Building an Argument for the Use of Science Fiction in HCI Education

Science fiction literature, comics, cartoons and, in particular, audio-visual materials, such as science fiction movies and shows, can be a valuable addition in Human-computer interaction (HCI) Education. In this paper, we present an overview of research relative to future directions in HCI Education, distinct crossings of science fiction in HCI and Computer Science teaching and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. Next, we provide examples where science fiction can add to the future of HCI Education. In particular, we argue herein first that science fiction, as tangible and intangible cultural artifact, can serve as a trigger for creativity and innovation and thus, support us in exploring the design space. Second, science fiction, as a means to analyze yet-to-come HCI technologies, can assist us in developing an open-minded and reflective dialogue about technological futures, thus creating a singular base for critical thinking and problem solving. Provided that one is cognizant of its potential and limitations, we reason that science fiction can be a meaningful extension of selected aspects of HCI curricula and research.Comment: 6 pages, 1 table, IHSI 2019 accepted submissio

Collaborative Team Learning Approach for Web Development

This paper presents a collaborative team learning model for integrating student learning in a graduate IS course and a graduate HCI course. Through coordinated project schedules of partnering teams, an emphasis on social interaction, and the use of collaborative technologies, students expanded their experience in developing Internet commerce Web sites. For the HCI teams, they learned realistic consulting experience. For the IS teams, HCI support led to high quality Web site prototypes. This paper reviews the motivation, approaches, evaluation methods, findings, and implications of this innovative teaching method

Nintendo Wii Remote Controller in Higher Education: Development and Evaluation of a Demonstrator Kit for e-Teaching

The increasing availability of game based technologies together with advances in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and usability engineering provides new challenges and opportunities to virtual environments in the context of e-Teaching. Consequently, an evident trend is to offer learners with the equivalent of practical learning experiences, whilst supporting creativity for both teachers and learners. Current market surveys showed surprisingly that the Wii remote controller (Wiimote) is more widely spread than standard PCs and is the most used computer input device worldwide, which given its collection of sensors, accelerometers and bluetooth technology, makes it of great interest for HCI experiments in e-Learning/e-Teaching. In this paper we discuss the importance of gestures for teaching and describe the design and development of a low-cost demonstrator kit based on Wiimote enhancing the quality of the lecturing with gestures

Digital touch: towards a novel user-experience design pedagogy

HCI and Industrial Design are both disciplines that are currently experiencing radical transformation in terms of their identity and scope. HCI has moved beyond its origins in human factors and cognitive psychology towards the proactive and generative design of experience. Industrial Design has similarly evolved from a concern with physical form and function-giving solutions to the holistic design considerations of the user’s experience. Given the complexity and scale of this shifting design landscape, the response of design education must shift in methods and learning and teaching objectives. This paper provides the Design and Technology Education community with a research case study of innovation within HCI education, here situated within the broader context of Industrial Design education. We present a novel pedagogy for designing digital touch communications, developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration of HCI, Industrial Design, and Social Science academics, and advanced through a coursework assignment for 64 undergraduate Industrial Design and Technology students undertaking a User-Experience Design module at the [AUTHOR] (UK). We discuss the role of low-fidelity experience prototyping of digital touch interactions beyond screens, and the limitations of such an approach when engaged with by novice designers with entrenched material science understanding. We conclude the paper with a call for new educational ‘tools’ to support and scaffold both the learning and teaching of design for digital touch experiences within a User-Experience Design context, and we offer our development of a Designing Digital Touch Toolkit as one such tool

Exploring Cultural Differences in HCI Education

The discipline of human-computer interaction has become a subject taught across universities around the world, outside of the cultures where it originated. However, the intercultural implication of its assimilation into the\ud syllabus of courses offered by universities around the world remains underresearched. The purpose of this ongoing research project is to provide insights for these implications in terms of the student and teacher experience of HCI. How this subject is socially represented across the different universities studied is a key question. In order to develop intercultural awareness of these questions\ud universities from UK, Namibia, Mexico and China are collaborating in a multiple case study involving students and lecturers engaged in evaluation and design tasks. Findings will then be used to propose an international HCI curriculum more supportive of local perspectives. This paper describes the initial steps of this study and some preliminary findings from Namibia, India and Mexico about cognitive styles and cultural attitudes

HCI-E 2 : HCI Engineering Education

This workshop aims at identifying, examining, structuring and sharing educational resources and approaches to support the process of teaching/learning Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Engineering. The broadening of the range of available interaction technologies and their applications, many times in safety and mission critical areas, to novel and less understood application domains, brings the question of how to address this ever-changing nature in university curricula usually static. Beyond, as these technologies are taught in diverse curricula (ranging from Human Factors and psychology to hardcore computer science), we are interested in what the best approaches and best practices are to integrate HCI Engineering topics in the curricula of programs in software engineering, computer science, human-computer interaction, psychology, design, etc. The workshop is proposed on behalf of the IFIP Working Groups 2.7/13.4 on User Interface Engineering and 13.1 on Education in HCI and HCI Curricula