (roughly prescribed) journey as learners in the class (core assessments); this is revealed to them at the very end!

Abstract -

Ideation

Week 8

The end of this journey is the introduction to the implementation and summative usability testing stage (Semester II)

Journey Map of user's interactions

Mid-semester assessment of skills

Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey

Semester II: Agile UX Design

Implementation and usability testing of dominant solution

Semester II

Agile UX Process

Students experience iterative design both between semesters but also within the Agile process

Students work on developing a fully-functional prototype honing their coding skills

CS3240, 4640, 4720 (soft) pre-reqs

Structure will be determined in consultation with Aaron, Mark, and Seongkook

Clients/domain experts (UVA affiliates) are preselected and committed to help students

Impact of each project is verified due to being backed by faculty mentors/clients

Project roles are based on each student's prior experiences and career interests