COS 436, Fall 2006: Home Page

Princeton University
Computer Science Department

Computer Science 436
Human-Computer Interface Technology

Perry Cook

Fall 2006

What's New?

Jan. 8, 2007

Click Here for Finals Week(s) Schedule

Click Here For Schedule after MidTerm
Click Here For Schedule up to MidTerm

Course Summary

Design and interfacing of computer input and output systems.
Inputs: Standard (mouse, keyboard, joystick, etc.) and
new (head trackers, music controllers, gloves, etc.) devices.
Signal processing, feature extraction, and data mapping schemes.
Outputs: Graphics, haptics, music, and 3-D sound.
This year we will emphasize non-speech facial and vocal UI components.
Hands-on laboratories and independent projects.
Prerequisites COS 217 or ELE 318.

Administrative Information

Lectures: MW 1330-1450, Room: CS 302

Professor: Perry Cook - 408 CS Building - 258-4951 prc@cs.princeton.edu

Undergraduate Coordinator: Donna O'Leary - 410 CS Building - 258-1746 doleary@cs.princeton.edu

Teaching Assistants: Xiaojuan Ma

Homework Assignments

There will be a few (very fun) assignments.
These will be "checked off" when satisfactorily done,
but are very important in that they help set the tone of the whole course.
Therefore, all of the assignments must be completed.
Assignments are individual activities.

There will be questions to be answered as part of the labs.
These will go into the overall lab report grades.
Labs are group activities.

Exams

You will be able find the (take home) examinations via links in the Schedule
Exams are individual activities

Assignments, Exams, and Grading

The grading in this course will be based on the evaluation of the following:

Two exams (see Exams and/or Schedule)
Assignments: All of these must be completed.
Laboratory Reports, including some homework-like questions to be answered.
(Read here what a good lab report should have)
Final Project (also includes proposals and progress reports)

Final Project

The goal of this course is for the students, working in teams, to propose a new human computer interface, or an improvement to an existing interface, to solve a particular problem. Inter-Disciplinary teams are encouraged. Applications include interfaces for persons with disabilities, musical or other artistic controllers/systems, sports monitors and improved interfaces, interfaces for virtual environments, and new means for identifying and authenticating individual computer system users. It is expected that the projects will lead to a completed (though rough in most cases) prototype. Testing (not just for functionality, but for "betterness" by some metric) of the device/system should be conducted and included in the report.

Final written reports will be due on Dean's Date, January, 2007, and a demonstration of the system must be completed by Friday, January ??, 2007.

References

Your main references will be the course notes linked from the schedule.
There will also be some papers and other materials handed out in class.
Extra handout copies will stay in the classroom.
Other references you might find useful for your project or other research:

Mark W. Lansdale and Thomas C. Ormerod. Understanding Interfaces: A Handbook of Human-Computer Dialogue. Computers and People Series, edited by B.R. Gaines and A. Monk. Academic Press, San Diego, CA. 1994 289 pp.
William H. Cushman and Daniel J. Rosenberg. Human Factors in Product Design. Series: Advances in Human Factors/Ergonomics, edited by Gavriel Salvendy. Elseview, Amsterdam Holland. 1991. 340 pp.
Jenny Preece, ed. Human-Computer Interaction. Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, CA. 775 pp.
Ben Shneiderman. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, Second Edition. Addison-Wesley, Menlo Park, CA. 573 pp.

Princeton University Computer Science Department

Computer Science 436 Human-Computer Interface Technology Perry Cook