Course Overview

Instructor

• Paul Hibbitts
• Email: paulh@sfu.ca
• Twitter: @hibbittsdesign
• Office hours: 4:00pm - 5:15pm Monday, HC 2148

About Me

• User Experience Consultant and Educator,
  established Hibbitts Design in 1998
• Current focus is creating better experiences for (us) learners
• 125+ successful software UX projects, with clients such as SAP BusinessObjects, The Canadian Real Estate Association and The University of British Columbia
• Usability Mentor, 2009 Season of Usability
  (co-sponsored by Google)
• Human Factors International (HFI) Certified Usability Analyst
• Instructor at Simon Fraser University, since 1997

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: http://blog.fastmonkeys.com/

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source: https://www.interaction-design.org/

Teaching Assistant

• Warunika Ranaweera (wranawee@sfu.ca)

• Warunika will not be holding regular office hours during the term

Course Objectives

• Describe and apply key UI/UX concepts, techniques,
  and principles
• Assess and describe the usability and UX of a digital interface
• Plan, conduct, and analyze user research for a digital product 
• Conceptualize, design, and prototype a digital product
• Plan, conduct, and analyze a usability test of a digital product
• Participate and contribute as a member of a team
• Care about how people feel about and experience technology

Course Objectives One-liner

Course Objectives One-liner

“Problem Solving”

Course Objectives One-liner

“____________ Problem Solving”

Course Objectives One-liner

“Empathetic Problem Solving”

Reasons Why You Might Want To Avoid This Course

• Weekly readings, along with a quiz, are required
• Frequent in-class individual and group exercises
• Group assignment(s) are mandatory 
• Assignments will require a substantial amount of effort
  (no midterm or final exams)
• Good communication/writing skills are critical  
• It is a design course, where assessments will often be determined on subjective opinion (primarily mine)
• Instructor design review and critique session
• Getting A’s in all other computer science courses has little relevance in this course

Reasons Why You Might Want To Stick Around

• A good UX is now a software industry expectation 
• Poorly designed interfaces cost money, require additional support, and waste people’s valuable time 
• A basic understanding of user experience design processes and techniques will be helpful when working in the software industry 
• You will experience how to work on design challenges
  within teams 
• The user-centered design process and techniques that you will learn can be applied to many other domains
• You have the opportunity to learn from an experienced industry practitioner and educator (ca.linkedin.com/in/paulhibbitts/)

Course Topics (tentative)

• Design Research
• User-Centered Design
• Interaction Design
• Multi-platform Design
• Usability Evaluation

No Laptop Policy

One Minute Wrap-up Summary
(A.K.A. Bonus Points Opportunity)

Immediately after (up until 12 midnight the day of class) you will be asked to write down and answer via the
Canvas Class Discussion Board the most valuable thing you learned, and any questions that you may still have.

Required Textbook

Multi-device Friendly
Course Companion

cmpt-363-153.hibbittsdesign.com ( bit.ly/363-153)

I always want to hear from you how together we make this
the best course companion possible! Be honest, I can take it.

Quick Poll

❑ HTML

❑ Markdown

❑ CSS

❑ Twig

❑ YAML

❑ PHP

❑ GitHub

More Ways to Communicate!

If you would like to engage in longer one-on-one chats with me and already have a chat client account (i.e. Slack, HipChat, Skype, etc.) send me a request and I will set up a sameroom.io portal for you.

Course Grading (tentative)

• Individual Assignments (60%)
  • Weekly Reading Quizzes: 10%
  • Individual Assignment #1, UI Analysis: 15%,
    peer reviews required
  • Individual Assignment #2, UX Topic Overview: 35%
  • Weekly One Minute Wrap-up Summaries: max. 2.5% bonus
• (Group Assignments (40%)
  • Group Assignment #1, Needsfinding and
    Exploratory Sketches: 20%
  • Group Assignment #2, Design Mockups and
    Informal Usability Tests: 20%

Weekly Reading Summaries

• Summarize (in one complete sentence each) how you found
  the reading:
  • Surprising?
  • Puzzling?
  • Useful?
  • New?
  • Know already?
  • Interesting?
• Each submitted reading summary will be assessed as either satisfactory (a.k.a. full marks) or unsatisfactory (a.k.a. zero)
• When assigned, reading summaries must be submitted no later than 10:00am class day - no exceptions... ever... so don't ask

Assignment Policy

• Any assignment submitted may be shared/shown publicly
  ​(with all student or group identity information removed)
• Assignments are due at the start of class (after the 30 minute grace period 10% will be deducted from assignment mark) 
• Each group assignment group member may be subject to an participation mark by all their group peers
• Late assignments will not be accepted without valid documentation (e.g. medical certificate) 

Mockup/Wireframe Tool
for Assignment #2

Copyright by respective copyright owners. Used without permission under the Fair Use Doctrine. Source:  http://balsamiq.com/

Important Dates (Tentative)

• UX Topic Overview
  • Assigned Sep 7th, due Dec 7th
• UI Analysis
  • Assigned Sep 14th, due Sep 28th
• UI Analysis Peer Reviews
  • Assigned Sep 21st, due Oct 5th
• Group Assignment #1: Needsfinding and Exploratory Sketches 
  • Assigned Sep 28th, due Oct 26th
• Group Assignment #2: Mockups and Informal Usability Tests 
  • Assigned Oct 26th, due Nov 23rd

Some Items of Recent Interest...

• Apple Event (Sept 9th)
• Ebay Mobile App Update

http://www.apple.com/iphone-6s/3d-touch/

http://www.apple.com/smart-keyboard/

Ebay Mobile App 3.x

Ebay Mobile App 4.x

Thank You!
Questions or Comments?