Education and design: using human-computer interaction case studies to learn

ABSTRACT

As computers become increasingly integral to daily life, there is a need for computer scientists to focus on the user. This, in part, entails developing applications that have interfaces that are well designed. It is therefore important that computer science students gain formal education in design methodology. The best way to teach design is debatable, but one teaching tool gaining popularity in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is the use of case studies. We aim to increase the usefulness of the case study as a tool to teach design methodology. A case study is a collection of artifacts and data used to communicate a process. In the field of HCI cases communicate how a designer accomplished designing a certain aspect or, in some cases, the entirety of a design. Case studies are inherently flexible and can be presented in a variety of ways. We explore, if by altering presentation, we can enhance the usability of a case study and better communicate the encapsulated design methodology to the student. We make use of ordering effect in our attempt to achieve these ends and to shed light on the effect of online presentation on education.

REFERENCES

• 1: Barry, C. L. Establishing a research agenda for online search behaviors. Submitted, Proceedings of the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 42. 2005.
• 2: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Epidemiologic Case Studies. 2005, Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do?id=0900f3ec80093d70.
• 3: Eisenberg M., and Barry, C. L. Order effects: A preliminary study of the possible influence of presentation order on user judgments of document relevance, in Proceedings of the 49^th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science, 80--86. 1986.
• 4: Havard Business School Cases. 2006, The website of Harvard Business School Publishing. http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/cases/.
• 5: John M. Carroll, Making Use: Scenario-Based Design of Human-Computer Interactions, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000
• 6: John M. Carroll , Mary Beth Rosson, A case library for teaching usability engineering: Design rationale, development, and classroom experience, Journal on Educational Resources in Computing (JERIC), v.5 n.1, p.3-es, March 2005 [doi>10.1145/1101670.1101673]
• 7: Mary Beth Rosson , John M. Carroll, Usability engineering: scenario-based development of human-computer interaction, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 2001
• 8: Mary Beth Rosson , John M. Carroll , Con M. Rodi, Case studies for teaching usability engineering, Proceedings of the 35th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, March 03-07, 2004, Norfolk, Virginia, USA
• 9: Mary L. Gick and Keith J. Holyoak, Analogical Problem Solving. Cognitive Psychology, 1980. 12(3): p. 306--355.
• 10: Ramon López de Mántaras , Enric Plaza, Case‐Based Reasoning: an overview, AI Communications, v.10 n.1, p.21-29, January 1997

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Evolutionary prototyping

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
case studies, human-computer interaction, information design, scenario based design